I'm guessing lots of folks are happy to see that the flag is out and the clock is running!  Thanks to yesterday's group, Larry, his helper Michelle and Fred (pictured) and Diane with all her cameras, gadgets and computer know-how, we feel the pressure is off and all we can do now is wait for open water. 

Don't forget that you need to use Internet Explorer as your browser when you want to access the webcams.  Just go to our website as you normally wood (using IE) and click on Ice Out Webcams.

Here's a note from Homer:
 

HI JANE AND ALL,

    THANKS FOR KEEPING US POSTED AS TO WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH THE ICE-OUT.          WE WILL HOPE THE WINNER IS RIGHT ON THE DAY AND THE MINUTE.  AND MAYBE SOMEONE CLOSE TO JOE'S POND ASSN.

    WE MISS YOU ALL.

                                    HOMER AND MARGARET

 
We are in melting mode again today, with sunny breaks and gusty winds that help with the melting. It seems it will be a slow and fairly gentle process that may not release torrents of water into the lakes and rivers to cause flooding.  Also, the wind may help keep the back roads from getting too soupy - it tends to dry things out better than if we just have really warm sunshine causing a quick melt.  In a perfect world, this is the way spring will continue - slow and easy; but I'm thinking this is a March-April rather than an April-April, so we could have some surprises still in store.  Like another snowstorm . . .or two . . .

As for the Ice-Out, we still have lots of behind-the-scenes work to do while we wait for the clock to stop.  Henretta is slaving to get literally stacks of tickets into her spreadsheet while Diane and I are figuring out the financial end of things - gathering all our expense records and tallying the deposits so we'll have confirmed dollar results by the time we need them.  At least this year there appears to be no need to panic like in 2012.  We have at least a two week grace period left, maybe more, before the clock will stop.  I know lots of folks chose May dates and times, and even more chose very late April.  As usual, there have been a few who chose March, but probably they either made their choice very early or didn't follow the weather pattern here this year.  For us, every guess is a good one as each one boosts the contest to what we hope will be a record year for tickets sold.