Today was the kind of day we've been wishing for since about January 1st.  We had bright sunshine and temperatures in the 60s with a light south wind - perfect for being outside, except there's not much bare ground to walk on, dig in or admire.  Just snow and mud.  But we aren't complaining.  It was great just to be able to go outside without earmuffs and mittens.

We had visitors at the Ice-Out flag site today.  A fellow by the name of Tim Palmer-Benson came to Rossi's with his cute little drone to take pictures of the block and flag.  Diane got some really good pictures of him, too, and his drone.  I expect we'll be seeing lots more of these in the months ahead.  As interesting as they are, and even though they may be very helpful in many ways, I imagine they can also be annoying and intrusive.  It will be interesting to see how they are accepted (or not) and how we adapt to having them around.  The two top pictures above were taken by Diane.  The next two were taken by the drone.  That's a really interesting shot taken from some distance above the ice.  If you click on the image to make it larger, you'll see more definition of the ice.  The Ice-Out flag is bottom center of the shot.   I believe the camera doesn't take video, just single shots, but Bill told Fred Mr. Palmer-Benson took over 400 pictures. He has a web site, Scenes of Vermont you may want to check out.  He said he plans to return to Joe's Pond this summer, so no doubt we'll see more of the drone.