I want to let you know we got a couple inches of new snow today. It's about 33 degrees, and that's where it's been most of the day. The snow didn't stick much on the driveway, but it stayed on the deck and of course on the ground since we have almost no bare ground yet. In the meantime, the light rain we had earlier in the day and yesterday took the snow pack down a bit more, so we are definitely getting closer to spring-like conditions.
     Those of you who had late April or early May picks for the ice to go out are probably rejoicing. It's hard to believe looking out at the pond now that in a matter of a few weeks we could see open water there. On the other hand, this may be the year that we beat our latest date for the clock to stop, May 6th. Anything can happen.
In the meantime, the contest organizers have delivered all the tickets to the input specialist, Henretta Splain, and she is at her computer every day. She sent this photo of the tickets that have been recorded (on the right) and the ones remaining to be input (on the left). Besides what you see here, she has many more paper tickets to inpute. We won't have a total count for some time, but I'll post it here as soon as Henretta is finished.
     I had another photo from my friend, Mary Whitcomb - she had some pretty large birds in her yard today. Doesn't this look like an ad for some kind of chicken feed or maybe "free range" eggs? They are handsome birds. They are competing with robins and other wild birds for insects. I have always liked hens - there's something calming about them. They just go about their business scratching, pecking and clucking, and then settle on their nests to lay an egg; then repeat the whole process the next day. Just doing their thing, not bothering anyone.
Then there's the rooster. We had an ugly rooster once. He was mean! He made a great Sunday dinner, though!