I wasn't going to blog tonight - the weather today has been awful and I didn't trust myself not to cuss about it. But when I came in tonight to check my email, I had some lovely pictures from my friend, Mary, in Roxbury, and I want to share them with you. Her spring is much further advanced than ours here at Joe's Pond!

Mary takes such great pictures - I love that she is able to get such nice closeups. Thank you, Mary.
     The weather. What can I say? It didn't get above 35 degrees all day, and by late afternoon, when I was coming home from a book meeting in Danville, it was in the 32 degree range, raining lightly,

and freezing on the trees. Really disagreeable weather. The roads are still pretty good - the main highways were wet, but not icy - at least around 5 o'clock when I was getting home. I got this picture of the ice drops on the little maples along our driveway, but what little ice there is doesn't seem to be a problem, so far, at least. 
     Some back roads are probably showing signs of spring, but West Shore Road isn't at all bad. Some potholes, but those are no trouble. I just try to go slow and dodge 'em. Danville dumped some gravel at the ramp onto Route 2, last week sometime, but the potholes are already coming back. As you can see, we still have plenty of snow cover, in spite of a drizzly rain today. Tonight we are expecting the rain to turn to snow and give us another couple inches to brighten things up. I noticed when I went by the pond today, there's still plenty of snow on the ice, still. I'm sure the ice is melting from underneath - there's quite a lot of water running into the pond that will warm the water up a bit and also lift the ice, so that will help keep the melting process going. But we don't expect to see open water any time soon, and the forecast is more of the same. Not very warm weather for the next week or so, at least.
     The good news is - I have the scanner turned on, but there is no chatter, so I'm guessing the roads are still ok. At 11:30 p.m., I'm seeing 33 degrees and there's no wind. The snow pack is going down very slowly, but there will be lots of water from what is left, so there will be some high water, if not flooding if/when the weather finally turns really warm. In the meantime, we are thinking this very light rail is good for the road - helping the frost come out slowly and perhaps we won't have knee-deep mud.