It's going to be at least a Two Dog Night here at Joe's Pond

 Yep, it's going to be cold again tonight. It's 5 o'clock and already my thermometer is reading only 6.7F. I'm not sure what the low was last night - it was minus 7 on my deck thermometer, so I'm sure it was at least three or four degrees colder than that nearer the ground. I just didn't bother to check. I didn't have to go outside to clear the deck and measure snow this morning - this was the first morning we haven't awakened to at least an inch or two of snow for a while. We do have the promise of "measurable" snow coming with the next storm that is raising havoc in the southwest and midwest. 

Good news here in Vermont that the next round of immunizations begins next week for those down to 70 years old. Here is a full report from the UVM Medical Team and it tell how you can get signed up. We're making good progress getting people vaccinated, and with more vaccine on the way, the outlook is pretty good. We may have everyone who wants to be vaccinated done by the middle of the summer (or maybe before, if all goes well. I think Vermont will certainly achieve that goal, and hopefully the rest of the nation will, as well. However, doctors warn we'll be battling this for probably another couple of years before things are really safe again.

The town went by today with their plow, winging back the snowbanks along West Shore Road. I smiled thinking of what my father would probably say, that it's getting close to town meeting and the road commissioner wants to keep his job. Perhaps that was the case years ago, but I think our present road crew does a remarkable job keeping the roads, no matter what time of the year. They watch the weather and try very hard to anticipate and be ready for big storms. I think my father would be impressed. The road by my house gets plowed very early on morning when we've had lots of snow and in a big storm they go by several times in order to keep it safe. They do a great job, and deserve a big THANK YOU.

It wasn't always that way, though - and I suspect my father may have had it right back in the day. But even then, I do think the road crew tried hard; it was just that they had much less effective equipment to work with and, I'm pretty sure, some much bigger storms that packed the roads solidly with drifted snow that was very hard to break through sometimes.  Besides that, they were traveling at a snail's pace with the big old crawler tractor plow - that was the only plow in town. They had to plow all night and by morning the roads they'd started on were packed in again. Keeping roads open wasn't an easy task. I'm actually surprised the town was able to find men who were willing to work in those conditions. It was cold, hard, thankless work for not much pay. Times have changed, for sure.

Stay warm and safe.