Update On Ice!

 I had a call from Bob Mackay this afternoon right after he came in from fishing on the ice. He reported that he measured 18 inches of ice.  He uses a hand auger and can tell if the ice is the very hard blue-ice kind or a softer crystalized type, and he said today it was a mix. He plans on being out there fishing at least a few more days and said he will report again.

I went to Danville this evening to pick up take-out dinners at the Methodist church (beef Stroganoff, which was very good!) and there art strips of open water just about the full length of the first two ponds. Ice on the third pond is looking pretty dark and with a light rain falling tonight, the ice is going to take a beating. However, temperatures are supposed to stay around the freezing mark.

The warmer weather we had and all the water coming into the pond from rain and melting snow, has obviously helped to hasten the melting process. That said, the temperatures being forecast for the next several days are about normal for this time of the year - around freezing nights and a little above during the daytime. 

I have to say - West Shore Road is pretty muddy right now. If you don't have to travel, avoid it! I think the rain may help firm it up. It will certainly help bring the frost out, but there are several very bad spots where it's hard to find any solid ground. Riding the ridges is nearly impossible - I'm normally pretty good at picking my way through muddy areas, but tonight when I came home around 8 o'clock, in some places there were no good choices. I got through ok, but until the road gets better, I'm not going out again unless I absolutely have to. A sure sign of spring - mud season is here!

Gretchen Farnsworth reports there is open water in the channel past their house (on Sandy Beach Road) and the geese are moving through. We always hope they will keep going and not decide to hang out and nest here. They are a beautiful bird, but not when they are messing on our lawns and docks. 

It is nearly time that ice fishermen need to have their shanties off the ice. The date this year is March 30, the last Sunday of the month - unless the ice becomes unsafe before then. There is a fair amount of activity on the ice today - Diane Rossi sent photos. However, looking at how dark the ice was getting late this afternoon, I think they should get their gear off the ice - now!

We aren't certain, but the biker in this photo is likely Jay Chatot. It was taken this morning and I bet it was great biking on the ice and a sharp contrast to our roads right now.  

A lady in St. Johnsbury told me Thursday she has all sorts of flowers poking above ground - tulips and daffodils especially, and some of her ornamental bushes have buds. She was worried that everything is too far ahead of the usual time and thinks we might have a killing frost that will do severe damage to her flowers and ornamentals. I suspect nature is adapting, one way or the other, and everything will be ok. I haven't seen anything budding here yet - but we are usually well behind St. Johnsbury seasonally. As we all know, the weather can turn on us quickly - we may be plowing snow again instead of maneuvering mud holes, in which case we'll no doubt have to endure another mud season or two. It's the price we pay for living in the "Kingdom."

Here is a note for your calendar -  

Sunday, March 30 at 2 pm Howard Coffin will be speaking at the Willey Building about “Vermont Women and the Civil War.” 

 Howard is a seventh-generation Vermonter, an author and historian,  whose area of expertise is the Civil War.   With nearly 35,000 of the state’s able-bodied men at war, Howard speaks about how women took on farming, worked in factories, served as nurses in the state's military hospitals, and more. At least one Vermont woman appears to have secretly enlisted and fought in a Vermont regiment. 

 Admission is free and the talk is sponsored by the Vermont Humanities Council and the Cabot Historical Society.

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At our last CHS meeting it was decided that we will meet the First Saturday of each month, at 3:00 p.m. in the Willey Building. So the next Meeting is Saturday, April 5 at 3 pm.  At that meeting it is hoped that all committees will have some kind of a report.

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 Here is a bird’s eye view of early Cabot. [Taken from part way up Danville Hill Rd., looking SW.]