Last Call!

We are so near the deadline to have tickets in! You have only until midnight tomorrow - Wednesday, April 1st, to either purchase tickets online, or mail in paper tickets. If you mail them, they must be postmarked before midnight, April 1.

To get tickets last minute -- go to the Joe's Pond Association website. From there you can fill out batches of ten tickets and pay online, or print batches of five tickets on your home printer and fill out as many or as few as you wish and mail them before midnight tomorrow. Instructions are on the website.

We have been literally in a fog all day! The fog was minimal this morning, but during the day it increased and by late afternoon, I couldn't see down to the road from my house. It is gloomy, but the temperature remained in the 40s and low 50s all day, which means there was slow melting going on. It didn't get below freezing overnight, and we had some rain (I measured .35 in. this morning). More rain is expected this week, and that will make a big difference in snow and ice melting.

The upper channel is finally starting to open up.  Gretchen Farnsworth sent this photo today - you can see the darker spot in upper left - that's the open water, and in the foreground it looks like there's water on top of the ice right now, but that will probably open within a day or so. This is at the north end of the pond where water comes in from Walden in a fairly large stream. The channel runs into the broad part of the largest of the three sections of Joe's Pond. This is where signs of the pond opening up begins each spring. From here, there will be more open water over the next days and weeks and, depending on how much rain and warm weather we get, open water will gradually appear in the broad part of the pond. This is a process, and sometimes we get below-freezing weather and everything freezes over again which slows things down. Everything depends on the weather.

The clock has stopped on Easter Sunday a few times over the years, but I think that's too soon this year. That said, if we got a real warm spell or lots of rain, who knows? It's really hard to predict, even for those of us who live here and watch the ice every day. 

Gretchen said she is seeing and hearing all kinds of spring-like indications. There are robins around, red-winged blackbirds, and geese. Also, she said she spotted an eagle. Unfortunate for the loon families as the loon chicks are easy prey. Gretchen said she has some early flowers just starting to pike through now the snow is off in spots, but it will be a while before anything blooms. It's good to know things are awakening. I have daffodils up about an inch on the southeastern end of my house. It gets lots of sun there and used to be full of daffodils. Now there are only a few, but also a few other flowers later in the year. The snow has only been gone from there for a couple of days. I still have plenty of snow around my house, and my pond is still solidly frozen over, even with a good stream coming in from the springs above. Spring is on the way, for sure, but it will be a while before we need to mow lawns. 

Good luck, and stay safe.