At Home in the Huddle 2013

It's Garbage Day
24 degrees and overcast at 7:30

The Forecast from YNN: "Messy Monday Morning; Changeable Weather Ahead.  After making it through most, if not all of the overnight dry, look for light snow to break out not long after 6AM. Light snow will mix, then eventually switch to sleet and freezing rain by the mid to late morning. This will make for slick travel through the first half of the day. As temperatures warm at the surface, and aloft, look for mixed precipitation to change to plain rain from southwest to northeast by the mid afternoon.

Showers will tend to dwindle Monday night, but not end all together. Any precipitation we have around Monday night should be in the form of rain. Tuesday will be a breezy, mild day with temperatures rising into the 40s. Tuesday won't be a washout by any means, but a few showers will be possible. Temperatures will soar into the 50s out ahead of a strong cold front on Wednesday. Showers will become numerous by the second half of the day as the front approaches. Precipitation will switch back to a wintry mix Wednesday night as cold air plunges in from central/southern Canada.

Colder air and lake effect snow will return to the region Thursday and Friday. Temperatures will barely make it above 30 on Thursday with significant lake snow possible. Temperatures on Friday will barely make it into the 20s with lake snow showers and squalls looking like a good possibility."

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IN THE NEWS

"Hooked by Old Fishing Tackle"

 From The Wall Street Journal

(This is the first time in my memory that a Waterville-area business has been featured in an article in this publication.)

"BOYS' BASKETBALL:

Waterville gets second win against Little Falls."

From the Little Falls Times.

TODAY'S WCS SPORTS

For details and complete information, please click HERE.

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HERE & THERE

For the first time in several days, the temperature rose from the single digits to nearly twenty degrees, yesterday afternoon, and just as pleasing to villagers was the fact that at nearly 4:30 the sun was still shining brightly on West Main Street.

To see some of the snowbanks and drifts along hedgerows in the countryside one would think that there was a still a heavy blanket of snow, everywhere ...........

..................... but there really isn't.  

So much of the earlier snow cover was lost during the "thaw" that preceded last week's "cold snap" that an officer of the Central NY Snow Travelers posted this message on the organization's website:  "Trails closed… due to the thaw. Conditions have made it impossible to groom, and the base is breaking down, and melting fast! There are too many wet, muddy, or planted areas without enough cover to ride safely, and without damaging crops, sled running gear, etc."

Well: the "mud" situation has certainly been taken care of!  It isn't very often that we see this much ice forming on Big Creek .......

............ or completely covering the Sangerfield River where it flows beneath Loomis Road south of Sangerfield.

I don't know how thick the ice is, now, on Bailey Lake, but there were two or three groups of fishermen enjoying themselves, there,  yesterday afternoon.

The freeze must have delighted the folks in Millers Mills! Does anyone know when the Millers Mills Ice Harvest is scheduled to take place?

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IN THE MAIL

- from Jody Hildreth, this great photograph of a bald eagle that was perched in a tree right next to Route 315 at "the old dump" yesterday afternoon!

When he saw the eagle, Jody was on his way back into the Village after an unsuccessful attempt to repeat the adventure that he had just about two years ago. 

In January, 2011, he managed to break through the ice curtain on one of the Caves in Forge Hollow and crawl inside to look around.

Who would have guess that behind the ice there were patches of Summery-green moss! This time, however, he said that he was defeated by layer after layer of ice.

A few days ago he had trekked to "Turkey Falls," and sent these beautiful pictures of the falls and one of the forms of the unique ice crystals that make up the icy cover.

Thank you, Jody!

(Yesterday he revisited "Frostbite Falls" on Tassell Hill - I'll post those pictures tomorrow!)

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FOR THE RECORD

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HAVE A GOOD DAY, EVERYONE!