The Canada geese were cackling again before dawn on the lake to the west.

Yesterday afternoon I checked on them and they still had a pretty good-sized hole swam open. That's a feat of engineering considering the town pond has at least 4 inches of ice, maybe 5 in spots.

At least one, perhaps several, ice fishermen were out Saturday. I could tell by the holes in the ice and the tracks in the snow.

My God, what a snow yesterday afternoon. In less than an hour, a heavy sloppy inch of wet snow fell. For awhile, it looked like snowballs falling from the sky. The youngest boy and I tried simply putting our hands out and using what landed as a snowball.

It kind of worked.

This morning I had planned an extended ramble, but the west wind was stiff enough I didn't feel like battling it for a half mile when the wind from that direction has miles of open fields to build up oomph.

The ice fishermen or fisherman must have been all over both old clay pits on Saturday. One of fishermen slid down the bank, or his sled did, leaving a slide much like that an otter makes.

The snow was so heavy on the ice that it must have bubbled up water through the holes. There were gray spots all over the ice around the holes.

Surprisingly, he or she or they did not redrill the test hole I drilled Monday near a drop off by brush, even though he or she or they walked right by it.

From brush off the trail made from the old rail bed to the south of the town pond, a pair of mourning doves flushed. They didn't go far. We flushed them again on the edge of town by a pile of old rail ties.

It was a morning to watch the footing, the sloppy snow had melted and refroze into a very slick surface in spots.

Near home, five gray squirrels played in a yard under some huge elms.

I guess to them the faint lifting of the darkness signified dawn, such as it was on this gray winter morning.