Melting

It is finally warming up and the sun is out. The temperature on the digital thermometer in our car this morning didn't have a negative sign on it (and didn't appear to be broken). School is back from weather cancellations (it is the first time in decades that school has been canceled for the weather according to the locals). I've been driving the kids to school again in the mornings and have a fun time getting the car over the ice into and out of the parking space (lots of wheels spinning and rocking the car, reverse-1st-reverse-1st... to get out). The roads a pretty clear now and the snow is compacting into hard, dirty, ice everywhere else; it really reminds me of upstate New York this time of year. Pools of water are appearing out on the lake. The coots will be happy for the lake ice to melt. When it froze completely over there was no way for them to dive to escape the hawks. They huddled together in a bunch out on the ice and hawks were taking turns dive bombing them. At one point a week ago in desperation they left the lake completely and went over the snow into town in a group and hung out in front of the grocery store, where people were going in and out, to escape the hawks (normally coots are very shy of people). There are a lot of dead coots and feathers in the parking lot between the lake and the grocery store now from the hawks. V and M took some bread to the ducks a few times over the last week. They were desperate and climbing all over each other to get to the food.