Bill, I think you've seen more snow this year than we have. My NH town is on a snowline - on the northern edge of coastal storms that hit Cape Cod hard, on the southern edge of northern storms - so our totals tend to be below other nearby areas. Snow depth is a different matter - we have solid banks of white ice in northern shadows, but wide areas of brown. Dorothy, on the other hand, still has whatever has fallen this year.

Vulture watching is new to me, and I was a bit surprised at my yearning for them. They appeared about 10 years ago - global warming or recovery from DDT poisoning are likely causes.Bernd Heinrich thinks the spread of the Eastern Coyote has made more food available for them in the northern woods. In any event, the vultures nest near our dump, and hundreds of seagulls have been replaced by a family of vultures. They disappear shortly before Thanksgiving.

Other signs of spring - the first news report of an idiot trying to cross a river on foot and falling through the ice. Fortunately for him, he tried in view of a retirement home - several river watchers called the cops as soon as he fell through. The ice-fishing houses have been removed by state law, but folks are still ice fishing. The first lake ice disasters usually involve snow machines. None of those yet, but there will be.