It's really too early to be thinking about an early spring, but after yesterday's snow disappeared quickly, I had a chance, on my daily trek, to walk by the millpond and get a detailed look at the state of the ice that has covered the water for the past month. At the height of the fierce cold, the ice was so thick that people were driving trucks on it. But then came the thaw and the trucks, along with the ice fishermen, and, recently, any sane animal, steered clear of the frozen covering. What always interests me is one of those touchstone moments I write about so often: in this case, it's when does open water completely cut through the ice? I thought it might be today, but on closer inspection, we're not quite there yet. In the center of the pond, there's still a narrow neck of ice that bisects the pond. Another warm day or two would probably do the ice-out trick, but there's considerable cold in the forecast, so it looks like we're going in the opposite direction.