Good news, the heat is back on in the great room of the Chappy Community Center. Therefore, there will be a potluck supper on Wednesday, Feb. 19 from 6 to 8 p.m. Bring a dish to serve eight people. Sunday Yoga at 8:45 a.m. is still on the calendar.

We seem to be in the so called dead of winter these days. There’s snow piling up from regularly occurring storms without having a chance to melt in between. There’s enough salt on the roads and on the decks of the ferryboats to melt the two-inch snow fall of Tuesday night. For the past couple of weeks, except for the 7:15 a.m., 11-car rush, there has been very little traffic on the Chappy Ferry.

Up in Maine the forecasters add a qualifier to the predicted snow fall amounts. They use the terms new snow and plowable snow. Folks up there make a run on the grocery store when a storm is coming just like they do around here. The plows put in a lot of time pushing the snow way back to make room for the next batch. The ground there is frozen solid so the plow doesn’t dig into the road shoulders. The potholes in the gravel and dirt roads are filled with ice which makes for a surface temporarily as smooth as an airport runway.

Everything will go back to normal when the thaw comes in spring. They call it mud season up that way. During the daytime, the muddy mess gets pushed up into ridges and then freeze solid overnight. This makes for treacherous driving for low-slung vehicles. I know of people who go somewhere warm during mud season so that they won’t be ruining their driveway while the frost leaves the ground and the dirt dries out. On the Islands, mud season is generally several days. Up in Maine it may persist for weeks.

The vernal equinox is only five weeks away!