Forget what the calendar says. In these parts, spring doesn’t arrive until the cinder block falls through the ice on Joe’s Pond.
The 65-pound block, is placed on a wooden pallet on the frozen surface of the pond and tied to an alarm clock on shore each winter in a $1-per-chance guessing game. It plunged into the water at 5:25 p.m. Friday.
Four people who guessed April 25 at 5:15 p.m., the closest time, won over $1,300 apiece in the annual Joe’s Pond Ice Out Contest, according to organizer Dave Parker.
The 20th annual contest drew 12,000 entries, many far from Vermont.
The earliest-ever ice out date was April 16, in 1998 and 2006; the latest was May 6, in 1992.