Today, the Hanford Mills Museum in East Meredith, Delaware County, did its first "ice check" of the season. It's a winter ritual that culminates in the annual Ice Harvest, a festive occasion each February that involves kids wielding traditional ice-cutting saws, a couple of very large draft horses, and hot cider all around.
There are probably more exciting things to do than watch ice freeze. (Even in Delaware County.) But the narrator in the video above is genuinely excited about the first inch of solid ice on the pond, and it's a little bit contagious.
In all seriousness: If the museum keeps taking detailed notes on when the pond begins to freeze and the thickness of the ice on various days of the year, in a hundred years, they'll have a pretty impressive data set with which to document local climate change.
