Last week, our kindly editor allowed me more space than usual, so I will keep things shorter this time. I would like to thank everyone for the dances at the Trading Post. It was good to see the floor put to proper use, and I am still feeling it in my legs.

As for the weather, the coming week appears set to remain mild, with blue skies and daytime temperatures climbing above freezing. These conditions should hold for several days. By the 20th, the signs point toward a return to more seasonable cold, with the possibility of snow before the month is out. January has not yet finished saying what it intends to say.

Congratulations are due to Mr. and Mrs. P. O. Staples and Mr. and Mrs. Frank Grimboli on the arrival of their children. January births have a way of making the new year feel properly begun. They put me in mind of an old poet who wrote of spring long before it arrives:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote…

Even in midwinter, the thought of what will grow again has a way of working itself in.

This past week also brought sad news, with the passing of George Leonard, 19, from a hemorrhage of the throat. He is remembered as a home-loving and kind young man. On the lake, Ed and Val Dalbec pulled their nets for the season, marking the close of fishing on Superior. I am told this is how winter truly begins here. It begins not with the first snow, but when the work is done.

With nets mended and boats at rest, there is time now for thinking and for dreaming. Winter has a way of narrowing our paths, but it also gives us time to imagine where they might lead once they open again.