The coming week appears likely to bring fair and seasonable weather, with temperatures mostly in the 60s and 70s. It should provide several fine days for walking in the hills. The latter half of the month may bring more substantial rainfall, with some indications of heavy amounts. The rain would do much to ease the dryness of the woods, though experience teaches that when water arrives all at once, it occasionally discovers places where it was not invited.
The prospect of rain has done little to discourage the commissioner candidates. Six have stopped by the weather tower in recent days to discuss funding for the proposed weather radio station. Their views are varied and do not always agree with those of the village. I have learned that the weather tower is an excellent place to receive opinions, whether requested or not.
In other political news, Magnus Johnson has secured the Farmer-Labor nomination for governor. The foxes recently purchased for the Tourist Park are reported healthy and tame, and after a visit of my own, I can confirm that this is mostly true. Finally, I accompanied Miss Fjell to inspect acreage along Kimball Creek, where the trout fishing is said to be excellent. In return, she has again offered instruction in the finer points of dancing this Saturday evening at The Wigwam to the music of Nelson and Seglem. Whether the instruction proves successful remains an open question.
I find my thoughts returning to those foxes. They are friendly enough when one arrives bearing food, but they remain foxes all the same. Thoreau wrote in Walden that “the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.” He was speaking of far larger matters than foxes, but the observation holds. Things are rarely quite what they first appear to be. A season that begins in drought may end in rain. A wild creature may accept your company without surrendering its nature. Even a place can feel familiar long before it is fully known. Perhaps that is simply the price of staying long enough to notice.
Editor's note: The image is of a car with the Farmer-Labor Party's billboard. the Farmer-Labor Party was a left-wing political party in Minnesota and one of the most successful third parties in the United States. Literature is on the hood of the car. The final image is of Magnus Johnson of the Farmer-Labor Party. He served in the Minnesota House, Minnesota Senate, US Senate, and US House of Representatives in that order. Senator Johnson once said, “I ain’t ignorant and a lot of this stuff that you read in the papers making me say things I didn’t is all bunk. … I didn’t say that I didn’t give a dam about books. I mean, I didn’t say it that way. Some books ain’t worth readin’ and some are. I ain’t got much time for ’em, but I would read ’em if I had time to read ’em.”