The coming week will begin with seasonable temperatures before growing steadily warmer. By next Tuesday, afternoon temperatures should reach the 80s. A thunderstorm is expected to arrive Wednesday, bringing a return to more moderate weather for a time. Even so, August appears likely to bring additional warm spells, with inland temperatures near Gunflint Lake approaching 90 degrees.
Elsewhere, the weather has been making larger headlines than anything I have to report. A tornado in New York claimed 97 lives and injured 38 others. Washington has reported temperatures reaching 103 degrees, while Pennsylvania touched 100. Out West, brush fires continue to spread. Quartz, California, has been destroyed, more than 30,000 acres are burning near Glacier National Park, and over 2,000 men are engaged in fighting the fires.
Our own county has endured a sorrowful week. John Westblade, after threatening anyone who attempted to remove a highway sign the county had ordered taken down, shot and killed Sigurd Eide, age twenty, and Alvin Tofte, age twenty-one, while they were dragging the road. Afterwards, Westblade burned his house, cut down his prized apple trees, and fled into the woods. The sheriff and a posse pursued him, hoping to take him alive if possible. Following an exchange of gunfire with the posse, Westblade was struck several times and died at the scene. Officers later discovered supplies and some 250 rounds of ammunition hidden in the woods.
There are weeks when a weatherman would rather write only about rain.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, "All are architects of Fate, Working in these walls of Time." Most days we build with ordinary things: honest work, patience, kindness, and the quiet habits that hold a community together. It takes many seasons to build what can be lost in a single afternoon. My hope is that Grand Marais, which has shown me such generosity these past months, will keep building.
Editor's note: It's hard to pick an image for a week like this, but I'm including a photo I took of apple trees.