Fog, Frost, and Fundraisers for Haiti

Wednesday, January 20, 2010. You've heard it before. 'In Minnesota, if you don't like the weather, wait a few minutes: It'll change.' There's something to that old gag.

Like last Friday. The morning was foggy, around 9 and 10. Then, by 11, it was clearing. By noon, we had one of those picture-postcard days. Blue skies, frost on the trees, high swept clouds: the works.


Fog and frost: on just about everything. January 15, 2010.


Frost. Lots of really delicate frost. January 15, 2010.


Around 11:00 a.m., clearing. Not much wind, happily. January 15, 2010.

Once in a while, the road east of town, across the Sauk River to the two big cemeteries, looks really nice. Generally it's a matter of atmospheric effects: just the right amount of haze. Friday, around noon, it was the frost left by fog the night and morning before.


County Road 17, near the Sauk River. January 15, 2010.

I was downtown Friday, having my eyes checked (according to the doctor I have two, and they both work). Flags were up for Martin Luther King Day, this Monday.

Looking in the shop windows, it struck me how Catholic Sauk Centre is. We've got a fair assortment of churches. A Google map I've embedded in the Sauk Centre Journal Blog will give you an idea.

Still, there are a whole bunch of Catholics in town. I came from an area that was quite sincerely not Catholic - and the statuary and artwork, right out there in storefronts, still impresses me sometimes. Positively, that is.


Two-for-one photo: storefront and what's across the street in downtown Sauk Centre. January 15, 2010.


Martin Luther King Day was Monday: They got the flags out early. January 15, 2010.

I see in the Sauk Centre Herald that First State Bank is offering $20,000 in matching funds. Here's what the Herald says, in part:

"To make a donation checks should be made payable to the American Red Cross and dropped off or mailed to First State Bank of Sauk Centre, PO Box 266, Sauk Centre, MN 56378. Contributions will be accepted until Feb. 15."

Sounds good. My household's going to be giving at a second collection this Sunday, at Our Lady of the Angels church: but don't let that stop you from pitching in with what First State Bank is doing. Not that you would, of course.