Bleak, but even bleak is okay.

Today could only be described as "bleak."  Dark and cloudy, and not even any big weather conditions leading to any big excitement--no snow to speak of and even the temperature at right around 32˚ was kind of boring.  The only conversation it inspired was comparisons with the FREEZING cold from last year.

Bleak, right?  And that's open water out there.

In fact, even the ice in the channel has broken up.  It's the kind of day when the ice s-l-o-w-l-y moves back and forth, kind of undulates underneath, it could make you a little queasy! 

So we checked the Flagg River (or Flag River--you can see it spelled both ways) and it also had open water.  This is just up our road but the river flows down to The Lake.

 More bleakness...

So, to add to the bleakness, I was organizing papers in preparation for doing income taxes, both for our business and my own.  That process always leads me to going through stored boxes of old "important" papers and documents, and attempting to get rid of old paperwork!  It's getting easier now that so many things are online, but I still have that "keep for 7 years" rule in my head.  So still too much stuff!

But then there are the boxes of sentimental things--cards, letters, old job-related document, fun stuff.  And there I found this little newspaper article that had been in my mother's "sentimental" things from years ago.  In her handwriting on the top, it says it's "taken from the Hayward paper written by the Postmaster's daughter."  There is no date referenced on it--all I know is that it was printed around Valentine's Day, I think from back in the early 1980's.  I don't know who the postmaster would have been back then, but I'm sure some people reading this might know.

But it sums up life in Port Wing pretty well, so I wanted to pass it along to Port Wing Passages readers.

Yes, Port Wing hasn't died yet for sure and those of us who stay here all winter share a special connection with each other as we keep the home fires burning for those who escape to the south until spring!