By Bill Anderson

April seems to be bucking the season. It opened with a beautiful weekend over Easter, with lots of sunshine and temperatures in the 70’s, but the farther it goes, the colder it gets. The low temperature in Rutland on Wednesday, April 21, was 25 degrees and snow flurries, while Fargo set a record for cold on this date with 18. That’s 82 degrees colder than the record high for the same date of 100 above, set back in 1980. Thursday, April 22, was the 42^nd annual Earth Day, a day dedicated to contemplating what we have been doing to our planet, and how to correct our blunders. Not to worry, though. President Joe Biden has hosted a “Climate Summit” of world leaders to discuss the situation. In keeping with the spirit of the occasion, and in observance of worldwide covid-19 recommendations, the summit was a virtual one, held online via ZOOM or some other video conferencing program. Picture it, hundreds of elected presidents and prime ministers, hereditary monarchs and tyrannical dictators in bathrobes, sweat suits and bedroom slippers, wearing facemasks and sitting in front of their computers, sipping coffee and discussing the fate of the world. Should we be comforted? Ask the Assembled Wise Men 42 years from now and they’ll let you know.

Hal Nelson has been treating an injured leg for the past week, the injury sustained while fishing at Sprague Lake. The walleyes had been biting, so Hal was out there enjoying the sport when he noticed some action on his line. He jumped to get the line and set the hook, slipped on a rock and fell onto some willow stumps left by a foraging beaver. The willow stumps were sharpened like punji stakes and put some serious scratches on Hal’s leg. He is getting around, though, and hopes to be back up to full speed in the near future.

Kenneth Maly of Chinook MT was visiting old friends in Rutland on the evening of Wednesday, April 14. Kenny is one of the sons of the late Francis & Rozilla Maly, and he grew up on the Maly family farm in Weber Township, south of Rutland. He is now employed by the Blaine County highway department out of Chinook, and he states that the county there has more than 1,300 miles of county gravel roads to maintain. Gravel is difficult to obtain for parts of Blaine County, Kenny says, and some roads are posted warning drivers to stay off of them when it is wet. “They might be out there until it dries up again,” he says. Kenny was employed by the Sargent County Road Department back in the 1990’s, before he moved to Montana. He planned to drive to Minneapolis to visit his daughter and 5-year-old granddaughter on Friday, April 16, and to return to Rutland on April 22 for a few more days of visiting friends and family here before returning to Montana. Kenny says that he likes living in the Chinook community, but he still has plenty of good friends and good memories in Rutland, too.