Pine County

But-

Well, let's, uh, talk about then the most wonderful city and county, Pine County.

Got anything for this week?

So we had a decent, I guess, [laughs] increase in calls, so we're up to, uh, 511.

Rutabaga 2.0 incident.

This was in Pine County, and it was small.

Uh, it...

Well, it burned 103 acres.

I don't know if this is burning now.

They don't really feel-

So this was a fire down in Pine County?

Yeah, the Rutabaga 2.0 incident.

And Brad, it looks like the coldest I could find was St. Croix.

State Park, this is in Pine County, Minnesota, an observer, 26 degrees.

Wow.

So we're getting into the freezing zones here.

Please do, Sheriff.

Do you got some Pine County stuff to talk about today?

A little bit.

Yeah.

Let's get into it.

A dense band of lake effect snow smothered Pine County on the morning of January 19, the kind where drifts pile like city walls at the road's edge, and only the foolhardy, or the relentless, keep to their rounds.

It was just after 11 when Caleb Bissett, out checking on his winter sap lines, spotted the patch of cobalt blue pale and idle against the stripped saplings.

He slowed his pickup to a crawl, thinking at first a state trooper maybe, or a lost traveler in that old government van.

The cold, she offered, must have worsened whatever happened.

Something clean and honest about it, or so everyone needed to believe.

That evening, the Pine Standard ran a banner headline, Pine County MOU&S Beloved Mail Carrier.

A photograph from the summer barbecue graced the front page, Norma beaming in a blue T-shirt, hand raised high.