Members of the Caledonia Fire Department were called to the Caledonia Dairy Queen around 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. An issue with the building's sprinkler system set off the fire alarm. The situation was checked out by the local fire fighters, no fire was present, and there was no damage to the building. Photo by Greg Schieber

Postal foot carrier Diane Fields was all bundled up, as she made her rounds Friday morning.

Photo by Charlie Warner

“Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,” reads the unofficial motto of the United States Postal Service. While this nostalgic saying from another era does nothing to mention extremely cold temperatures, postal workers in Caledonia last week could have added that to the list of obstacles they overcame. With temperatures reading minus 23 degrees Thursday and minus 27 degrees Friday morning as they set out, mail carriers in Caledonia left bundled in up to six layers of clothing, wind pants, La Crosse Footwear boots, hand warmers, and stylish rabbit-fur-aviator-bomber-ear flap hats.

“I had just read the article about all the mail scams on The Argus website when a lady came in and wanted to use our Western Union service to send money to Jamaica. I asked the lady if she was sending the money to someone she knew. She replied no. I suggested maybe she should check into whatever type of contest or offer she was getting involved in, because it was probably a scam,” said Quillin’s Store Manager Lori Thillen last Tuesday.

With Caledonia receiving 40 inches of snow so far this year, the city streets have become quite a bit narrower, as the snow has been pushed to the curbs. City crews used a large rotary snow blower mounted on a front end loader and dump trucks to regain a little width to the streets last week.                Photo by Charlie Warner

Throughout grade school and middle school, a snow day did not simply mean relief from school, a delay of a test, or an extra few hours of sleep. For me it meant money.  After hearing Phil Costigan on KQ98 list off area school districts shutting the doors for the day, I would hightail it over to my grandparent’s house where their snow-covered driveway meant $10 out of grandma’s purse for the eager entrepreneur with a shovel.