Summer songbirds sing through the long twilight hours. Salmon swarm upriver. Tourist dollars and brailers (mesh bags) full of fish refuel local pockets. Potatoes and cabbages swell.

Fireweed seeds fly. All too soon summer's frenzy lies dormant. Darkness claims winter. Roads glare with ice, some years snow stacks roof high. Some people are affected by SAD, a seasonally linked depression. Others find winter cause to celebrate. Living near the top of a tilting planet, days grow short before they lengthen. We cope until we hear the first spring snipe winnow the air - we've made it through another winter.