My Minnesota

Heat, humidity, thunderstorms, tornado watches, deer flies, smoke from Canadian wildfires -- must be Summer in the North Country. At least t...

We saw the first “Back to school” ads recently. Many of the local roads are under repair in various and sundry places. Weather is heated, hu...

For reasons I don’t understand, the photos I took of dragonflies are clustered around May and June and again in late July, August and Septem...

The first dragonfly of the year appeared in front of the Jeep’s windshield and flew over the roof yesterday. Since we’re half-way plus throu...

It looks like I’ll be hand watering the new plants on our sandy hill for awhile still. We may get a few showers tonight or tomorrow but then...

Hordes of dragonflies have finally hatched. We look forward to their decimation of the swarms of mosquitos that have been harassing us for m...

We’ve already had a mosquito hatch that has filled the air with the little biters. So far, there are not enough predators to reduce the popu...

Next weekend is Labor Day, the official start of meteorological autumn and the unofficial end of summer vacation season. Our bur oak has alr...

A week or ten days ago we had an explosion in the local mosquito population. One day there were none to speak of, the next day we were getti...

When the dog and I took our early morning walk, the temperature was delightfully near 60℉. Sunlight had just begun to clear the horizon, bir...

four-spotted skimmer Photo by J. Harrington Today brought my first sighting of the year of squadrons of dragonflies patrolling the air sp...

In a couple of weeks, we'll enter prime dragonfly season. For now, the common green darner is the only species shown in flight, and we...

This morning, as I refilled both nectar feeders, I wondered if today will be the last time they'll be filled this year. Based on last ye...

I'm at a loss to explain where my fascination with dragonflies originated. It's just there and has been for some time. The local squ...

More and more of the yellow goat's beard ( Tragopogon dubius ) has turned petals to seedheads. Meanwhile, our local milkweed is still s...

With less than a week to go until Summer solstice, it's time to take a look at what once was thought to be "normal" for that ...

I'm guessing it will be a couple of weeks (midish-June) before we see flowers, but the beardtongue ( Penstemon grandiflorus ) is growing...

The feral lilac bushes up the road have just barely started to display flower buds. There are several patches of prairie smoke close to the ...

Hummingbirds appear to have moved on for the Winter. I've seen none at either feeder (front or back of house) for several days now. Ther...