My Minnesota

It was fifty years ago tomorrow that the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior. Gordon Lightfoot memorialized the tragedy with his song Th...

The local leaves are just about at peak color, sliding past peak any day now as the colors drift down with the leaves. It sure is pretty aro...

As noted previously on these pages, we live at the easternmost edge of the well drained Anoka Sand Plain. We’re currently under a flood watc...

With the unusually warm weather we’ve been enjoying, I started thinking about reconnecting the outside hoses and turning on the water supply...

After last night’s snow fall of four to five inches, the neighborhood looks more typical for February in the North Country. Most of the wint...

It’s hard to believe that only four months ago our back yard was snow covered. Today we are, again, under an “Excessive Heat Warning” until ...

Today’s weather, so far, on top of last night’s rain showers, is a treat. Blue skies, breeze, warm not hot. sunshine... maybe thunderstorms ...

Lammas, or  Lughnasadh , is celebrated one week from today, on August 1. In its honor, I have a sourdough loaf in the oven. It’s been months...

The dogs made it through the holiday without ending up much the worse from thunderbooms or fireworks. Come early August, local fireworks wil...

Roadside ditches are full of flowing waters. Low areas in farm fields have become ephemeral ponds. Floodplain wetlands and marshes are flood...

 Eleven years ago today, our front yard looked like the picture below. The same spot today is under 6∓ inches of snow. On the brighter side,...

There is now open water in the Sunrise river at County Road 19, east of Stacy. The pools a couple of miles to the south are still completely...

There’s a “wet spot” at the foot of the slope in the yard behind the house. Most springs it looks something like the picture below. Notice t...

The patches of snow-free ground on the south-facing slope behind the house are once again growing. Although both the Sunrise river and the p...

Yesterday, beneath a gray, cloud-covered sky, we witnessed a flock of five swans flying toward something, somewhere. The silhouettes of whit...

Each year I’m surprised by how long it takes snow to melt once temperatures start to creep above freezing. This year is no different. I don’...

The election results could have been worse. Mainstream media expected a “red wave.”  Democrats largely held their own and, in Minnesota, mad...

Many of the lawyers I’ve known, or known of, prided themselves on their ability to split hairs. Politicians frequently share the same inclin...