My Minnesota

It's the season of thunderstorms, heat and humidity. Butterfly weed is in bloom. Day lilies have started to come into flower, something ...

Today is the last day of this Minnesota legislative session. The evening weather forecast for today is full of thunderstorms. Some of us don...

Wild plum and other bushes are in flower. Some farmers have begun field preparation for this growing season. Trees are in various phases of ...

Even though Minnesota has an early season for teal and geese, I don't (won't) hunt waterfowl when the temperature's in the 70...

The field behind the house is full of Spotted Horsemint , with scatterings of black-eyed Susans and a few compass plants. Purple Lovegrass ...

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

We’re close to mid-April this Palm Sunday. Here in the North Country, April is a time of snow showers and wild flowers. Wild turkeys begin m...

It’s time for the weekly report on our community supported agriculture [CSA] share. Here’s what was in our box this morning: Broccoli Raab S...

I’m happy to announce that the fields behind the house are home to a handful of black-eyed Susans, plus an abundance of spotted horsemint a...

No matter how inane our politics get, it's hard to be grumpy when faced with an abundance of wildflowers along roads and in summer field...

Roadsides are sporting patches of bergamot and black-eyed Susans. Some fields of corn are starting to tassel. Flocks of swifts or swallows (...

The good news is I wasn’t in the midst of yard chores, or standing in a river waving a stick, when the down pour let loose. A few rumbles of...

I was distressed that the city’s ditch mower had knocked out every milkweed plant growing between our driveway and the field entrance on our...

Today I think I discovered we have some yellow butterfly weed growing on the rise behind the house. As far as I know, all the butterfly wee...

Forsythia blooms are gone. Lilacs are well past peak flowering. Purple vetch blooms are filling local fields. Butterfly weed, and black- and...

Bird feeders are back up. Birds are temporarily boycotting because we had the feeders down for a couple of days to discourage the peregrine ...

Yesterday we had an afternoon visit for at least half a hour from a male American kestrel . He spent much of that time perched on the post t...

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...