Canoe trips, swimming, boardsailing, kiteboarding, and pontoon boat excursions are all enhanced by the warm water conditions we are experiencing.
A good share of Minnesota's lakes are considered to be warm-water lakes, meaning their near-surface temperatures can be expected to rise to 80 degrees or higher at the end of July and on into August.
Other observations:
- Chokecherry is a native that grows as a tall shrub or small tree throughout Minnesota, near lake shores and in borders of woods. Now the fruit is ripe and ripening as it turns from red to purple-red and to black-ish. A favorite of wildlife, the fruits are often harvested for jelly-making.
- Fireweed is one of the first plants to grow after a forest fire, thus the common name. But fireweed doesn't need a wildfire, it can grow as a pioneer plant in any disturbed site, including roadsides, railroad grades, and even those in towns. It's common in the northern part of Minnesota and abundant in and around the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, where recent fires have raged. The rose-purple flowers open individually, starting in late July, up from the bottom of the spike, taking several weeks to reach the top. There is an old saying: "When fireweed blooms to the top, summer is over."
- Many of us have been enjoying sweet corn and garden-ripe tomatoes. Watermelons, muskmelons and other melons are ripe and ripening. Early season apples also are ripe. Denny Havlicek from Havlicek Orchard, located near New Prague, this week has been picking Mantet and Oriole varieties, and even some early ripening State Fair and SweeTango. I ate a nearly ripe Zestar apple from our backyard tree here near Lake Waconia.
- Monarch and eastern tiger swallowtail butterflies find nectar on blazing-star and purple coneflower.
- While on a picnic or out in a boat, the fly that gives us the painful bites about our ankles is the stable fly, not a house fly. House flies have lapping mouth parts and so can't bite, though they are the infamous germ carriers.
- Soybean fields across the southern third of the state have flowers and new pods, and sweet corn is being harvested for commercial processing.
- Black bears, in the north, are feasting on ripe wild red raspberries and blueberries. Along the North Shore of Lake Superior, juneberries, pin cherries, red raspberries and thimbleberries are ripe and offer us a taste of the wild.
- Our granddaughter Anja Gilbert recently returned from a week trip in the BWCA out of Ely with fellow students from Watertown-Mayer High School and teachers. She caught many walleyes and reported that wild blueberry picking is good.
Jim Gilbert has taught and worked as a naturalist for more than 50 years.
