Who is warning us? And will we listen?
Sitting here next to the window in our living room, I'm looking out at a smoke covered sky and a cooler than normal July day. In fact, our month of May and July seem to have gotten confused and switched places with each other. What is normally a cooler month for us, May ended up with over eight days reaching 80+°. That may not seem like a big deal to many of you😃, but it was actually not good for us. You see, we have a small u-pick strawberry business and strawberries prefer cooler temperatures to grow and then ripen as the temperatures warm. The warmer weather also affects pollination, and so the warmer days were a double whammy. We got far fewer berries, and the ones we did get were about half the size they should have been. Now, I will be the first to admit that after a northern Minnesota winter, it's hard to complain about an ...