
When the kids get out of school and are around all summer, sometimes parents need to get creative on how to keep them busy and get them out of the house. And each year, some families wonder what is the perfect gift to give dad for Father's Day. Well, how about checking out the way life was back in the 19th century agricultural industry?
Well doesn't that sound like fun? Ok, maybe not at first blush, but this event sounds like a blast for those families who like to be outside and working with their hands. This event, hosted by the
Kelley Farm staff, would be a great day for dad...!--more-->

The time has come to start working those summer plans into our schedules! It's hard to believe now, but green grass and budding trees are just around the corner.
An excellent weekend vacation option, for those of us in the Twin Cities, can be found in the southeast corner of our fair state:
Historic Forestville. While the usual favorite summer sites are found several hours north of the cities, Forestville can be found two hours south. With trout streams rather than lakes and nearby wineries outnumbering the breweries, it's a whole different kind of Minnesota!
My...!--more-->

Summer has finally come to Minnesota. The sun burns late in the day and green has crawled out of the darkness to cover the trees again. Parks are filled with eager children. Beaches are occupied by van-loads of families. The swooshing noises of the boats buzzing past each other on the lakes are accompanied by the gleeful barking of the family dog.
Summer means a lot of different things to many people but for the people of Minnesota it is truly a special time. For maybe just a couple or few months out of the year Minnesotans are delivered from the icy darkness of winter...!--more-->

I have lived in Minnesota for nearly my entire life, almost 22 years now, and I wouldn't change much about it other than our luck in sports (but, hey! those Twins), the humidity and mosquitoes. All the mosquitoes can burn...

In most instances, when you go ice fishing at 6:30 a.m. in January, only the serious fishermen will be on the ice to join you.
Then there is the winter
trout-fishing opener on Courthouse Lake in Chaska.
The annual event, which this year occurred on Saturday, Jan. 17, allows winter anglers the opportunity to pull trout – in some cases, extremely large trout – through the ice. When my two friends and I visited the lake this year, we were amazed to see hundreds, literally hundreds of ice houses decorating that lake prior to 7 a.m., with the crack of dawn still an hour away. As we approached...

Carol Pruette has never seen an Indochinese tiger. Until someone mentioned the name, she'd never heard of a Ganges River dolphin.
Pruette, a resident of Marshfield, Missouri, is neither an animal expert nor a biologist so it perhaps comes as no surprise she is a not familiar with two of the many animals species considered endangered on earth.
And though the aforementioned animal species mean little to Pruette - and perhaps most of the people who reside in or happened to be visiting Minnesota that afternoon - when this reporter spoke to her outside the Cook County Library in Grand Marais, Pruette...!--more-->

I love autumn. I think it’s my favorite season. Autumn reminds me of hunting season, football season, and the Twin Cities Marathon season. It’s also almost perfect weather-wise. The air is crisp in the morning, warm by midday then chilled and still by evening. But one thing I love more than all of the above, one thing that makes me happy to live in this state above all else, the changing colors of the trees.
I
ran the Twin Cities Marathon last year and the scenery was...!--more-->

Just as the Timberwolves are acquiring players, the Como Zoo in St. Paul is going to be adding two white fluff-balls to its wealth of animals andÂ
newly-born babies.
These fluff-balls, typically referred to as polar bears, are two-year-old twins Sakari and Suka who were originally born in the Toledo Zoo in Ohio.
The bears will be joining Como Zoo’s Polar Bear Odyssey, which is four times larger than the previous exhibit for the world’s largest land predator.
...
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Nothing is cuter than baby animals --
nothing -- since you clearly agree, now is a great time to head to the Minnesota Zoo or Como Zoo.
Both are now hosts to some adorable new babies ranging from few weeks old to ten months old.
Minnesota Zoo:
...!--more-->

Imagine that none of your electrical appliances work because you have no power. Or, you aren’t able to flush your toilet.
These are some of theÂ
potential consequences of a solar storm that occurred on July 23, 2012. The sun unleashed two clouds of plasma, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that made up a solar storm that barely missed an encounter with the Earth’s atmosphere.
If the storm had occurred a week earlier, it would have come directly into contact with the Earth’s...!--more-->