98 degrees

minnesota sits at the center of the north american continent. i know you don’t believe me, but take a look at a globe. we are in the north of the united states, but it is very much in the middle of the continent, because canada extends all the way up to the arctic. anyway, being in the center of a huge land mass means we get what is called ‘continental’ weather. in other words, weather not mitigated by the mellowing effects of large bodies of water. what i am trying to say, is that our weather is about as erratic as it gets. we often get 40 degree temperature changes in a single day. in spring or fall, when snow mixes with warm temps, we sometimes get to brag (or lament?) that we have had, “all four seasons today”. all of this is a long wind-up to say that last week we had temps dipping to 30 degrees, and frost warnings. everyone ran outside to cover their tomatoes. and today, we hit 98 degrees, with a forecast of high nineties all week, and everyone ran out to water their tomatoes. it would be easy to blame global warming for a 60 degree temperature swing in one week, and i am sure that is at least partially the case, but the reality is, this is not so unusual for minnesota. we’ve seen such things before. the point here is that it was too hot (for me) to play outside today, so i reached for these dried apple blossoms, which have been shriveling on my specimen table since may. a welcome, if infrequent, reward for my laziness.

dried apple blossoms