Take advantage of the breezy days; Larry Weber says the northwesterly winds this morning are doing a fine job of keeping the mosquitos and blackflies away.

There's also still time to catch the tail end of the first phase of wildflowers and the beginning of the second, plus frogs are calling, birds are nesting, turtles are laying eggs and you can't swing a dandelion without hitting a butterfly or dragonfly!

Dr. Richard Buckalew of UMD is a mathematics professor at UMD, so unless you're pretty math-savvy yourself, things can veer off into the weeds pretty quickly.

But in addition to providing some infographics to help you better understand the math behind social distancing, he's got a lot of interesting things to say about the big differences small changes can make, and how to evaluate the news and claims crowding your social media feeds these days.

Scott Carpenter teaches French literature, literary theory, and cross-cultural studies at Carleton College in Northfield.

So when it came time for him to take a sabbatical, he thought, why not pack up my wife and teenage daughter and go live in Paris for a while?

"My guiding principle," says Carpenter, "was just to throw myself into situations that required meto do difficult things; things I didn't understand or predict how they'd end up."

Animal Allies Humane Society is temporarily closed to visitors. Interested adopters are encouraged to make an appointment to visit the pet of their interest if they would like to adopt.

Amos

Randy Hanson may be one of the go-to guys when it comes to talking about agriculture these days, but the co-director of Lake Superior College's Eco-Entrepreneurship Program wants people to to know that, COVID-19 or no COVID-19, climate change is still a reality.

The new neighbor in the Lincoln Park business is pretty much guaranteed a warm welcome.

The North Shore Federal Credit Union is using their grand-opening-celebration money to make mini-grants to neighboring businesses.

Chances are no one planned to buy masks, hand sanitizer, directional signs, and stickers for the floor to help customers stay six feet apart.  So the mini-grants are designed to help offset reopening costs after the mandated closures.

In one sense, John Bennett and the others at the University of Minnesota Extension's Center of Community Vitality are doing the same thing they've always done: gathering data, analyzing it, and providing it to the Northland in an easy-to-understand, accessible format.

"Look at the lovely flowers that just came up in my garden!" gushed a novice gardener to Carol Andrews of the Arrowhead Chapter of Wild Ones.

"Goes to show weeds are pretty, too" came back the reply.

Would a weed by any other name be just as annoying?

Tom Kasper says you've got to establish your "weediness threshold."

If more photographs of dandelions sauteeing in butter and other look-what-I-just-picked-out-of-the-woods meal options are starting to populate your social media feeds, there are some good reasons for that.

In addition to growing their own food, folks are getting more interested in finding/foraging their own food, too.

But you can't just wander around stuffing random vegetation in your mouth; how are you supposed to learn what's safe to eat and how to prepare it?

Eric Ament says that's the joy of the "plant walk": "everyone is teaching their own experience."