Late September brought a full moon and occasional promise of rain to Wisconsin’s Lake Superior coast. The first autumn full moon was beautiful in the night sky but the rain was a promise mostly unkept. As October appeared on wall calendars, many parts of northern Wisconsin were short about a foot of rain for the year. Parts of the far north had slipped into an exceptional drought by Sept. 24. And since weather prognostication, especially in the long term, is an inexact science, predictions for precipitation for the rest of the year were all across the board. What we know for sure is that we need rain before freeze-up to recharge the moisture in soil beneath fields and forests.
Featured Topical
From the Fields | Jason Maloney
From the Fields: Jason Maloney
1 of 21
A pot of fall mums dazzles on the doorstep of a northern-Wisconsin farm store.
An apple grown in the Bayfield Fruit Loop is coated in caramel. It’s ready for visitors to Apple Fest. Visit bayfield.org/bayfield-apple-festival for more information.
A freshly baked apple pie is boxed and ready to travel. Heavenly pie is only one item vying for attention at Apple Fest, held the first weekend of October in Bayfield, Wisconsin.
Chopper wagons are lined up and ready on a northern-Wisconsin cornfield.
Balsam boughs are fashioned into wreaths at Rose Wreath in Montreal, Wisconsin. Many northern families make school and Christmas money by gathering balsam or making it into decorations each autumn.
Ripe apples await picking in the Bayfield Fruit Loop near Bayfield, Wisconsin. There is a beautiful bumper crop of apples this season on Wisconsin’s Lake Superior shore.
A stack of wreaths made from balsam boughs grows higher and higher. The best boughs are gathered after frost.
A balsam-bough wreath factory is housed in a historic mine building in Montreal, Wisconsin.
Joe Pie weed grows in a sheltered spot in early September along the Lake Superior shore.
A billboard in downtown Duluth, Minnesota, lures customers to a farm market. Northern farm markets usually continue into October.
Apples coated with dew await hungry customers at a farm store near Washburn, Wisconsin.
Luscious squash beg to be baked in a farm kitchen. They are better than candy!
Bright-orange farm-grown squash await discerning customers at a northern-Wisconsin farm store.
A shelf fungus catches the eye in a boreal forest remnant along Wisconsin’s Lake Superior shore.
A migrating monarch butterfly rests in September on the seed pods of a fireweed south of Bayfield, Wisconsin.
An autumn bee gathers nectar from goldenrod on a warm autumn day.
Ripe and juicy wild rosehips show red against green leaves in September. The juicy hips can be juiced for jelly or syrup. Dried they are the main ingredient in rosehip tea.
Cattle graze on short pasture in September near Benoit, Wisconsin. Due to drought, most northern pastures are wanting this fall.
Cattle lounge in the September sun along Cherryville Road west of Ashland, Wisconsin.
Harvest work goes on in September near Sprague, Manitoba. Farmers in Canada and the United States are grappling with the most expensive fuel prices in history as they harvest crops this season.
Kinnikinnick, also called bear berry, shows red berries as September melts into October in the far north. Parts of the plant are used for medicine. The berries are eaten by birds and bears.
Most Popular
Editor’s note: Data centers are increasingly becoming an agricultural issue. According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, “Demand for dat…
August delivered quite the finale to the summer season, with sharp contrasts from hot days to cool nights, heavy rainfall to worsening drought…
Every sports star needs an assist sometimes, and The Ohio State University researchers are hoping chaff lining might play that role for herbic…
Agriculture is one of the most dangerous occupations in the United States. Each year vehicles, machinery, environmental hazards and other inci…
