The Last Days of Summer

While the weather has still been wonderful these past few weeks, something's changed.  There's a nip in the morning air, the light is fading early in the evening.  Yes, it's fall in Minnesota.

The State Fair is considered here to herald the end of summer, one last hurrah before we all start to prepare for the long, inevitable winter we've all tried so hard to ignore.  The Coffee Queen, the Little Scoot, and I made our annual trip to the Fair on one of the hottest days of the year.  We biked there while it was still cool, which allowed us to skip the hassles of traffic and parking, but it warmed up fast.  We ate ourselves silly, as usual, which included the obligatory cheese curds.

The Coffee Queen and the Little Scoot eating cheese curds

We also spent time in the animal barns.  The rabbits and sheep are always favorites, as is the Big Pig.  It's a really big pig.  Little Scoot also requested a ride on the SkyTram and loved the view from up high.  We headed home after lunch when the heat became too much.  And thus it became official: the State Fair (for us) was over, and fall was upon us.

The Coffee Queen and the Little Scoot: Up, up, and away!

We've seen a lot of monarch butterflies in our backyard this year, thanks to the Coffee Queen planting zinnias next to the vegetables.  The monarchs love the flowers.  I suppose they are fueling up for their long migration south.  Little Scoot enjoyed watching them... for about five seconds, and then couldn't understand why Dad kept snapping pictures.  We need something to remember these last moments of summer, to remember that the warmth will come again, even when we're buried under three feet of snow.  By then the monarchs will be in Mexico.  I think they have the right idea.

The monarch butterflies in our backyard