In some parts of the country pumpkins really are in short supply ... but not here in Minnesota. The warm, dry fall made for a bountiful crop. So good, in fact, some local growers are exporting to their pumpkin-poor peers elsewhere.

Thanks to the hot, dry weather this summer in Minnesota, hopes for a vibrant fall colors are fading away. In addition to lawns and crops, the weather conditions could impact trees and plants of all species, causing some of them to change color early.

It's that time of year when the pumpkin flavored foods go all nutty. Pumpkin latte obsessions notwithstanding, it's easy to see madness in pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin ravioli, even pumpkin gum. But pumpkin beer? Have we gone too far?

Warm, dry weather has allowed farmers plenty of time in the fields. Sugar beets are now 95 percent harvested, corn 79 percent.

David Starner of Hoffman has been challenging himself to grow a half-ton pumpkin since 2002. Finally this year, after installing heating cable in his garden soil and building a mini greenhouse over each seedling, Starner thinks he's done it. According to the pumpkin's measurements, it should weigh in around 1,029 pounds.

Beneath that dry topsoil the ground remains saturated. It would take a dry winter and spring to really reduce next year's flood chances.

Snowmobilers discovered decades ago that their machines, designed to ride over snow and ice on a treaded track instead of tires, could skitter over open water for short stretches at high speed. The Wall Street Journal examines what is now a full-blown Minnesota summer sport.