The Abode Blog

Company Updates, Outdoor Tutorials and Observations

Conservation

A monarch butterfly feeding on late-summer wildflowers during fall migration.

Conservation

The Monarch Migration Running Right Through Your Backyard

Every late August, monarchs stream through Minnesota on a 2,000-mile journey to a forest in Mexico none of them has ever seen. Here is the multigenerational relay that carries them there, what milkweed loss has done to their numbers, and how to catch the migration before it moves on.

Company Updates / Conservation

Keeping It Wild: An Abode Outside × Save the Boundary Waters Collaboration

Celebrate America’s wilderness and help protect it for the future. The Boundary Waters is sometimes referred to as...

A wild mushroom on the forest floor, the visible tip of an underground fungal network.

Conservation

What Mushrooms Tell Us About the Forest

The mushroom you spot on the trail is only the fruit. Beneath it runs a vast web of fungi doing the real work of the forest. Here is what mushrooms, mycelium, and the "wood wide web" are actually doing, and where the popular story gets ahead of the science.

Conservation

How to Read a Lake

No two lakes are alike, one runs tea-brown, the next clear blue, another green and weedy. Here's how to read what the water is telling you about a lake's health, its fish, and whether it's safe to get into.

A single firefly glowing against a dark Minnesota forest at dusk in late June

Conservation

Why Fireflies Are Disappearing And How to Bring Them Back

Firefly populations are declining across North America — and most people don't know it's happening until the field they grew up watching goes dark. Here's the science behind why fireflies are disappearing, what light pollution and lawn chemicals are actually doing to them, and what a genuinely firefly-friendly yard looks like.

Conservation

Dragonflies: The Most Effective Predator on the Trail

Dragonflies catch 95% of what they chase, more than any predator on Earth, including sharks and lions. Most people walk right past them on the trail. Here's the biology behind the most effective hunter in the Northwoods: how they see, how they hunt, how to identify the species you'll find at the lake's edge, and what their presence tells you about the water beneath them.

Billions of mayflies swarming over the Mississippi River at sunset during the June hatch

Conservation

The Mayfly Hatch: The Mississippi River's Most Spectacular Event

Every June, billions of mayflies rise from the bottom of the Mississippi River in one synchronized surge of wings. It shows up on weather radar. It shuts down bridge lights in southeast Minnesota. And it only happens because the river is clean enough to support it. Here's the full story of one of the Midwest's most dramatic, and least understood, natural events.