Flowers for Waseca, MN

For a county seat of eight-and-some-thousand, Waseca lives close to its water. Clear Lake curls right up against the south and east of town, Loon Lake sits off the northwest, and the parks and the beach and the fishing docks pull the town's summer flowers toward the shoreline — birthday bouquets to lake cabins, thank-yous after a weekend on the water, anniversary roses carried to a screened porch looking out on the lake. Downtown holds the older rhythm: the State Street storefront row, the Waseca County Courthouse and its historic square, and the fairgrounds that fill every July when the county fair takes over. There is a farm-country backbone underneath all of it — Farmamerica, the state's agricultural interpretive center, sits just outside town, and the BraunAbility plant is one of the larger employers — which keeps a steady line of get-well, retirement, and sympathy orders moving alongside the seasonal lake traffic.

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