ShareWhat do you think when you’re told you have to retrain someone?
You can imagine what I was thinking when I was told I’m going to have to retrain my honey bees.
Not all of them, just ones that keep sneaking into the hive from the back side.
It all started last winter, when a mouse family moved [...]

ShareIf there’s a flower that heralds spring to me, it’s yellow daffodils.
I learned to refer to these flower with long noses as daffodils from my Illinois neighbor.
Mrs. Futrell had a small white house with a picket fence lined with the small, early yellow flowers growing under old-fashioned lilac bushes.
She would walk the fence line with [...]

Share(Jo found this short essay on the Dept. of Conservation website, and thought it needed a wider audience. Enjoy.)
Posted by Bill White, Missouri Dept of Conservation
When I was growing up Blackberry Winter was a rock band from Nebraska. Some of you may know Blackberry Winter as the band from West Plains, Missouri, who had several [...]

ShareScientists have confirmed bees have distinct personalities; distinguish between human faces; can find the shortest distance between two points faster than any computer; have moods, and now have a parasitic fly that leaves them like zombies.
Even though a lot of money is being invested in research, bees continue to die in record numbers. Between immigrant [...]

How to garden based on national holidays.

Why bush honeysuckle should not be welcome in Missouri gardens.

ShareWhen I was a kid, we had this book series called “Through Golden Windows.” They were a collection of short stories, essays and poetry, some classic and well-known authors, some not, but that’s what probably got me first interested in literature (and what would happen if a field full of popcorn caught on [...]

Great Back Yard Bird Count is February 17-20, 2012.

ShareThe lady on the phone was polite enough.
She spoke softly but clearly, asking if I could help her identify the “little white plant” she said was growing in the middle of her yard.
As a University of Missouri Extension Master Gardener volunteer, I’ve completed the basic gardening course; volunteered more than my 30 hours a year [...]

ShareEven though numerous groundhogs today say there will be six more weeks of winter, many in Traveler Country are still waiting for winter to arrive. The plants and animals seem to be confused, so we’re not putting much credence in the groundhog predictions this year.

We’ve had several reliable reports of crocus in January. Several [...]