By Jo Schaper
The world underground is not only stranger than you think, it sometimes is stranger than you can imagine.
A friend of mine, Chad McCain, has been mapping a large cave system in Ste. Genevieve County called Blackfathom River Cave for some years, and recently brought back some fish videos. But let him tell [...]

The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) has just confirmed a mountain lion sighting in southern Linn County along the border of Chariton County. A landowner in the area contacted the MDC on Feb. 15 with two photos of a mountain lion taken Dec. 29 by a trail camera on his property.
“The photo is clearly of a [...]

If you have nothing else to celebrate today, try Missouri Statehood Day.
No one gets off. Nothing is closed. Only a few historians obsessed with dates seem to recall that on August 10, 1821 Missouri officially joined the Union as the 24th state.
Along with Maine, Missouri has the distinction that its statehood nomination 188 to [...]

Jo Schaper
Sometimes being high on a Google search isn’t a good thing.
If you Google E. coli (Escherichia coli—a bacterium common in the guts of warm blooded mammals, but also present in fish and reptiles) as I did on 7/27/10, the fourth link on the list is the Missouri state park system.
The Missouri [...]

While fact checking a news release today, I ran across this link to a KY3 -Springfield, Missouri story about Diesel Spring. Springfield has been “deroofing” Jordan Creek through its near downtown and turning it into a recreational greenway. Apparently something nearby (as yet unknown on November 18) is leaking refined petroleum (diesel? gasoline?) into [...]

Do you honestly think the taxes collected for sales tax will be spent properly? How about the people from Missouri be more concerned that their taxes aren’t squandered first before going after Internet companies and small ones too boot that are from out of state that sell to your state? If they held the politicians [...]

Southeast Missouri trout anglers sometimes lament the fact that they are so far from trout fishing waters such as the Eleven Point River, Montauk State Park, or the Meramec River.  But guess what?  Trout fishing can be had in Rotary Lake located in Jackson beginning Nov. 1. This marks the opening of Missouri’s winter trout [...]

Due to a 25 percent withholding in its fiscal year 2010 state appropriation, the State Historical Society of Missouri is decreasing its hours open to the public to Mondays through Thursdays, 8 a.m. to 4:45 p.m., effective immediately. The Society will no longer be open for research on Fridays or Saturdays. The withholding ($364,010), [...]

Sept. 26 (or the last Saturday in September) is National Public Lands Day. According to its website:
“National Public Lands Day began in 1994 with three federal agencies and 700 volunteers. Last year 120,000 volunteers worked in over 1,800 locations and in every state. Now, 8 federal agencies and many state and local lands participate [...]

Missouri Dept. of Conservation will present a classroom prescribed fire workshop from 9 a.m. to noon at the Ozark National Scenic Riverways conference room on Watercress Road in Van Buren Sept. 19. Lunch will be provided, and then at 1 p.m. weather permitting, students will practice on an actual prescribed fire.
Participants should wear leather shoes, [...]