Exploring the Ozarks Outdoors: freshare.net

I got to spend some time with an old friend not long ago. Many years had sailed between visits, brought on by a lack of time, other priorities, whatever the reason.

The beginning of our conversation was tenuous.…[more]

I look forward to those harbingers of spring each year. Spring peepers occupy a little hollow near my house, and they start calling in mid, sometimes early March each year. My friend and fellow Master Naturalist, Bob Kipfer, captured some…[more]

In the 1960s and early 1970s, Dr. Neil Compton and a host of others fought the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers about that organization’s plan to dam the Buffalo River. Dr. Compton and his team won that fight.

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The Great Backyard Bird Count was last weekend. It rolls around the middle of February each year, and it’s a great excuse to grab an extra cup of coffee and a recliner, then sit back and enjoy the comings and…[more]

Long before computer models for forecasting the winter ahead, there were simpler, folksier tools: persimmon seeds, woolly bear caterpillars and squirrels.

“There are long-held traditions about looking to nature for signs of the weather ahead,” said Tamara Walkingstick,…[more]

We’ve become a society addicted to cleanliness. Grocery cart corrals have sanitizing wipes available, and hand sanitizers are at nearly every desk and in many purses. Not that cleanliness is all bad, but the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) says a…[more]

Non-native species almost always exact a toll on the natives. Large crayfish overpower smaller varieties, Japanese beetles decimate tree leaves, kudzu engulfs about anything that isn’t moving too fast, and both feral and house cats significantly diminish songbird populations.

I hadn’t wet a line in a while, so my plan was to ply the waters of Capps Creek for a couple of hours in search of a few rainbow or brown trout. Capps is a location where I’ve either…[more]

I don’t have a fear of snakes. But I won’t be the first one in line to hold one either. In fact, I may not get in line at all. If I see one in the wild, I am curious…[more]

Camping in the Ozarks this time of year means being prepared for rapidly changing weather conditions. That’s written from experience. Last time around, the trip included ancient sleeping bags that were probably rated for mild 50 degree temperatures, not the…[more]