Blog
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Spring Fishing in New York
I make several trips to New York each year to visit my grand daughters but this is the first May trip in a long time. It’s a great place with great eateries with live music–often blues or blue-grass, history, friendly folks and beautiful scenery. The weather forecast was not encouraging–rain, rain, and more rain. New…
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Orchid in Flower
Early this morning I checked on one of the showy orchids–the buds were finally open. Challenge: What’s that hairy, little thing, on the ground, in the lower right hand corner of the photo above? Here’s a close up:
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More Orchids
Yesterday morning Craig Hensley from the Schlagle Environmental Library at Wyandotte county lake guided me to a nice showy orchid in full bud, that he had found nearby. Craig is new to the library, this year and is the site manager. If you are in the area you’ll want to get to know him—he’s a licensed bird…
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Wandering through Spring in Johnson County
Senecio Mayapple blossom Just a couple of things. Now is the time to start looking for orchids, if that quest is on your list. This image of a lady slipper orchid was taken today. Won’t be long until this is blooming–if the deer don’t get it. Lady Slipper Speaking of deer: This yearling apparently is…
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Missouri Trout Quest
Earlier this month Norm shared an idea that I thought had merit. While I’m not interested in a certificate, I thought that chasing wild trout in 5 out of 8 Missouri wild trout streams would provide a more than adequate excuse to head off again to the Ozark’s for a spring weekend. I called Randy…
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More Signs of Spring
Growing up in central KS, I read every nature themed book I could gather. Most in those days featured natural history subjects from eastern North America–a few from the west. I longed to see the Smokey mountains in the spring, walk along the C and O canal, or see warblers dripping from trees during migration. …
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Spring in the Ozarks
Last Saturday I headed back down to the edge of the Ozarks to walk around, enjoy the weather, the flowers and the fish. Got up early and headed down to the creek with no name to try out very skittish wild trout knowing that March and April are good months for dry fly action. Again,…
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Signs of Spring
I usually mark the coming of spring with the first woodcock, the first morning cardinals and robins, the first woodland flowers, orange-throated darters and the first chorus frog chorus. This pond dries up every year—no fish Back in my early teaching years we would venture to a nearby pond that only held water in…
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Going it alone…
Increasingly, as I approach retirement two trends seem to be going in opposite directions. Though I grew up fishing several times a week on Kansas farm ponds, sand pits, and lakes while paying very little attention to the creeks and rivers, I find that today most of my fishing takes place in moving water. Clear,…
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Finally…
It is an oft noted that the passage of time accelerates as we age. I fight the perception but it is very real. It would be easy for me to slip into a funk about getting old but maybe Calvin hit it pretty good when he exclaimed: “Aagh, It’s a half-hour later than it was…
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