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Health, Wellness, & Nature

Wishing You A

Happy and Safe

Fourth of July

Growing up in mid-Missouri, June was the “firefly month.” Some of my fondest childhood memories are of catching fireflies and putting them in glass canning jars to create my own lantern for the evening. I loved watching them flash on and off until I had to let them fly off into the night sky again. Hearing my story,  my science-loving granddaughter was anxious to head into the yard and try her luck at it. Out we went, jar in hand only to meet disappointment head on. There were no fireflies to be seen. Like many areas across the country, our night skies are no longer filled with these well-loved creatures.

Rather than a place to relax and unwind, the idealized suburban landscape of perfectly manicured turf, neatly edged walkways and precisely pruned shrubs can easily become another back-breaking responsibility. There are ways however, to tweak a design that reduce the workload without sacrificing the beauty.

June 20th is 

WORLD BEE DAY

This year’s theme, "Bee inspired by nature to nourish us all", says it all. Without the work that these little fellows do, our lives would be radically changed. 

My “outdoorsman” son-in-law asked for a book on foraging for Christmas. Since my perception of foraging is tramping through the woods looking for either mushrooms or other obscure, supposedly edible plants, I didn’t really give much thought to the book. Until today, that is, while I was reading an article about the top new landscape design ideas for 2025. There it was… number 2 on the list: Hunt-and-Gather Foraging Gardens:  A Feast for All Ages.  Now I wish I had at least leafed through that guide.

Here in the middle of Missouri, we haven’t had much “real” winter. Yes, we had a few inches of snow in November, enough for small snowmen and a bit of sledding, but it only lasted a couple of days. Then warm temperatures returned and we began to wonder if winter had come and gone. It hadn’t. Like so much of the country, we were hit with an arctic blast that crippled our community. People flocked to our stores to stock up on basic necessities –  bread, milk, wine and, most important of all, ice melt. 

Wishing you and your family a safe, peaceful and happy Thanksgiving.

We are almost through November and I still have flowers blooming and tomatoes on the vine. It makes me wonder what type of winter, if any, we will have this year. I’ve checked the weather authority’s forecast – the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association – (better known as NOAA) and learned that the outlook for the Midwest is “equal chances of below-, near-, or above average seasonal mean temperatures and  seasonal total precipitation.”  According to NOAA,  La Nina is the cause of the uncertainty.