With Memorial Day weekend in the rearview, gone too seem to be the brisk early morning temperatures calling for a hooded sweatshirt. Hot and dry conditions have returned, and seem to be the favored forecast into at least early- to mid-June. Might as well embrace it: summer is here. Last ...

My children are counting down to the last day of school! Last I knew, we have six days to go! Like my kiddos, I love summer and all the fun it offers. Campfires, gardening, bicycling, canoeing, fishing, hiking, stargazing, swimming, camping, and so much more! Rarely do we find time to squeeze ...

People often ask, “What good are mosquitoes, poison ivy, or any creature humans find pestering, harmful, or unattractive?” My mind immediately recalls Aldo Leopold’s quote from Round River: “The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant, ‘What good is ...

“The Indians know how to fire the prairie with great skill and how to take advantage of a favorable wind. Despite the fact that all around the village the grass was burned, the cornfields nearby were unharmed.” - Paul Wilhelm, Travels in North America, 1822-1824. You may have seen the news ...

The other day, while driving Interstate 35, we noticed a coyote standing in the ditch waiting to cross the road. It looked South, then North, then South again. The road was busy with traffic, and I said, “Turn around, buddy!” I’d like to think I can talk to animals, because he did ...

None of us who are alive today will ever know, nor feel, what it must have been like to gaze across Iowa’s endless sea of prairie grasses in the early 1800’s. “There was only the enormous, empty prairie, with grasses blowing in waves of light and shadow across it, and the great blue sky ...