News

Manatees

One of the strangest looking ocean mammals is the manatee. To make it even more unusual, a manatee is not related to any other ocean mammal but is a distant cousin of the elephant. The manatee and elephant even have physical features that are similar. Both mammals are the same gray color with short wiry hair. Manatees have toenails like an elephant and even have a short trunk. Scientists believe that manatees evolved millions of years ago from land to marine animals leaving their much larger cousin the elephant behind. Like other marine animals a manatee, which is sometimes called a sea cow, has to surface to breathe.
Read MoreManatees

BLUE ZONES MINESTRONE

The world’s longest-lived family, (9 siblings, collective age 851) ate this soup every day of their lives. Now it’s your family’s turn: ½ cup dry garbanzo beans ½ cup dry white beans ½ cup dry pinto or red beans 1.5 cups 1-2” cubed potatoes ½ cup of pearl barley (not quick cook) Aprrox 4 cups of water or veg stock if you like it richer.
Read MoreBLUE ZONES MINESTRONE

Cooking with Mumzy!

Hello friends and readers of the paper. I hope this week finds everyone in happiness and good health. As always life is busy and sometimes, I find myself going at a faster pace than I would like but as I tell my children this is what it is when you enter adult world. I remember about 15 years ago I went to my mom’s house and said, “I am tired of being an adult, wife, parent, I want to come back home, I just need a break”. My mom’s response was, “sweetheart you can’t just come back home you have a home of your own, with your family and sometimes you just have to take a day of and have some me time. It will all be better when you clear your head and get refreshed”. Well, it was good advice, and I took it and went back home and continued as I had for 14 years. What I would give to have one more good conversation with her, I still find myself needing her advice. As always Remember the Little Things, they are precious in our lives.
Read MoreCooking with Mumzy!

A Special Place to Remember a Better Time

What I would like to leave behind me when I am gone and forgotten, originated in a dream from 30 years ago. That is when I began to think about a special museum somewhere between Cabool, Houston and Licking along highway 17 concerning the old time Ozarks and old days Ozarkians, and my beloved Big Piney River, where I spent so much of my boyhood exploring the length of it. In Arkansas, I worked as the first Naturalist for the State Park system right out of college in 1971, I really got into constructing interpretive centers for four or five of the largest state parks. Then I continued it when I went to work later as a naturalist for the National Park Service on the Buffalo River.
Read MoreA Special Place to Remember a Better Time

Restoring Native Habitat

Restoring native habitats to at least 20% of the world’s land currently being used by humans for farming, ranching and forestry is necessary to protect biodiversity and slow species loss, according to a newly published study conducted by a team of environmental scientists. The analysis found that this can be done in ways that minimize trade-offs and could even make farms more productive by helping to control pests, enhancing crop pollination and preventing losses of nutrients and water from soil. These working landscapes can still be grazed, mowed, harvested or burned, as long as these activities sustain or restore native species diversity.
Read MoreRestoring Native Habitat