If you are outdoors as much as I am, you need to know about the Alpha-Gal Syndrome. This is a pathological condition now being spread by our dear friend, the lone star tick — that tick with the white star on its back. The lone star tick is already responsible for spreading several other nasty…
Last February, we began hearing strange sounds coming outside the bedroom window late at night. These sounds were periodic high-pitched squeals and would be strange sounds for most people, but not for us. This was the beginning of the mating season for red foxes, and we knew exactly what to expect over the…
On May 19, 2023, a fisherman caught a snakehead fish in the Duck Creek Conservation Area, located in Wayne County, Missouri. Three years earlier, another snakehead fish had been caught in Missouri; this time in Dunklin County. Both snakehead fish were found in the St. Francis River watershed. Shortly after the second snakehead…
My first memory of floating in the Missouri Ozarks was in 1944. We were staying at the Alton Club on the Current River and we floated every day, either from Pulltite Springs to the Alton Club, or from the Alton Club to the Highway 19 Bridge. Those were idyllic times—drifting along in 18-foot wooden johnboats…
Just got back from our annual hunting turkey boondoggle in the Missouri Ozarks; this was our 42nd yearly trip. Anyone who has hunted turkey with me in the Ozarks will tell you that I spend an inordinate amount of time looking at the ground when I am on the move while turkey hunting. There…
I am writing this column on the assumption that the readers of the River Hills Traveler enjoy learning about the animals that we encounter in the great outdoors. So here is a column about an animal found in the great outdoors that is literally just under foot for all of us anytime we are outside,…
For years, Marissa Rosentreter of Carrollton, Illinois, would dutifully help her husband, Joel, track deer that he had shot if he needed help finding the deer. Sometimes helping the hubby track a wounded deer in the woods for hours, especially after dark, was not the most fun-filled way to spend an evening with your…
This column is being written on Valentine’s Day and yes, it concerns Valentine’s Day (sort of) but you probably won’t be reading it until at least a week after Valentine’s Day. And yes, it is a column about two “love birds” but they are not human love birds; these love-birds, as it turns out, are…
