Monarch butterflies traveling from Joplin to Mexico this year will be accompanied by cyclist Sara Dykman (32) from Kansas. Dykman left Mexico last March with overwintering colonies and has traveled north into Canada and will return with them to Mexico. She calls it “Butterbiking with the butterflies.”

Are you a fisherman or fisherwoman? Do you spend time down at the creek tossing stones or maybe watching your kids frolic in the cool water on these too hot days? Maybe you enjoy the “Lazy River” approach and load nine of your closest friends into a rubber raft along with coolers, speakers, and a big screen T.V. for a day long float.  Whichever way you enjoy the streams and rivers of Southwest Missouri, I am here to tell you that you might be missing out on something, and I need your help to keep it going.

t has been said that nature is comparable to the arts… to truly appreciate or ignite a continuing lifelong pursuit of understanding the arts, we must start with the pretty.  Perhaps to understand the process of the art’s inspiration or the intricate life assemblages in each ecosystem, they too have a common core by the need for study beyond the “pretty”.

Earth Day at Noel Primary School in McDonald County is a full day event, thanks to the support of the school’s principal, Dr. Deborah Pearson. She prepares months ahead of time, lining up events and speakers for the activities of this special day.

Before the water in the streams and rivers warms enough to attract the flotillas of music and fermented beverages and just after the turtles emerge from their mysterious winter homes still covered in a second shell of grit and mud a little known and rarely seen ritual begins to play out in the fastest stretches of our aqueous, summer playgrounds.

This is a special time of year for me and I hope for everyone else, too.  As I drive through town or on the highway, the many colors catch my eye.  I especially love the dogwood trees in full bloom and then you have that bright splash of magenta of the redbuds, which seem to scream “Look at Me!”.

Very few people pick yellow as their favorite color, but I find I cannot live without it.  After all, yellow is the color of the sun, and we cannot live without the sun. But, actually all this talk about yellow and forsythia bushes is really to give me a reason to talk about another subject near to my heart – pollinators.