Outdoors

User Test Review of the Groundskeeper II Rake 55”

Hands-on review of the Groundskeeper II Rake 55” As an owner and user of dozens of gardening and gardening tools, including at least six other rakes, I have found the Groundskeeper II rake to be a very useful addition to my tool shed. This rake has a very unique design in the shape of a tine and is very light and easy to use. With a little pressure, you can pull up the dead grass and lift it enough to breathe the dormant grass. The rake is not really meant as a fine blade grass rake as there is … Read More

How and Why you should Manually Aerate your Lawn

Aeration is a lawn care method designed to create openings in the lawn and the underlying soil structure and penetrate layers of roots and thatch. This allows essential water and air to penetrate the soil and make it easier to reach the grassroots. This process is often referred to as “core aeration” after a small plug or core has been removed from the ground. Why Aeration is good for your lawn Aeration is a solution to highly compressed soils that are planted on high-traffic lawns and soils with high clay content. It is rarely needed if the soil is … Read More

Why handicap target practice?

Not long ago I was invited by a shooting club in my hometown to give a talk on shooting safety to a group of young people who were being trained in target shooting. What these kids had learned about shooting consisted entirely of the basic fundamentals of sighting, gun stance, holding and squeezing the trigger, and the typical gun safety routine. It was all good and essential for a novice. In fact, after watching their maneuvers and different shooting positions, I told the instructor frankly that there remained little that I could tell the students that would benefit them … Read More

The beautiful Red Squirrels

The red squirrel is a furbearer that has already made its own introduction if you’re one who can justly claim woods experience anywhere in the woods from Colorado to Alaska, from Florida to California. That could hardly be said of any other native mammal. Weasel, deer, fox, and rabbit try to escape being noticed and may succeeding doing so for weeks, even where they are fairly popular. Even the omnipresent little white-footed mouse prefers to hide whenever possible. Not so, the Chickaree, as Red is also known. They are quite apt to court attention and will actually scold till … Read More

A disaster strikes while fishing for a Musky

The sun, barely peeking over the contour of the forest, found me and my friend already uploading the pontoon with sandwiches and fishing tackle and clamping on the outboard motor. My buddy started at a slow pace but opened throttle after he was convinced of the boat’s stability. We were going to Nestor Falls for more provisions. The trip between our outpost camp at Kishkutena Lake, Ontario, and Nestor Falls is about twenty-five miles, and because five small portages interrupt the waterway, we decided to use a pontoon and out the five-horsepower motor. The pontoon would be much easier … Read More

The ring-tailed cat — a curious member of the raccoon family

Probably one of the least known but very interesting animals in the US is the Cacomixtle or Bassasisk as it is called by the Aztec Indians of Mexico. It is recognized by trappers from California and Oregon across the southern states to Texas and Louisiana as plain old Ring-tail. Although related to the raccoon, the rather rare little ringtailed cat is smaller. With its long slim body, it resembles the marten but is easily identified by the seven white bands along its black and brown tail. The ring-tail averages about thirty inches in length, with the tail being about … Read More

The peculiar story of Albino Mammals

If you’re fascinated with albinos, there is a single good book published on this topic. That is “Albino Animals” by Kelly Milner Halls. Albino animals Tracing a backward course of existence far into the prehistoric eras of veiled mystery, albino mammals and birds perhaps always have existed in Nature’s marvelous web — astounding mutations with tenacious powers of singular repetition throughout the ages. Sometimes there are outstanding individuals exquisitely breathtaking in their ghostly liveliness. Curious wild creatures that have been only partially touched by the wand that magically creates pure white when closely related family members wear conventional coats … Read More

Lake of the Ozarks fishing report 2019

If you’re an avid angler, you’ve probably fished one of the famous Ozarks lakes or streams one day in the past. You might’ve come away disappointed because you failed to catch your limit. That’s the thing Oklahoma, Missouri, and Arkansas are trying to avoid. And if you’d like to revisit your old spot, nine times out of ten you wouldn’t go away disappointed a second time. What’s happening to fishing in the Ozarks shows the tremendous interest shown in this natural, scenic, fisherman’s paradise. Make sure you’ve got solid equipment for your trip. Here’s what I’m using: Missouri has … Read More

A Roadtrip to Alaska

Round this time of year, plenty of people in the US are thinking about a trip to Alaska by the Alaskan Highway. Many tourists come back home enthusiastic, swearing to return as soon as they can. Others returned disillusioned, having expected something way different than what they found because of lack of knowledge or because the source of their knowledge was inaccurate. My aim in writing this article is to set forth expectations as the reality is. The scope To start, few stateside visitors realize the sheer size of the territory. For instance, if a map of Alaska were … Read More

Fishing for the Great Northern Pike

This fish is the true pike, often called white-spotted pickerel. I knew an ichthyologist who tried to change this by introducing a plain-colored type of muskellunge under the name of “Great Northern Pike.” The result was that fishermen fell upon this person from all directions and raised particular hob because he had attempted to juggle their known and popular nomenclature to suit his own whim. This white-spotted great northern pike is apparently the identical fish that inhabits freshwater lakes and streams all over Europe and Asia as well as here. At least no success has crowned any attempt to … Read More

Big game you should be aware of — cougar hunting in America

They call him “the killer!” And yet, by many, he is considered a coward. However, his choice to elude a pack of hounds and a gun-bearing hunter does not necessarily condemn him as cowardly. If such were the case, most wild animals could be classified as such. Cougar, panther, catamount, or just plain lion, for pure unadulterated violence is equaled by few. True, he is a killer, many times taking advantage of domestic animals, but unless there is a tremendous scarcity of wild game, the hunter has little to fear from the cougar. Generally, where the cougar is abundant, … Read More