Kansans struggling to cover high utility bills and energy costs may qualify for free upgrades to make their homes more energy efficient. The assistance, made available through the state’s Weatherization Assistance Program, improves heating and cooling efficiency and saves energy by ensuring homes hold in heat and air conditioning while keeping hot and cold air out.
Ah, the exuberance of youth! A couple years back, I trapped coyotes for a couple weeks before deer firearms season in early December, with the poorest results since I was a beginning trapper. Meanwhile a young lad I mentored the year before continued to send me picture after picture of coyotes and bobcats he was catching. In the 2 ½ weeks I trapped, I caught only 5 coyotes and had to leave 4 properties because the landowners fenced them for grazing or knifedin nitrogen while I had traps there. I also seemed to enjoy trapping coyotes less that year than I can ever remember because the ground was so terribly hard and dry, making it miserable to get traps anchored in the cement-like soil and making it nearly necessary to extract them from the ground without a crane.
Winter is the best time of the year for spotting bald eagles. Of Kansas’ 28 state parks, 23 are situated near reservoirs, lakes or rivers, where eagles winter to feed on waterfowl and fish.
The Allegawaho Memorial Heritage Park is an interesting side trip that you can take in a journey along the Flint Hills Nature Trail or perhaps incorporate into a stay in nearby Council Grove. Besides a two-mile hiking trail, the park features the remains of the Kaw (aka Kansa) Agency headquarters building as well as stone housing provided by the US government for members of the Kansa tribe to live in before they were forcibly removed to Oklahoma in 1873.
I was sitting on my front porch south of Pratt last week, seeking relief from work anxieties and trying to enjoy the sun after several days of winter cold when a shadow caused me to look up. Right there, hovering on a soft breeze just above me, was a bald eagle!
This past summer, President Biden said that he was going to fix the supply chain. In December of 2021, his solution on fixing the trucking part of the supply chain became public. Have you not heard of it?
Recently at Sunday Mass, the families with young children from wee babies to school age gave me some real comfort for our future. Now I am sure those moms and dads are not going to agree with me and I do remember what it was like to have young children in church, but now as I see our young parents and precious little ones, it’s a new perspective.
TREES Dutch Elm Disease Resistant American Elms Our John C. Pair Horticultural Center near Wichita established a National Elm Trial in 2007 with 18 cultivars.
TOPEKA – Governor Laura Kelly, today, announced the launch of the Building a Stronger Economy (BASE) program. BASE is a new grant opportunity to help support infrastructure development and advance economic development opportunities across Kansas.
This week the Kansas Senate and House of Representatives both passed the “Ad Astra 2” Congressional map as part of the every-10-years redistricting process that is happening across the nation. Depending on what you read or listened to, this map was either the best solution possible or a flat-out gerrymander, with little opinions in between. The League of Women Voters of Kansas (LWVK) does not support the Ad Astra 2 Congressional map due to issues that go beyond these talking points. We believe the best and fairest districts are based on input from the people who reside in them and the process of drawing Ad Astra 2 did not take that into consideration to the extent possible. We also never learned how this map was created or why decisions were made. A map created behind closed doors should not be allowed to guide our state’s future.