All Activity

Sitting at farm on generator tonite. Long path out of Van Buren did a touchdown again 1/2 mile down road. Totalled a house and went off into MDC land. Crossed and hit campground on Castor. Poplar Bluff whacked pretty good. Clearwater Lake area under curfew tonite from damage there. I had some quarter size hail, no damage on farm. Power will be off a few days.

Irish soda bread with cranberries Guinness beef stew over some Champ (mashed taters with onions) An annual tradition here

The foresters always look at marketable timber and burn scars hurt the $ value of a forest. What they didn't always realize is that the longer between burns, the more fuel is accumulated and the greater the damage. Every year burns would prevent almost all fire damage, but would have so little fuel that it would be hard to keep the fire going, three years has just about the right amount of fuel for a sustained fire with minimum damage, and that is slowly being taught to the state foresters, younger ones learn faster than the people that grew up with Smokey. I think that if we had a time machine and went back to about 1800 that we'd find very little timber across the Ozarks by comparison to today. My grandfather told me that when he was a boy, 1890s, all this local forest was savanna, and that his father told him it was almost all prairie during the Civil War. When Henry Schoolcraft explored the Ozarks 1818 he is said to have carried a packhorse load of campfire wood with him because of distance between stands of trees.

12 dead at this point from last night, but there's tonight's storms in SEMO. Clinton had maybe 20 minutes of thunderstorm that knocked a few limbs down and washed the 4Runner enough that the following winds blowing smoke and dust covered it.

Finally talked to someone with MDC that was for taking care of Wildlife. He was all for burning the Timber every 3 years. He said most of them think they have to protect the timber and think this good for Wildlife. oneshot

Jeff they catch american and hickory shad in the St Johns river system.

Didn't know they ran in FL, that would give me an excuse to make a Feb. trip down there.

I go on this website/forum every year to track shad catches from FL to CT. Fishing Log | Shad Fishing Maybe when I retire, I would like to fish for shad starting in Feb in FL and catch them all along the eastern seaboard as the spawn runs proceed northward ending up in NH or ME in June(?)

Old timers used to burn parts of the land every three years on rotation to prevent worse fires and to promote grass and wild berries. And March was usually when they burned. So if 1/3 of the Ozarks is burning, that's just about right. Huckleberries need fires and blackberries, raspberries like fires. Three years more or less fits their cycle and doesn't allow too much accumulation of fuel, fire prevention is bad for healthy forestland. Smokey Bear should be skinned and made into a rug. Try not to pick a wind storm day to burn though, as you do want to contain the burn.

For one time I'm glad it went around us. oneshot

Thinking of going to Montauk have they got it fixed back up. Are the fish of good size? Thinking of going down. oneshot

Now its ten confirmed dead in Missouri from the storms. 😕

There were gusts of heavy wind coming straight down out of the sky here. I don't think I've ever witnessed that before 🤔 Blowing up huge clouds of dust, sticks, and gravel. And the wakes coming off the lake were pretty scary, I darn sure wouldn't have wanted to be out there trying to get anywhere. Thankfully no damage to anything that can't be fixed easily 👍

I had shingles flying off the house before the storms even started. Got a big dent in a fender when the basketball goal was pushed into it. BB goal has been there for over twenty years and this is the first time it’s ever blown over. But my stuff is tiny compared to what others went through.

I fished it Thursday from Lucy Smith Hollow to the confluence with the White. Visibility was 1-1.5' with greenish color. There was some wood debris including some logs so you had to be careful. Water temps 53.5 to 56.2. I scratched out 6 shorts on a Ned. It was really tough but then I suck at fishing this lake. I enjoy it and love the lake, but it regularly humbles me. 😀

Wife made regular Milk Gravy today. I told her she could still make Hemp Milk Hemp is really good for a person and we still have bunch of seed. oneshot

Good report, nice to hear from guys fishing Bull.

I cannot blame them.

We got wind and small hail. I haven’t been out to check stuff yet.

That's crazy!

I got a call last night around 9 PM. It started with "Take shelter now", it was a St Louis alert though and why it called me is a head scratcher.

Confederate loss of the battle of Five Forks was partially blamed on General George Pickett being away on a shad bake: "When George Pickett accepted Rosser’s invitation to what would become a terribly infamous shad bake, it was regional rite of spring for tidewater Virginians. It was just after the shad run has been made and so the local tradition was in process. Pickett, probably desperate for a hot meal and a little relaxation after many stressful months, eagerly accepted the invitation. For this, it’s hard to retroactively blame the man, even with the union so close. He was an experienced commander and should have known what was coming. However, that he failed to tell anyone in his camp where he would be is slightly hard not to judge. He did not tell his second in command nor any other soldier that he’d be in Rosser’s camp, which has been hypothesized as trying not to deplete the shad. While Pickett was enjoying his shad and probably a few beverages, Warren attacked. The full assault occurred without Pickett and, since he had failed to tell anyone where he was going, nobody could find him. Also, between Rosser’s camp and Five Forks there was a thick forest that dampened the sound. So nobody in Rosser’s camp knew what was happening. By the time they (he and Pickett) were alerted, there was nothing they could do. By the time Pickett got to his men, nearly a half of them were wounded, dead, or captured. In concert with the Third Battle of Petersburg the following day, Lee was forced to abandon Petersburg, which led to the capture of Richmond and surrender of his army on April 9 at Appomattox."

How are our St. Louis OA area members doing, Check in and let us know you are OK. Five dead in Missouri from that big line of storms. To the east when it fires up again today the weather scale is a five out of five rating. the rating has only been issued twice before. Batten down the hatches it's going to get bumpy out there. Crying wolf you say? What is that saying? Take that ounce of prevention.

We are blessed to have landowners as friends. Treat your friends right and they do the same for you. Just do a drive by these folks and say hi and ask how are you all doing, see some livestock out and if you can run them back in do it. We do this often here just down the road several times a year. If we can't get that done give them a call and then assist. You reap what you sow. I guess we are beyond blessed.

A "funny story", when I lived in the east, I had been there 8-10 years and was an avid fly fisher when one of the national fishing magazines did a feature story about fly fishing (using "shad darts") for shad as they made their spawning run up a river three miles from my house, and before reading that article I had not been aware that anyone ever fly fished that river or that it was a "destination". In the past the shad had been so numerous there that a shad processing factory had stood there. I had heard of the "Shad Factory Pond" and knew that salt anglers dip netted bait fish there. After reading that, I did stop there a few times each year until we moved, but I never caught it when the shad were active; I did talk to guys that had caught them and they said that if anyone shouts 'fish on' that everyone else should reel up and get out of the water as the shad tend to make several long fast runs and the angler would have to chase it. Since that time the shad have declined to the point that the last time I checked, likely 20 years ago, there was doubt that shad were still returning there. Shad are said to have been George Washington's favorite food, and may have saved his troops from starvation.