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The Missouri Department of Conservation raised the daily limit of squirrels to 10 over a year ago. There may be plenty in some areas but they are scarce in others. I took my first serious trip to the woods last Saturday and I did see three of the bushy tailed animals. I shot two of them and didn’t get to retrieve either of them. The first one was in a small hickory and at the crack of the gun, it started to fall and lodged in a small fork of the limb just below. I checked every angle to figure some way to get it out but it was stuck to where there was no way that I could dislodge

Damon Secoy and Terry Shands from East Prairie, MO with some big, blue catfish from Ohio River near Cairo, IL Seasons are subjective. For instance, my 9-year old son has proclaimed Thursday to be the end of summer, because that is when he re-enters public school and we get to attempt to decipher the 4th grade version of every parent's favorite paradoxical enigma, the Common Core curriculum... (Digression beckons, but I suppose that rant has no business in the outdoor column, so we'll move on.) For me, September 1 marks the end of summer, or more significantly the beginning of fall, because that is the date when the first legitimate hunting season opens. Officially, the end of summer is on the

Colonel Sanders was “over the hill” at age 80 when he started Kentucky Fried Chicken. I’m over 80 now and re-starting my weekly outdoor column. I have never given a complete story about my outdoor activities, so as a start of this new writing experience, this is how it all began and developed as my life took several turns along the way as almost everyone’s has. Following after my dad, my first hunting remembrance is of going rabbit hunting after a snowfall when I was probably four years old. I had to walk in dad’s boot prints to keep my footwear from getting wet. That hunt produced some squirrels that a dog, who joined us after we got in the

Photo: LTC Scott Allen, Josh Gowan and Josh "Crow" Crowley with a king mackerel from the Gulf of Mexico The iconic family vacation, an escape from the familiar scenery and brain-numbing doldrums of our day jobs, when we lock up the home front and pack enough food and luggage (and in my case fishing gear) to start a new civilization on a deserted tropical island. Of course, any hopes of starting anew and populating our own little piece of paradise were dashed when we realized we were all related, so procreation was out of the question, and we burned through (pun intended) all 8 bottles of 50 SPF sunscreen by Wednesday! Mexico Beach, part of the "Forgotten Coast" on the

Above photo: Danielle Berry, Murray Hammond and Sarah Chaffin     When my family moved back to my husband, Brian’s, hometown of Williamsville four years ago, my wise farmer father-in-law, Jim Becker, encouraged me to get involved in the community garden located right next door to the house. The soil was so rich he grew sweet potatoes the size of an infant! As that first Williamsville winter slowly faded into spring, I thought I’d give it a shot. With memories of beautiful gardens I witnessed growing up in Wisconsin, I chose a plot, designed my garden with the help of GrowVeg.com and started some plants from seed. That first year was an eye-opening foray into the very difficult, albeit rewarding,