As the weather turns cold and the animals spend more of their time huddled indoors, the zoo tends to feel a lot quieter. After all, not every family will want to brave the freezing temperatures, especially if the rhino, giraffe, and lion yards are all empty.
Russell Child Development Center will be kicking off the holiday season this week with its annual Fantasy Tree Festival and Holiday Homes Tour, both on Saturday. The Fantasy Tree Festival will be held at the Clarion Inn Convention Center, 1911 E.
The Finney County Health Department did not update numbers on its website last week so the numbers listed are from Nov. 1.
USD 457 will hold a free developmental screening clinic for children three to five years of age, who are Garden City residents, on Friday at the Garfield Early Childhood Center, 121 W. Walnut St.
Thanksgiving is coming soon. For many, one of the stars of the holiday is the turkey.
Winter on the horizon, it may once again be time to restock your firewood pile. The task is simple, and yet, there can actually be a science to it as well. Tree species differ in the heat they produce when burned. Black locust emits a significantly higher amount of heat than cottonwood. Sugar maple emits much more heat than Silver Maple. And all trees share these varying burn temperatures. So, which is best, and which should be avoided?
If you have walked around Wild Asia at Lee Richardson Zoo, you have undoubtedly seen the large grey birds with the red heads, our Sarus cranes. In fact, you may have heard them calling before you spotted them! A Sarus crane call can be heard nearly two miles away.
Thanksgiving is a few weeks away and planning ahead is always your best bet. By planning your menu early and shopping for your needed groceries when they are on sale will help keep your stress level and the expenses lower than if you didn’t take the time to plan. The USDA offers many helplines to get you through your holiday meals and I will list them in this column, but first let’s get busy by asking ourselves a few simple questions. First, how do you decide on the turkey? Well, that depends upon if you want to purchase a fresh or frozen bird and how big of a bird that you want. Either way, plan on purchasing a bird that isn’t bigger than what your refrigerator can hold. A fresh bird will need to be kept cold until you are ready to cook it and you should only purchase it about one to two days in advance. A frozen bird can be purchased at any time ahead of the holiday, but it needs to have enough time to thaw and the best method of doing this is in your refrigerator. If you don’t get it in the refrigerator in time, you can use the cold water thawing method. Either way, please avoid purchasing a prestuffed turkey.
Hold off before throwing that porch pumpkin into the trash along with Halloween candy wrappers. Those jack-o’-lanterns don’t have to end up in the local landfill. Consider composting pumpkins in the garden, donating them to community gardens, farms or even a zoo, or simply leaving them as a snack for backyard wildlife. Gardeners can add pumpkins to the compost pile after removing any remaining seeds and being sure to cut off decorative material such as glitter, paint, stickers and candle wax. Slice the pumpkin into smaller pieces, scatter and bury them into the pile. And don’t worry if the pumpkin has already started getting moldy — those microorganisms aid the composting process.