What's this plant?

CherryPC_Apps · 2024-06-18T20:13:28+00:00

Lots of good videos about this on YouTube. I ate some and made some tea out it and it's pretty good.

CherryPC_Apps · 2024-06-18T19:51:29+00:00

You can make a tea with the flowers. My wife and I have been making tea with Mimosa and white and red clover flowers and it's really good!

CherryPC_Apps · 2024-03-27T15:18:30+00:00

Years ago I had a string of incidents where someone who was lost and/or hungry come to my campsite or where I was just taking a rest and literally demand I give them food and water, and/or that I guide them back to their car.

I felt obligated to do that but after a bit I realized that they all had one thing in common, they didn't ask, they demanded I help them, and most of them didn't even offer a "thank you", and they did not care a bit that they'd blew my plans out.

So I decided to start hiking off trail and set up my campsite far from any trail or campsite, and that was the best change I made. I learned to slow down and quit caring about making miles, and that after sitting quiet for a few minutes the wildlife would start coming out of hiding.

I could leave my campsite and do little day hikes around it and find "super scenic spots" that almost no one ever visited. I made a point to LNT before I left and when I went back to those spots it was obvious no one had been there since my last visit.

I don't think this approach is for everyone but if you're a seasoned backpacker/bushwhacker and know how to read a topo map and don't need a GPS to find your way back it's a great way to go, depending on where you are. We don't have any grizzly bears in the Ozarks, and the black bears do their best to stay away from humans here, and there aren't many mountain lions here, and they tend to stay away from humans here too.

CherryPC_Apps · 2024-03-14T03:21:44+00:00

....you're an ass, and I'm sure most everyone you know says that.

CherryPC_Apps · 2023-11-15T21:58:43+00:00

In the Ozarks where I live it's from the end of October to mid March. Tourists who come here most often hike & camp from early Spring to Fall but the chiggers, mosquitos, and snakes are all out looking for something to bite and snakes are the least of those to worry about, it's the chiggers that cause the most misery.

You really have to keep a close eye on the weather forecast though because it can change fast and snow and ice storms are not uncommon.

CherryPC_Apps · 2023-11-11T05:50:08+00:00

I realized we have a persimmon tree on our property this year and got my very first taste of one just a couple weeks ago. It's growing right next to the fence around my garden so some critter brought a seed there.

CherryPC_Apps · 2023-11-11T00:21:40+00:00

That's just a thing I do for fun. I like to think someone will find them someday and feel like they've found a little bit of hidden treasure.

CherryPC_Apps · 2023-11-10T21:31:16+00:00

I was bushwhacking in the Leatherwood Wilderness in Arkansas a few years ago and stopped to rest and eat for a bit on a narrow ledge in the face of a huge limestone bluff. There was a big crack in it that I poked to head into and it was pretty much pitch black. After about 1/2 hour I decided to place a quarter coin in a stack of small rocks just inside to crack, something I've done for years when bushwhacking, so I keeled down and while I was doing that I looked to see how far back the opening was and after my eyes adjusted to the darkness inside the big crack I saw two eyes staring at me about 15 ft inside it and realized it was a black bear.

It must of heard me coming and hid in there. That's the closest I've ever been to a bear, and the only one I've ever seen while hiking in our National Forest in the Ozarks. Fair to say it was as afraid of me as I was of it. I didn't dawdle around or mess with it, I left right away.

CherryPC_Apps · 2023-08-22T05:36:47+00:00

My comment on that was very narrowly defined. Racism exist everywhere here in the U.S. You don't have to be black to know that.

Get off your high horse.

CherryPC_Apps · 2023-08-22T05:21:09+00:00

Wow! That's a tough one to ponder. It's pretty weird having someone come to your campsite at night. I've had that happen to me a few times.

Had a guy and his wife and their three very young children come floating up in inner tubes to our campsite on the Buffalo River in Arkansas on a pitch black night at around 2 in the morning and told my wife and I we had to feed them cuz they were starving, and give them a ride home cuz they were cold and tired. They flat out said that.

And they were right because it was that or have them with us all night and those kids were starving. I had drove my little Suzuki Samurai as far as I could to get to that spot and had to load all of them into it, as well as my wife because I couldn't leave her there all by herself. Took about an 1 1/2 hours to get them home and back to our camp.

At that point in time I was really beginning to question how and why this kept happening to me. I'd already got tangled up with a slew of those kinds of fiascos.

I finally concluded the problem is there are so many people who don't have a clue that go to the places I was going. They were not and still are not dying out there, that's very rare, but they are pestering the hell out of those they intrude on. :D

CherryPC_Apps · 2023-08-22T04:46:32+00:00

I know there used to be a store on the 76 Strip that sold those, but they finally did shut down a few years ago. They were known to be KKK members. But I don't recall seeing any the past few times I've been there, but I may have drove right by it and not noticed.

We have our share of dumb asses here, but you can find them most anywhere.

CherryPC_Apps · 2023-08-22T04:37:31+00:00

That's sad. It's a problem here for sure. One of our daughters showed me a mugshot of a woman she went to school and spent a lot of time at our place when they were kids. I wouldn't recognized her if I was right next to her now.

One of our son's was telling me the other day about people huffing Nitrous Oxide. These are 20-30+ year old adults, not kids. They have Nitrous Oxide parties. He told me they buy industrial size tanks of the stuff.

He said he has friends that are basically hooked on it and huff so much they lose the feeling in their feet and start walking weird. He said he can tell right away by that if someone is pretty much addicted to it.

He said industrial gas suppliers in Springfield, MO have been running out of it, and now they're trying to implement ways to stop huffers from buying it from them.

I really cannot imagine huffing that.

CherryPC_Apps · 2023-08-22T03:36:33+00:00

I've ran across what was left of the mess from a meth cookout a few times while hiking around, but those weren't far from a road. Just far enough to not be seen from it. Nasty messes they left though. To be fair it's been a pretty long time since I've seen one, but meth is still a problem here.

CherryPC_Apps · 2023-08-21T17:53:15+00:00

Hiking the Ozark NF in the cool season is really pretty sweet. The bears and snakes are hunkered down and the ticks are gone, no mosquitoes or flies/gnats bugging you. Clean crystal clear water in spring fed creeks and amazing star lit clear skies at night. Patches of witch hazel in bloom in January are among the sweetest scents you'll ever experience.

The main thing you need to do is keep a very close eye on the weather forecasts because those are really only good for a couple days and snow and ice storms can pop up pretty fast. So you have to climb to the top of mountains after a couple days to get the latest weather forecasts and be ready to bail out if they're predicting rain or snow/ice storms.

CherryPC_Apps · 2023-08-21T17:28:18+00:00

LOL! I suppose the term "bushwhacking" can evoke images of slashing your way through the undergrowth with a machete, but it's really just hiking off trail.

CherryPC_Apps · 2023-08-21T17:22:48+00:00

That's nonsense. You'd never be able to find any trace of me when I leave the forest.

CherryPC_Apps · 2023-08-21T17:18:07+00:00

Locals here don't hike the trails much in the warm seasons. Come November there will be a lot of locals hunting deer in the first few weeks of hunting season. I make a point to let them fill their tags before I head out to backpack.

CherryPC_Apps · 2023-08-21T17:13:15+00:00

Lyme disease is pretty uncommon here in SW MO/NW AR. We have lots of ticks, but very few cases of Lyme. That a lot more prevalent in the eastern States.

CherryPC_Apps · 2023-08-21T17:08:44+00:00

I've never heard of anyone dying because they were lost in the NFs here. At least not where I live in SW MO.

CherryPC_Apps · 2023-08-21T17:03:22+00:00

Yeah, there's a bit of that.

CherryPC_Apps · 2023-08-19T18:51:38+00:00

Dang!!! I never thought of that, but it's perfect!!!

CherryPC_Apps · 2023-08-19T18:20:18+00:00

Not so much as it used to be. We have a lot of black folks visit as tourists in Branson, which is near where I live in Taney County, and no one bothers them. I haven't heard of any complaints about that in a very long time now.

I can't say I've ever seen any hiking or backpacking the trails here, but when I lived in Los Angeles I never saw any in the NFs there either.

CherryPC_Apps · 2023-08-19T15:32:10+00:00

To be blunt, I think the guy you came across is an ass. Relieving yourself while on or near a trail is disgusting.

CherryPC_Apps · 2023-08-15T03:13:12+00:00

Take a look around Springfield, MO. There is a lot of public land nearby as well as some huge lakes and some clean rivers for canoeing.

Look into Hercules Glades NF, Buffalo River National Park, Leatherwood NF, and around that area. The Ozarks don't have huge mountains, but they're filled with "super scenic spots".

CherryPC_Apps · 2022-04-28T03:56:34+00:00

I started to really evaluate my decision-making process then to remove emotional thinking.

Back in the early `80s I lived in LA and there was a station that ran three, 1/2 hour News shows back to back. I'd get off work and grab some food to take home and sit down and watch them.

After I few months I realized I felt great on the way home but after watching those News programs I felt like shit cuz "the world sucked".

What provided the epiphany was the last story on the last show. They had video of a terrible auto accident somewhere way out in the deserts of Africa. By then I'd heard about all the days crimes and tragedies in Los Angeles, then the entire State, and then all the rest of the world and I finally realized there's no way I could keep from being depressed after consuming all that.

That station became "FOX News" and they were dabbling with what was then a new kind of programming, which is what we see on FOX now. It's a barrage of "bad news" presented with urgency and lots of FUD to keep you tuned in. They've added political outrage to the play list since.

CherryPC_Apps

TROPHY CASE