A bumblebee visits a sunflower at the Woodson Wildlife Area west of Yates Center, operated by the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism.

TORONTO — Chari “Adelaide” Bauman is zany for zebus. And to showcase her passion, she’s just published a children’s book, “Zara the Zebu.” Zara, a miniature zebu, belongs to a young girl named Zeni, but…

The train calls. Do you hear it? Though you can feel it in your bones, that strange magnetic energy that holds you in place despite tons of speeding and unstoppable machinery careening your way. Near…

The afternoon sky was cloudy and dark as I knelt down near the base of the Bressner Pasture waterfall in Woodson County. A gurgle of bubbles bounced from the tangle of sandstone boulders, and a…

A warm spring wind was bending the wild plum trees, scattering small white petals, when I arrived at the former Lily Church corner in Woodson County. Constructed in 1896, and sharing a circuit with Salem…

Standing between the Pleasant Valley cemetery and schoolhouse in southern Woodson County, I lost myself in the immensity of the sky. Always looking, looking … but for what? According to the sign above the doorway,…

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always loved dinosaurs, fossils and all things prehistoric. And believe it or not, Kansas is home to some of the most spectacular fossil discoveries in U.S. history, especially…

The pioneer life was often nothing short of impossible. One, for instance, need only examine the brief lifespans of pregnant women and children during this time, to get a sense for the difficulty of merely…

A new year presents an opportunity to see things with new eyes. If it seems like nothing in life here is about the business of changing, perhaps one might find the way forward with a…

Is it possible to come home and rediscover it? When I returned to Kansas last year after almost two decades of absence, never would I have thought that learning about the place I was from…