As summer’s heat ebbs and fall approaches, it is a great time to revitalize the garden. Just about anything that grows well in spring will also grow well in the cooler temperatures of fall. Direct seeding of greens such as lettuce, arugula, chard, kale and spinach now will provide a harvest beginning in late October […]
Carey Smith
In addition to freelance writing, Carey Smith also manages the Enos Park Neighborhood Gardens. She's a big fan of trees, prairies, board and card games, her family, and assorted nerd-out topics like soil science, archaeology and systems thinking. She loves living in the Enos Park neighborhood.
Posted inArts & Culture
A generous community
“I can’t work on a vaccine, but I can give what I have,” says Cecelia Wendler, a Springfield resident who has been regularly fulfilling requests posted to the Springfield Families Helping Families Facebook (SFHF) group. “It’s the immediacy of stepping in; it’s very in-the-moment. It gives a sense of the lived concern for everyone in […]
Posted inSpecial Issues
Art around town
With the coronavirus at the forefront of our minds and lives, art lovers of Springfield are still keen to experience what art offerings are available and to support the artists who make them happen. “Due to COVID, we are implementing protocols to keep everyone as safe as possible,” says Art Spectacular coordinator Connie Heskett, a […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The show will go on
For city kids, the Illinois State Fair provides a rare glimpse into rural life. A walk by the barns often shows a livestock farmer in action, mucking out stalls and tending to animals. “Want to milk a cow? Here ya go kid, grab hold and squeeze.” Though it takes practice, most of us get the […]
Posted inSpecial Issues
Breastfeeding beautifully
There are many health benefits to breastfeeding, and new mothers are encouraged and assisted more than ever. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than half of American babies are breastfed through six months of age, and more than a third are breastfed until at least a year old. Mollie Ringer […]
Posted inOpinion
Blood money
Plasma is already widely used for a variety of life-saving medical procedures, and it’s now being tried as a possible means of treating COVID-19 patients. However, plasma cannot be reproduced in a lab – only the human body can produce it. That means identifying willing donors, and in the U.S., paying for plasma as a […]
Posted inSpecial Issues
Giving birth during a pandemic
Birth is normally a happy time of ecstatic anticipation for many women and their families, but this can be a scary prospect in the age of a global pandemic. Though we in central Illinois have been fortunate with social distancing and less population density to escape the full ravages of COVID-19 (i.e., hospitals being overwhelmed), […]
Posted inSpecial Issues
The buzz on urban bees
Urban beekeeping is a growing trend. It may seem odd to many to keep bees in an urban area, but bees in cities are actually more likely than rural bees to survive the winter as well as Colony Collapse Disorder (the main culprit of bee decline). This is due to the more varied diet and […]
Posted inSpecial Issues
Victory gardens
In unsettled times, people often turn to gardening, not only to provide for peace of mind, but also the sense of security that growing one’s own food can nurture. A backyard garden can create a place of tranquility and calm, putting hands into earth and observing biological life going about their animal ways free of […]
Posted inSpecial Issues
Time to declutter
Time is usually the biggest factor limiting our ability to declutter, but one of the silver linings of the COVID-19 epidemic is that we finally have time to do big projects. So tackle the garage, the basement or overflowing closets. The steps to decluttering and then organizing are the same for large projects and small. […]
Posted inOpinion
Prescription for a sick economy
COVID-19 is making the rounds. This global chaos has shifted our sense of normalcy, with our public lives mostly cancelled or postponed. The ramifications may vary, though epidemiologists opine we are 10-14 days behind Italy, and if we want to see our future, we should look there. A global epidemic is upon us. We as […]
Posted inSpecial Issues
You don’t seem autistic to me: The female experience
In the 1940s, it was believed that women could not be on the autism spectrum. In the 1980s, the ratio of men to women on the spectrum was 15:1. By 2015, that ratio was revised to 3:1, indicating behavioral science has progressively increased its ability to understand and detect how autism is expressed by women. […]
