Opinion

Hello to all of you Marshall Mountain Wave readers and greetings from the Jewel of the Ozarks, Leslie Arkansas. It seems as though we are headed headlong into Fall. The Autumnal Equinox was on Sunday Which marks when the days are getting shorter. It all seems to happen so fast the shift in seasons. One day you are sweating it out in the heat of Summer and then like someone has flipped a switch and all of a sudden pow it is Fall. The temperature has gotten much cooler, and the leaves are falling, and pumpkin spice lattes are available. We went from mowing the yard to needing to rake the yard. If raking the yard is the price I have to pay for cooler temperatures then so be it. We did get some much-needed rain which did beat a lot of leaves out of the trees. We did not get much rain, but when we got rain it was very heavy rain.

Fall bird migration By the time you read this information it will be a week old, but nonetheless amazing. For tonight, flying over Searcy County, there have been 2,239,400 birds heading south, and it’s only 11 at night. Just now, there are 769,100 in the air over our county. If that doesn’t wow you, I don’t know what it would take. They start up half an hour or so after sunset, peaking about now. The average speed is 23 mph and the altitude about 2400 feet. Other than geese, I never hear migrating birds, but the bird scientists from Cornell University have a system of both listening and radar that comes up with these numbers and knows who is flying overhead. Tonight, we have cat birds and blue-gray gnatcatchers, wood pewees and Philadelphia vireos, and several birds that you have to love birds to even know exist.

Tuesday night writing the news, don’t know if I’ve written about it in the news earlier or not having to write for the news earlier and it make it late news. Guess you know half of 2024 is almost over.

Hello to all of you Marshall Mountain Wave readers and greetings from the Jewel of the Ozarks. Leslie, Arkansas. Oh my it has been hot, very hot, brutally hot and did I mention it is hot. Even at night it is hot and in the mornings it is still hot or at least very warm and not the refreshingly cool mornings that we enjoy and are spoiled to often. I say spoiled because we have really mild weather a lot here in Leslie it is just that the Winter and Summer months can seem a little long and brutal. We are now at the brutal part of Summer when it is just hot.

Start of August I have just enough self-control to not complain of the blistering heat, the humidity, the lack of rain for at least another week. That’s especially remarkable, given that I just got run in by the heat at 7:30 in the evening by a heat index of 97 while I was dragging around a garden hose. This column, instead of complaints, will just be taking stock of where we are in our garden year, coming into August. The tomatoes have been going a little nut.

Letter to Editor: I would like to thank all of my sponsors and donations to my music fest on April 2, 3, 4. All of my Searcy County friends and others, thank you very much.

Dear Editor, A BIG heartfelt thank you to Tommy Keeling, Bro Shane Warden and Hensley's Cemetery Care in the recent service and burial of our precious brother, Claude Goodman, Jr. He was buried in the Stone Cemetery in Tomahawk on Jan 23rd on a road hard to travel during an ice storm. It was single digit weather and ice everywhere. Heavy rain was predicted for the next week with flooding! The weather was so bad, it was questionable if Claude's burial would even happen that day!

Every Monday, From 9-? A service Officer from the VFW, American Legion, and Disabled Veteran will be at the Veteran’s Memorial Hall to help veterans with situations they need help with. .

Are you ready to improve your health? Have you decided it is time to start exercising? The Extension Get Fit program from the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service can help! • Meet for an hour twice a week! Tuesday and Thursday at Searcy County Senior Center 9:30a.m. • 12-week program-Focuses on increasing strength, flexibility, and balance-Must be 18 years or older to participate • ONLY $20 for the whole year.