Twenty one thousand years ago two-thirds of Ohio was covered with a thick layer of ice from the Wisconsin glacier. In what would later be Fairfield County, two adjacent knobs made of Blackhand sandstone successfully resisted this glacial onslaught. Instead of engulfing these knobs, the ice sheet flowed around them on its southward journey that stopped just short of the Hocking Hills. Today they're known as Allen and Ruble knobs, and they're the main attraction of the 88 acre Shallenberger State Nature
Read more ➜
All the squirrels that I am featuring today are Eastern Gray Squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis). Although my focus is going to be on unusually colored squirrels, lets start by taking a look at some normally colored ones. I believe that these squirrels look gray because their fur includes a random mixture of black and white hairs. There are brown hairs, too, but the amount of brown varies greatly among individuals. Nonetheless you can count on the underside of a gray squirrel being Read more ➜ 
Malabar Farm State Park was once the home of Louis Bromfield (1896 – 1956). He was a novelist and screenplay writer. His very first novel (The Green Bay Tree) was a critical and commercial success. His third novel (Early Autumn) won Bromfield a Pulitzer Prize. He was good friends with movie star, Humphrey Bogart (deemed to be the greatest, male film star of all time by the American Film Institute). When Bogart and Lauren Bacall were making their wedding plans, Bromfield offered them the use of 
Interest in archery has soared since with the release of the movie The Hunger Games with its bow wielding heroine Katniss Everdeen. The archery competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics has also highlighted the sport. If you'd like to hone your bow and arrow skills without paying fees to use an archery range, consider making use one of the state's many public ranges.
Photo courtesy of Jerry Feist, license: CC BY 2.0
We recently visited a public archery range at the Delaware State Wildlife 
I really like how color-coordinated the insect and flower are in the photo below. Prior to taking that photograph I had never seen that particular insect. There's such an astounding number of insect species that I find it really difficult to identify new species. But then I discovered BugGuide.net.
BugGuide.net helps people identify bugs that occur in the United States or Canada. To use their online guide, click on the drawing of the insect that most looks like your insect. This will 
If you hike in Ohio, sooner or later you'll run into poison ivy or poison sumac. Probably sooner than later. They produce an irritating resin called urushiol that can produce a strong allergic reaction on contact in most people. The resin is found in all portions of the plant. Merely touching the plant can result in a rash and blisters within a few days.
Poison Ivy
Poison ivy (toxicodendron radicans) is often found in wooded areas as either a ground cover or as a climbing vine clinging