Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association

04/07/2026

Just envision a 40(+) foot retaining wall 4-stories tall, as high as Fayetteville’s City Hall, built into the UNSTABLE SHALE SLOPE on the UPHILL east-side of the proposed “New” Ramay practice field. A retaining wall with a maximum height of 32-feet is planned for the DOWNHILL west-side of the practice field.

04/06/2026

There are SIGNIFICANT Safety Concerns with traffic, pedestrians, and cyclists at the "New" Ramay Site in the North Ash Woods.

During the 3-4 PM, March 19, 2026 "New" Ramay Site Tour with the Fayetteville Public School District Contractors, the Fayetteville Planning Commissioners witnessed an east-bound motorcycle/car collision near the top the steep Ash Street hill, traffic gridlock, and school buses unavoidably crossing into the on-coming lane in the sharp turns in the Ash-Walnut- Sycamore corridor.

THE SITE IS THE PROBLEM. "Rethink Ramay!"

03/25/2026

NWADG March 25, 2026 Page 6b

Don’t variances suggest school site’s weakness?

I support education. I support investment in our schools. And I respect the work being done by planners and engineers on complex projects like the proposed Ramay Junior High in Fayetteville.
But after reviewing the Planning Commission materials, I find myself asking a simple question: At what point does the level of design adjustment signal we may be building in the wrong place?
This project requires multiple variances, significant grading on a steep hillside and complex stormwater systems. Key technical elements, including drainage and infrastructure performance, are still to be fully verified at a later stage. None of this means the project cannot be built — but it does suggest a higher level of complexity, cost and long-term responsibility. Future taxpayers will be carrying these costs.
There may be another way forward. What if the school were built on the flatter, already developed land across College Avenue — the existing Woodland Junior High site — where infrastructure and athletic fields are already in place? The forested hillside could then be preserved, potentially through partnership with a local conservation organization such as the Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association.
Students could still access the forest through a pedestrian bridge, allowing it to serve as an outdoor classroom — a living asset rather than a cleared one. This approach could meet educational goals while reducing construction risk, long-term maintenance costs and environmental impact.
This is not a question of whether to build a school. It is a question of placing it where both students and the land can thrive.
Decisions like this shape our city for decades. It is reasonable to ask whether we are choosing the most stable and responsible path forward — and whether a solution exists that honors both education and the natural systems that support our community.
SUSAN MCDONALD Fayetteville

03/18/2026

Your vines and potato crop are failing to mildew that a Victorian mineral mixture stops completely.
What most gardeners spray with petroleum-derived synthetic fungicides that leave systemic residues in fruit tissue and require protective equipment was solved permanently by Victorian and Edwardian kitchen gardeners mixing copper sulfate crystals with hydrated lime and water — producing a completely non-systemic contact fungal preventive that viticulture scientists still consider the most important disease prevention discovery in cultivated fruit history.
Meet Copper Sulfate Bordeaux Mixture Making.
French and British Victorian agricultural records document Bordeaux mixture as the standard mildew, blight, and downy mold preventive from its accidental discovery in Médoc vineyards in 1882 continuously through the twentieth century — the copper-lime contact chemistry preventing fungal spore germination on every treated surface without entering plant tissue.
The particular vivid turquoise-blue color of freshly mixed Bordeaux mixture in a copper spraying vessel — that extraordinary mineral blue that stains every surface it touches and signals the copper chemistry that has protected European vineyards for over a century — is a kitchen garden preparation almost no grower under fifty has ever made from scratch.
Real fruit growers have always known that the oldest mineral solutions are still the most honest ones.
Save this before it's forgotten — and tag someone who grows vines, potatoes, or soft fruit and still reaches for synthetic fungicide spray without knowing what Victorian growers mixed freely from two minerals.
Your vines deserve a copper-lime contact preventive that stopped mildew and blight for Victorian kitchen gardeners without a single petroleum-derived chemical entering their fruit.
Have you ever mixed or used traditional Bordeaux mixture on vines or potatoes?

03/18/2026

You see a dead garden bed.

I see a four-story apartment building.

That brown tangle of dried stems, matted leaves, and hollow stalks you've been meaning to clean up since November is the most densely populated structure in your yard.

Top floor — praying mantis egg cases glued to stems, each holding a hundred or more nymphs. Lady beetle clusters wedged into hollow stalks, dozens of adults per cavity.

Middle floor — chrysalis casings wired to stem joints. Lacewing cocoons tucked into leaf curl pockets. Spider egg sacs in the crooks of branching stems.

Ground floor — bumble bee queens in the first inch of soil, each one the sole survivor of last year's colony. Firefly larvae tunneled beneath the leaf litter. Moth pupae sealed in leaf wraps.

Basement — a toad beside the foundation. Beetle larvae working the decomposing layers.

Full occupancy. Every floor.

The tenants move out on their own schedule — when soil temperatures stay above fifty degrees consistently. Cut the building down before that and the next generation of every species inside it disappears before it starts.

🌿 The cleanup that doesn't cost you anything:

- Leave dead stems standing until late spring — once you see new green growth at the base, the residents have left
- If you need to tidy, cut stems to twelve to fifteen inches and leave them standing rather than pulling
- Move cleared material to a brush pile at the garden edge instead of bagging it — the pile becomes the next shelter
- Leaf litter on the soil is insulation, not mess — it protects the ground floor tenants and feeds your soil as it breaks down

The messiest corner of your yard is the most productive one 🌱

03/18/2026

We thrive on trees! Trees are proven to improve our health, environmental quality, property value, community economics, and more! 🌳
Remember to thank a tree this !
Learn more about the benefits of trees:
https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/communities-thrive-on-trees

03/18/2026

Freedom of speech and the press is critical for preserving democracy with liberty and justice for all of US.

What do you actually want from local journalism?

Northwest Arkansas residents, community leaders, and journalists are invited to a public, facilitated discussion about the future of news in the Natural State.

Join KUAF and Civic Arkansas on April 16 at the Fayetteville Public Library to explore how citizens and the press can strengthen civic engagement together. Refreshments provided.

📅 Thursday, April 16 | 5:30–7pm | Fayetteville Public Library

Free registration at wrinst.org/NWA.

𝘚𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘊𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘤 𝘈𝘳𝘬𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘢𝘴. | 𝘒𝘜𝘈𝘍 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘤𝘰-𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵.

03/18/2026

RIDICULOUS

03/18/2026

Our gentleman, sweetheart, good boy, Dillard was just returned. He is the one who has a tiny hobble in his wobble. It's a permanent thing, but he is happy, good with all others and such a smart boy.

Dillard's adopters returned him because their landlord changed their mind about them having a bigger boy.

Dillard is 52 lbs and around 2-3 years old. He is tall, thin and well mannered. Right now he is in one of our tiny kennels in the front because he has no place to go.

Please consider saving this good boy who is so tolerant of other dogs and loving people. He needs a place with a fenced yard or somewhere he can roam with his family.

We are located at 319 Davidson Drive and are open 10 AM until 5 PM. Please consider saving him or one of our other pups now. We are over capacity and having to make decisions. It's heartbreaking to all of us. Please come make a difference in a dog's life. They will certainly make a difference in yours.

03/13/2026

FYI - FPSD Board Member Ivonne Hudson’s husband is CEO of Specialized Real Estate Group (SREG). SPEG and the FPSD Board have plans to build an elementary school at the DRAKE STREET development, a recommended location which the FPSD Board REFUSED to consider for the “New” Ramay site.

The developers behind the mixed-use Drake Farms project hope to have residents move in by the end of the year.

03/13/2026

They are back 😭

03/07/2026

The most effective pest control in gardening costs $4 and takes 30 seconds to install. It's a broken terracotta pot. In the shade. That's it.

🐸 What one toad does for your garden

American Toads eat about 100 insects per night. Every night from April through October — roughly 200 nights per season. One toad removes around 20,000 insects per year. A pair handles 40,000.

Those insects include slugs, cutworms, beetles, earwigs, ants, sow bugs, mosquitoes, and aphids — the exact species that damage vegetable gardens, flower beds, and lawns. No chemical residue. No application schedule. No harm to pollinators.

🏠 The build — 30 seconds

One terracotta pot, 6 to 8 inches in diameter. About $4 new, or free from your garage.

- Option A — chip or break a 3-inch notch in the rim for a doorway, turn it upside down on bare soil in shade
- Option B — prop the pot on its side at a slight angle using a flat stone, opening facing away from afternoon sun
- Option C — buy a cracked pot for a dollar from a garden center's discount pile. The crack is the door

📍 Placement — this is where most people fail

- In shade — toads dehydrate rapidly in direct sun. Morning shade is essential
- On bare moist soil — not mulch, not gravel. Toads absorb water through their skin by pressing against damp earth. They don't drink through their mouths
- Near water — within 20 to 30 feet of a birdbath, rain garden, or any standing water source. Toads breed in water but live on land
- Near the garden — within 15 feet of your vegetable or flower beds. Toads don't travel far from home base

⏰ When to install

Now. Toads emerge from underground burrows when soil temperatures reach about 50°F. In most of the US, that's 3 to 6 weeks away. If the house is already in place when they emerge, they'll move in immediately. And American Toads are habitat-loyal — once they claim a shelter, they return to it for multiple seasons.

💰 The comparison

- Chemical slug bait — $12 to $18 per application, toxic to dogs and cats and birds, needs reapplying after rain, kills beneficial insects too
- Diatomaceous earth — $8 to $15, works on slugs but also kills beneficial ground beetles, loses effectiveness when wet
- Toad house — $4 one time. Eats slugs and everything else on the pest list. Self-sustaining. Gets more effective over time as the toad establishes territory

One more thing — a toad in your garden attracts garter snakes, which also eat slugs and pest insects, and provides food for owls and hawks. A single $4 pot creates a small food web that amplifies pest control at every level.

100 pests per night. 20,000 per season. One pot in the shade. 🐸