The unusually warm temperatures have many of us getting a jump on the gardening and lawn care this season. But before you start cleaning out the flower beds and back yards of last year’s debris with reckless abandon, take care that you’re not exposing yourself to some plants that might just ruin your day.

Weather causes the cancellation or postponement of thousands of sporting events every year. In Tornado Alley, spring sports are particularly vulnerable to sudden thunderstorms, lightning and ominous funnel clouds. Lightning kills about 100 annually and injures more than 1,000.

May marks National Asparagus Month; here are ideas to help you enjoy the “aristocrat of vegetables.”

Hand, foot and mouth disease is a moderately contagious viral illness that commonly affects infants and children, occurring most often in summer and early autumn.

Let’s Move! Saturdays in Blue Springs will be held at Burr Oak Woods.

The Jackson County Health Department has announced new summer immunization clinic hours for the people of Eastern Jackson County. From June 1 through Aug. 31, the immunization clinics at the Independence office of the health department at 313 S. Liberty St.will include both appointment and open clinic hours.

A fundraiser will be held on Sunday at St. John LaLande Catholic Church to benefit Deb Knust, who is suffering from a rare form of carcinoid cancer.

With May as National Bike Month and this week as Bike to Work Week, Missouri will mark Friday as the first time Bike to Work Day is an official part of the state holidays calendar.

Connie Drake came home from work one day to find that her husband, Ed, had bought a bicycle.

So, Connie said, she went out and bought one too.

Are you a gardener? Let me clarify that, how many of you are vegetable and fruit gardeners?

I grew up on a farm so I thought that to grow vegetables you needed at least an acre for your garden, and then we planted sweet corn with a corn planter in one of the fields.