Author: Karen GoatKeeper

Karen GoatKeeper loves to write. Her books include picture books, novels and nonfiction for science activity books and nature books. A recent inclusion are science teaching units.
The coming year has goals for two new novels, a picture book and some books of personal essays. This is ambitious and ignores time constraints.
She lives in the Missouri Ozarks with her small herd of Nubian dairy goats. The Ozarks provides the inspiration and setting for most of her books.

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Latest From High Reaches

Beginning With Baby Chicks

April is my preferred month for beginning with baby chicks. The weather has, hopefully, settled down a little. The pullets will reach six months in the fall and, supposedly, lay through the winter.

Getting Baby Chicks

Traditionally eggs are set under a broody hen. She hatches out and raises a group of baby chicks. I have done this, but don’t now as black snakes usually eat the eggs.

Incubators are another popular way to set eggs. A friend is hatching some eggs for me this year. They should be hatching about now. These will be what the hatcheries call straight run, a mix of pullets and cockerels. Eggs and dinner.

Then there are the hatcheries. I’ve gotten baby chicks from Cackle Hatchery many times and will again this year.

Cackle Hatchery helps with beginning with baby chicks
The Cackle Hatchery building is plain, nondescript except for the name on the door. However, the car is eye-catching. Inside the building are books, supplies and more to aid the beginner and the long time chicken owner. This year the line for baby chicks was long as was the line for online chick orders.

Only the First Step

Beginning with baby chicks doesn’t start with getting the chicks. Even before they arrive home, there is preparation to do.

I have a dedicated chick house. It’s used for storage over the winter, but in April it is again set up for chicks.

Plastic feed sacks go down on the floor boards to protect them from spilled water. A heat lamp is set up as chicks need to be warm. Waterers and feeders are set up. Chick starter is purchased and set up.

I know some advice is to never use newspaper on the floor for baby chicks. It works for me and has for decades. It has several advantages for me.

I put out layers, five sheets thick, enough for ten to twelve days. They are offset a bit so I can tell each layer. Each day I can roll up the dirty sheets and leave the chicks with a fairly clean floor for the new day.

beginning with baby chicks starts with baby chicks
My baby chicks are pullets. There are Dominiques and Easter Eggers. They have just been put into their new home and are starting to look around.

New Residents

The house is set up. The heat lamp has it warm and cozy. The waterers and feeders are filled.

When the chicks come home, each chick is taken out, bill dipped in water and set down. It doesn’t take long before these little ones are off exploring. That stops as soon as they find the food. Now it’s just a matter of time waiting for them to grow up.

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April Ozark Wildflowers

A county road runs in front of our house. Lots of vehicles go up and down the road when the redbuds and dogwoods bloom. Driving by, they miss the kaleidoscope of April Ozark wildflowers lining the road, out on the hills and up the ravines.

Most of the April Ozark wildflowers are old friends for me. But I love to go out to visit them again as most are here for only a short time before vanishing until next April.

April Ozark wildflowers include bellwort
Bellwort is an interesting Ozark wildflower. The flower hangs down and never fully opens. It seems to be pollinated by bumblebees. The bee crawls up inside the flower making it bulge out. These stalks came up through the fire blackened area in this ravine.

Along the Road

Late mornings and early afternoons are slack times in the traffic. That makes those times good for walking along to see what is growing and blooming. Since much of the roadside burned, I get a chance to see what survived as well.

The fire burned the leaf litter and moved on. Lots of plants are sprounting up through the ash. Bellwort is one. Even driving home from town, I spotted this gorgeous clump out on its own and had to go back on foot to admire it.

Along the way I found others: orange puccoon, violet wood sorrel, blue violets and early buttercups. Around the bellwort were toothwort and rue anemone along with a rock fern.

April Ozark wildflowers include orange puccoon
The bright color of this orange puccoon’s flowers is easy to spot. The plant gets, maybe, six inches tall. The flowers bloom into summer. It would make a nice ground cover in a sunny location.

Up a Ravine

Wandering across the hill I tried to miss stepping on too many Johnny Jump Up violets. Down in the ravine my first stop were large patches of Virginia bluebells. A few years ago there was only a single small patch, now there are lots of these lovely blue flowers.

More toothwort and rue anemone were scattered on the sides of the ravine. The Christmas ferns were putting up their fiddleheads.

Christmas fern fiddleheads
The Christmas fern got its name because it stays green through the winter. The fronds darken and lie down on the ground. In the spring the new leaves emerge as fiddleheads that unfurl into fronds. I have kept this as a potted fern and it does very well.

So Many April Ozark Wildflowers

I didn’t intend to make such a list and it isn’t complete at all. The spring ephemerals are out in a mad race to beat the tree leaves. They come in many colors, often bloom for only a few days, set seed and vanish for another year.

Virginia bluebell flowers
The Ozarks is in Missouri, but Virginia bluebells grow well here in ravines. It likes moist places. The flowers begin as pink buds, turning blue when they open. Some flowers stay pink. Occasionally some are white. They make quite a show as a large patch.

Driving by, even slowly, you won’t see most of these flowers. To meet and admire these wildflowers you must stop, get out and walk along a gravel road, a nature trail in a Conservation Area, even a road in town as many grow in lawns. Do it soon or you will miss the April show.

Wildflowers are in many essays and pictures found in “Exploring the Ozark Hills“. “Missouri’s Milkweeds, Milkvines and Pipevines of Missouri” is a guidebook to these Missouri flowers.

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Little Girl Lost

Nubian doe High Reaches Opal is a first time mother. She is verya ttentive to her little doe kid-most of the time. Yet this was the little girl lost out on the hills.

Nubian kid looking at herd
Giving practice time for a young kid in keeping up with the herd is popular with the kids. This little Nubian doe kid, now found, is out for a couple of afternoon hours with the herd. First she must find the herd.

Fencing Question

After her kid was a few days old, Opal wanted to go out to pasture. If her little kid was awake and active, Opal stayed in the barn lot crying as the herd went out.

That evening Opal came in with the herd. She had let herself out. How? Was there a hol in the fence? I couldn’t find one.

This was the pattern for several days. As soon as her kid settled down and went to sleep, Opal went out through? under? over? the fence and joined the herd.

Nubian doe kid racing
The herd is moving away. The little Nubian doe kid runs to catch up.

Opal’s Little Girl

This is one lovely little doe. She is black with frosted ears and nose, polled and lively. Opal has trouble keeping up with her and has since she was one day old.

All the kids were out playing on the goat gym. The little girl got tired and laid down on the bottom step. Opal stood guard as the herd went out. I went to the house to put the seedlings out on the porch.

Hearing Opal calling, I looked up hoping to see where she was getting out. Instead I saw her leading her kid across the bridge to pasture. Now her kid is barely two weeks old, far too young to be out on the hills.

Nubian doe kid is catching up with the herd
Kids and adult goats run in leaps and bounds. This little Nubian doe kid is still racing over to the herd.

Little Girl Lost

Although I hurried, I don’t run any more. By the time I got to the bridge, Opal and her kid were across the hill pasture. When I got to the south pasture, Opal and her kid were out of sight.

I caught a glimpse of them going up the hill at the far end of the south pasture. They were gone when I got there. No Opal. No kid. And no herd of goats.

Nubian doe kid and mother
Poor Nubian doe High Reaches Opal has a hard time keeping up with her little doe kid. The kid isn’t concerned. Mother will catch up.

After an hour climbing the hill, I found the herd. Opal was there. Her kid wasn’t.

Little girl lost, any little kid lost is panic time.

It took a lot of searching by us and a friend to find the little girl. I like happy endings and got one this time.

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GKP Writing News

Ending NaNo

I’ve participated in NaNo (National Novel Writing Month) every year since 2008. Many of my novels began as those mad November dashes. Now I hear they are ending NaNo.

The Challenge

Every November the goal was to write 50,000 words of a new novel before the end of the month. This is 1,670 words a day.

At the beginning this sounded like a huge undertaking. And it was. The result was a rough draft novel mostly done.

The purpose was to goad and urge the writer to write straight through the novel idea. There was no time to rethink or edit, only time to keep writing. The self doubts, the little voice saying the writing is no good, had no chance to make much headway as there was that 1,670 word goal to reach.

cover for "Broken Promises" by Karen GoatKeeper
This was my first NaNo novel back in 2008. The first year the novel fell apart. It did get me started and I completed the challenge every year after that.

Ending NaNo

I didn’t interact with the forums very much as I have little internet time each week. Rumors started up about people abusing the forum spaces and how NaNo was run.

How much of this was true? I don’t know and really don’t care. All that matters is that my November challenge is now gone.

Over the summer, my time gets split up in so many directions. There is supposed to be a couple of hours each morning to write, but hot weather pushes me outside. When I get in, I’m tired, too tired to write.

NaNo gave me a push to get my writing time back on track again. Somehow, it’s easier to have an outside push than to make the effort myself.

cover for "Dora's Story" by Karen GoatKeeper
This novel turned out to be much longer and more complicated than any I had done previously. I started doing CampNaNo to finish this book and later used Camp to work on picture books and other novels.

What Now?

Can I find another writing group to work with? Surely there are some out there, mostly on Facebook which I am not. And searching takes time I don’t have.

So, for now, I’m on my own. It’s easy to pretend to do NaNo in November or Camp NaNo in April and July. It’s also easy to let it slide as there is no set deadline looming.

And I have a history of missing deadlines so I will miss NaNo. Still, there are those books to finish this year.

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Ozark Wildflowers Blooming

The race is on. The spring ephemeral Ozark wildflowers blooming now are in a race with the trees. They want to put out their leaves for the summer.

Most spring ephemerals grow on the forest floor. All summer the trees shade this area making it hard for plants growing there to get enough light to photosynthesize. Certainly there isn’t enough light for a plant to make seeds.

Edible seeds on American Elm
Unless the tree has showy flowers like redbuds or dogwoods, people don’t think about trees having flowers. Many trees like elms, oaks, hickories and walnuts are wind pollinated so their flowers are tiny. The pollen clouds are noticed because they cover everything with a yellow film. These elm seeds are called samovars and are edible. I found them a nice snack, if I could reach them.

Trees Race Too

Many trees are wind pollinated. Leaves slow down the wind and the pollen. This yellow cloud coats the leaves instead of the pistils waiting to be pollinated. So the maples, ashes, willows, oaks and black walnuts are busy trying to bloom before the leaves too.

American elms are rare here due to Dutch elm disease. I’d found some down by the river in bloom. One even had branches low enough for me to get a picture or two.

On a recent walk I found the seeds on these trees. Since they were listed in “Foraging the Ozarks” as edible, I tried a few. They are bland, but a nice snack. Elms make lots of seeds so eating a few won’t hurt.

Nearby the green ash were blooming. November’s flood washed out my favorite ones, but I did find a few young ones I could get pictures of.

Ozark wildflowers blooming like Spring Beauty
Spring Beauty is a spring ephemeral. It forms large colonies in moist ground. I have seen it carpet lawns in town as well.

Ozark Wildflowers Blooming

The trees were expected. So many wildflowers weren’t. Beautiful spring beauties lined the road and the path along the river. Rue anemones are just opening. Blue violets are having trouble growing up through the sand leaving their flowers sandy.

Redbuds are blooming. Fragrant sumac is opening. Virginia bluebells are getting ready. Rose verbena has its purple pink bouquets out along the road.

Ozark wildflowers blooming like rose verbena
This native wildflower, Rose Verbena, blooms all spring and summer. It is a low growing plant and would be a nice groundcover. It is one of the earliest bright wildflowers blooming along the roads.

Time Frustrations

Now is the time to go hiking to find, admire and photograph all the Ozark wildflowers blooming. It’s also time to get the garden ready and to start planting early crops like peas, turnips, kohlrabi, mizuna and more.

Trying to do both is frustrating.

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GKP Writing News

Foraging the Ozarks

I am not much of a forager. However, the Carduan Chronicles is forcing me to learn more about foraging. One book to read is “Foraging the Ozarks” by Bo Brown.

Ozark Survival

One of the ships in the Carduan Chronicles lands in a Ozark ravine. Those on board are stranded and must learn to live on this strange, new planet.

An immediate need is food. The Carduans must discover which plants growing wild in a ravine and old pasture are edible and which parts of the plants taste good.

Dandelions food on Carduan world
One of the first edible plants easy to find in the spring is the dandelion. Although it is an import from Europe and occasional near creeks and pasture edges, it could be found by the Carduans. Both the flowers and leaves are edible. The root can be roasted and used for a coffee substitute.

As a Writer

I am a gardener, not a forager. Many years ago I wrote a Nature Note column for a local paper and met an old woman who had grown up foraging. She introduced me to several so-called weeds that were good to eat.

Most of these plants were brought over from Europe and grow wild. But they prefer disturbed places like gardens and lawns. They are rarely found out on the hills and in the ravines.

Most foraging books focus on these common plants. I needed to learn about the others. “Foraging the Ozarks” is a book including many of these other plants.

amazing pawpaw cluster
One of my favorite wild edible is the pawpaw in late summer/early fall. Unfortunately for the Carduans, the pawpaw is a tree. However, sometimes the ripe fruits aren’t eaten before they fall to the ground.

The Next Step

It’s fine to read about these edible plants. The problem is that I must rely on someone else’s opinion about them.

This leaves me looking for and taste testing these wild plants. I’ve found many of them before taking pictures for my Dent count Flora project. Now I’m looking them up again to take a nibble of leaves and fruit. Many do have edible roots, but I hate to dig the plants up.

A final consideration is the size of the plants. The Carduans are only four inches tall. Trees might present very big problems for them.

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High Winds and Fire

The first phone call came during dinner. “You know you’re under an evacuation order? There’s a fire.” We already had no electricity. Now high winds and fire threatened.

The argument between winter and spring is fierce in the Ozarks. One refuses to leave. The other insists on coming in. This is where high winds happen.

high winds and fire are a bad combination
These flames were creeping across the hill behind the house on the day after the big fire. The winds had died down. What little breeze still blew was blowing against the flames. Burning leaves put up a lot of smoke.

Do We Leave?

There was no immediate reason to evacuate. The fire was on the hills above us. It was driven away by the winds.

If we evacuate, we have goats, chickens and cats to take too. Two friends offered their places for us to stay, but the crowd would be a bit much.

Saving Thunderstorm

Rain arrived behind the high winds. The fire died down. It burned 750 acres, two houses and some other things.

By the next day the fire was starting up again. It was a no high winds and fire routine, only the fire slowly working its way through the fallen leaves. We watched it as it crept across a field and started down the hill toward the house.

Damp ground, dew and killing frost ended this gambit. Or so we thought.

Dent County Fire District truck
The leaf fire had been creeping along the hill toward the house. It was taking its time and didn’t seem to be much of a threat. Then the Dent County Fire Protection trucks arrived as the neighbor had seen the smoke and called them.

Another Round

Smoke rose up from the hill beside the house. I walked down the road and saw a line of fire stretching up the hill. High winds and fire were at it again.

This was still a small fire burning leaves. We watched and waited.

Our neighbor arrived. He’d called the sheriff and fire department. His house was in danger!

His house was not in danger. It was across the road from the fire and almost a mile away.

setting a back fire
The fire fighters were concerned the high winds could blow the fire across the road. They set a back fire to stop the fire line before it got to the road. The winds were brisk, but not full of big gusts, which helped.

Fighting the Fire

The Salem Fire Protection Department arrived. Four big trucks turned into the driveway. Men put on their gear and marched off to stop the fire.

A few hours later, the trucks left to stop another flare up on the hill behind us. This one burned down a house.

Our hills were blackened as though a prescribed burn was done. We were lucky.

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First Spring Hike

The grass is starting to grow hinting at mower time coming. The wayside speedwell and early cress are blooming in the yard. So I went on my first spring hike looking for the earliest wildflowers.

Disappointment

The upper Meramec River is a short hike away. Usually I find harbinger of spring there.

Not this year. This year the river bank is totally different after the big flood that came through the end of last year.

Debris in the bushes marked the high water mark. It was over five feet up. Fallen logs were swept away through much of my hiking path. Sand was left behind.

Dreams of crossing onto the gravel bar in the center of the river were mostly cancelled. The river had cut into its bank, toppling trees and leaving sheer drops of four to ten feet into deep pools. This summer’s swimmers with their small children may not want to stay here this year. Already the party crowd has gone elsewhere as the far gravel bank is now inaccessible.

first spring hike find: American Elm flower
American elms aren’t doing well in my area of the Ozarks. Those near the house have all died. A few hang on in the river floodplain. My first spring hike was timed well as these trees were blooming. I was lucky to have a branch within reach to get a few pictures.

Only One Flower

A few spring plants are trying to force their way up through the sand. Some of the dirt areas are still clear. However, I found no early wildflowers.

Silver maples grow along the river. They had finished blooming. I don’t worry much about getting pictures of them as the flowers are thirty feet over my head.

The American elms had washed away in the area I had found. There does seem to be others further down and these trees were in bloom. One branch was even within reach of my walking stick-hooked on the end.

Later On

This first spring hike was mostly exercise and looking around. My next forays along here will hopefully find other flowers in bloom.

Some, like Virginia bluebells, rue anemone, false rue anemone, Confederate violets, are nice to see again. Another, Virginia waterleaf, is one I need more pictures of. I’ve found it along here in the past, but my return trips were thwarted by stinging nettle. Perhaps the flood swept most of these away. I can hope.

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GKP Writing News

Finding Plot Holes

Finding plot holes is such a mess. A main character in Life’s rules has a birthday including family party. Except it never happened. Oops.

This is where a good plot outline would help, I suppose. Or maybe not. Sarah’s birthday wasn’t really part of the plot originally.

Finding Plot Holes

I write from a list of bullet points. These are a rough idea of what the plot looks like, but doesn’t really add any details.

None of these points is definite. Some get ignored. Others get added as the plot takes shape in the rough draft.

In Life’s Rules, there are several subplots. Some of these are being eliminated. Others are being expanded on. Keeping track of them is complicated especially as spring brings so many other activities fragmenting my writing time.

My method to keep track of them and find problems is to make an outline as I rewrite the rough draft. It’s not a formal outline, just a list of day events as the novel unfolds in days.

Another Outline

There are many characters in Life’s Rules. Some are families. Parents, spouses, children, grandchildren all need names and an outline of relationships.

Each also needs a few details about each character. The ages, grades and interests of the grandchildren are important.

I didn’t do this outline once. One of the characters changed names over the course of the novel. Catching this mistake luckily happened before the final draft.

cover for "Dora's Story" by Karen GoatKeeper
This story too had a massive plot hole in it. It took several outlines to finally get the plot and timing done correctly.

After Finding Plot Holes

Once a plot hole is spotted, the rewrite begins. Since this particular hole is a major problem, the rewrite is like writing a new rough draft at this point until the other events can be placed on new days.

The frustrating part of this is how I keep rambling on with text full of goings on. Each has a bearing on the main plot, but one goal of this rewrite was to cut the word count, not add to it.

So, I now get to do another rewrite after finishing this one to try again to shorten this massive story.

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Goats As Pets

People driving by stopped asking about my goats. It seems they want to buy one for their grandson. I cringed. Goats as pets often does not end well for the goat.

Many people think of Nigerian Dwarfs or Pygmies as pets. Perhaps these work out better than my Nubians as they are small. I have no experience with them.

Nubians get big. I have a six-year-old wether. His back is over three feet up and his weight is well over 200 pounds. Yes, he is a pet, although I kept him as a lead goat which role he rarely fills.

Goats as pets can work
Yes, this Nubian wether is called Pest among other names like Big Lug which he is at over 200 pounds. A wether is a fixed buck goat and is better suited as a pet as he will not usually be as aggressive and won’t stink during the fall. Pest was very small when he was born and was raised on a bottle. He is very laid back. Still, he is big enough to hurt me without trying.

Goats Can Be Dangerous

My Nubians are as much pets as livestock for me. Even so, I have one doe who is spooky. If she panics, she will climb right over the top of me. She is at least twenty pounds heavier than I am and has four feet ending with hard hooves.

Long ago I knew a woman with a commercial goat dairy. One of her bucks, a Toggenburg (another big dairy breed), broke her leg is three places. Newly out of the hospital, she tried to stop him from deliberately killing another buck. She went back in the hospital.

I have had a broken hand, numerous bruises and almost lost an eye from my goats. The goats involved were not mean nor did they try to hurt me. But they did.

Goats As Pets

Goats are herd animals. They need another goat for company. People wanting a pet goat often think they can get only one and wonder why the goat cries. A baby Nubian can be heard for a quarter mile.

A goat is not like a dog. Yes, they love petting. Yes, they will follow you around to see what you are doing. Getting shoved can leave you on the ground.

In addition, goats eat fruit trees, gardens, stand on vehicles. They are curious and get into everything.

Horror Stories

Goats take lots of good care. Pet goats often don’t get the proper food or care. They get abused and turn mean. They get sick and die. I know of all of these things happening.

Will I sell my kids as pets? I would rather not.