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

Succession Planting in My Garden

I read gardening articles and books. I talk to other gardeners. Many of them mention succession planting.

Onions in Succession Planting in my garden
Every year I read about how long onions take to mature. Every year I plant the onions in a place where I think they will be ready to dig before the next crop grows over the top of them. So far it has not worked out.

What Is Succession Planting?

There are three distinct seasons in the garden: spring, summer and fall. Different vegetables grow in each season. Each of these matures in, supposedly, a certain time.

The idea is to plant one crop, harvest it and plant another to succeed it. This sounds like a great idea. What could go wrong?

Planting Onions

This past fall I bought sets for Colorado sweet onions. They are planted in the fall and mature in late spring. These sets went into the bed the sugar pie pumpkins would go in about that time.

The onions did all right. The crazy ups and downs in winter temperatures killed off a few.

Spring arrived and the onions took off. Onions from sets do put up flower stalks. I fed these to the goats so the plants would form bulbs.

Late spring arrived. The sugar pie pumpkin seeds went in. The onions continued growing. They are now buried under the vines and finally ready to dig.

Fall Crops

I like spinach. It grows best here in the Ozarks as a fall into winter crop. The time to plant it is mid to late August.

Most fall crops need to be planted about this time. Except the summer garden is growing and producing and will do so for another month or so until killing frost arrives.

Succession Planting in My Garden

The only such planting done in my garden are in beds where I grow spring crops, then put in the fall crops. Any bed used for summer crops is not used for spring or fall crops.

This does leave parts of my garden empty for weeks. I use this fallow time to add compost and set the area up.

Now, if only I would learn about planting onions. Last year they got buried by tomatoes.

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How Long Do Goats Live?

I hear this question from many people. How long do goats live? It must matter to them, although I wonder why.

In my opinion, there are very rarely some goats that live too long in my herd. Most do not live long enough. Sometimes this opinion depends on what is happening that day.

Yearling Nubian doe High Reaches Silk's Drucilla
Even at a year old, Nubian doe Drucilla shows the old fashioned Nubian body type.

Drucilla

My Nubian doe High Reaches Silk’s Drucilla looks so old now. This is not surprising since she is old. It happens that way.

When people get old, they start looking old. Of course, some people do their medical best to pretend they aren’t getting older. Goats can’t do that.

Once upon a time, Drucilla was a cute kid. I had to really go back in the archives to find her baby pictures.

Two year old Nubian doe
By two years old, Nubian doe Drucilla has filled out. She is nearing her 130 pound final weight. Her belly hangs low because she is expecting her first kid.

Taking Pictures

Since I first got a digital camera, I’ve tried to take pictures of all my goats several times a year. They are not impressed by my desire to get a picture. There are many times I see the perfect pose, raise the camera and see a goat butt.

Since the pictures are all stored on flash keys, I don’t look at them often. Partly, I suppose, is that looking through them reminds me I am getting old too. And I miss many of the goats in the pictures.

Seeing Changes

Looking at pictures of the same goats over many years, I can see how they change. Bucks and does age differently.

A buck takes almost three years to get to his full height. Another year goes by before he is finished filling out. He lives life in the fast lane after that.

A doe finishes growing in about two years. She fills out the next year. Although many goat owners breed their does before their first birthday, I prefer not to.

Whether or not early breeding affects their growth depends on the doe. My experience is that most does bred early are much slower finishing their growth and don’t seem to quite get as big as they might have otherwise.

How Long Do Goats Live?

Goats get sick. They have accidents. Dogs may attack them. So many things can cut their lives short.

Drucilla is lucky? She has survived to old age. Her teeth are going bad. She has occasional seizures. Her legs are stiff. The herd has moved her down into last place in the pecking order.

She is fourteen.

To answer the question: Bucks usually live ten to twelve years. Does live twelve to fifteen years. If they are lucky?

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GKP Writing News

How Many Books on Your List?

Every year Goodreads asks you to sign up for their reading challenge. How many books do you plan to read this year?

How many books are for research
Many books on my bookshelves are in the category of research. These two are for my plant identification. Other shelves have books about livestock and gardening.

My Challenge

For the past few years I have signed up for 70 books. This is not because I can’t read more. I can. It’s not because I don’t have a lot more books waiting for me to read them. I certainly do.

The 70 books is doable. Although the challenge is adjustable, I prefer not to. So the number is set at a comfortable height, a little bit challenging, but doable. I hate to arrive at December with a dozen more books to read.

how many books to read
Most of the books sitting on my bookshelves are those waiting to be read. These are some under biography. Others are novels. These are books I want to read and give to others to read instead of leaving them on my shelves for years.

Another Challenge

The reading challenge is easy compared to a greater challenge at home. That one has six big bookcases – four feet wide, six feet high – filled with books waiting for me to pick them up.

For years I loved going to book sales and bookstores to look at and buy books. Half of them got read. All of them sat on the shelves waiting. Then stacks were on the floor next to the bookcases or on top.

I stopped buying books. Now I am trying to read my way through all of these books. How many books can I read in a year? Not enough.

My goal is to include at least 40 off my shelves every year. As I finish them, they go somewhere else. Some to people who are interested in them. Some to book sales.

How Many Books Do You Have?

A book only means something if someone reads it. Sitting on a shelf for years only gathers dust. Books are meant to be read.

I know I will have to read a lot faster, if I am to get through all the books on my shelves. And my tastes have changed so some of the books are no longer ones I care to read.

The Value of Books

As I read “Thunderbolt House” by Howard Pease, the library is important to the main character. He isn’t reading the books, only checking to see what their monetary value is. His great uncle started this library only as a way to make money. Jud originally succumbed to the lure of the money. He has changed.

Books are to be read. Their true value is inside the covers in the words the author wrote.

My books have spent too long sitting on shelves and I am trying to move them off. What are you doing with your stash of books?

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Cold Water Stream Project

When a University of Missouri team stopped by asking to do research on our creek, I had to rethink it. Not the project which was given permission. The creek, now called a cold water stream.

MO University team catching stream fish
One team member has a long pole that puts out an electric charge to stun the fish in the creek. Other members net the stunned fish and put them in the buckets carried by others.

Just a Creek

Having a creek always running through the property was a plus when we moved here. The source wasn’t an issue. Our little valley is lined with springs. It turns out they are cold water springs.

MO University Cold Water Stream Project organizing to catch fish
Fish live in water of certain temperatures. The Missouri University team needed to find out what kinds of fish lived in the stretch of a cold water stream and note how many of each kind to help build a profile of such a stream.

Missouri knows about cold water rivers because trout and bass like cold water. Cold water streams are too small for these fish, so they’ve been ignored. The University project is trying to set up criteria for such streams.

cold water stream fish
A clear viewing box helps when looking at fish. The top one is a mottled sculpin and can get several inches long. It is a fearsome predator. The bottom fish is a small green sunfish. These are a popular fishing catch, if it lives in deep water and gets much larger.

How Cold Is Cold?

Our stream, one of several in the project, is being monitored for temperature all summer. Luckily for the team, technology lets them put a sensor in the water and it does all the work so no one has to do a daily reading.

Temperature matters as it affects the plants and animals that live in or by the creek. Because our creek has a cold water spring just half a mile up the road and a couple of small ones on the property, the water stays fairly cold. However, the temperature range will help define such a stream.

Cold Water Stream Project team getting ready to count fish
Fish need fresh water to get oxygen from. The captured fish are poured into live wells, bucket-sized mesh buckets as the project team gets ready to count them.

Who Lives Here?

It’s tempting to only look at the animals, but the plants are important too. Plants like water cress only grow in cold water. Cold water keeps the shores colder too and affects what grows there.

The team checked out all the plants along one section of the creek. Some will be part of the definition of a cold water stream. I’ll look over the list to see which ones I’ve missed.

Small fish live in the creek. I’d looked at some of them when I had an aquarium in my classroom. Evidently, I missed a lot of them.

The team collected fifteen kinds of fish. Some of these are really beautiful. If future creek floods dig some deeper pools, the bluegill might get big enough to tempt a fishing expedition.

Smaller Residents

Fish like to eat. They also get eaten. Invertebrates live in the creek too. The crayfish insisted on getting in on the fish count, even ate a couple of the captured fish. Free food is free food in their world.

However, the team will be back in a couple of months to track down these invertebrates. I’ve seen caddisfly larva, hellgrammites, water pennies, snails, mayfly larva. It will be interesting to see how many I missed.

All of this makes my summer interesting. More importantly, my cold water stream will help set a standard for such places in Missouri.

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GKP Writing News

Taking Goat Kid Pictures

Plant pictures are fairly easy to take. Unless the wind is blowing, the plants stay put. Taking goat kid pictures is totally different.

taking goat kid pictures needs luck
Getting good action pictures of goat kids takes a lot of luck and good light. This day was overcast and cool. The kids were full of energy. I had a good place to sit. This Nubian buck kid was caught in mid leap.

Why Am I Taking Goat Kid Pictures?

As I plan out my Opal and Agate goat kid picture book series, the illustrations are crucial. Perhaps I could do some cute kid or some caricature kid, but I love my goats and want to show them as they are.

David Plank, a local bird artist, can take a sketch pad out and quickly outline out a bird. Other artists do this too. I can’t. So I take pictures.

taking goat kid pictures is challenging
Four Nubian goat kids were racing around. Sometimes I had to zoom in, sometimes zoom out to catch them. The challenge was focusing the camera and waiting for the kid to do some stunt while trying to not notice another kid you wish you were focused on. This Nubian doe is leaping.

Young Goat Kids

For the first few days, goat kids spend a lot of time sleeping. They curl up and look so sweet.

The big challenge for a picture of these sleeping kids is low light. I do not use a flash as this would frighten the kids and the other goats.

So I set the ISO at 400, brace the camera and take the pictures. I take lots of pictures as any little movement will ruin them.

Nubian ears flap as kids play
Nubian goats are known for their long ears. When the kids leap as they run, their ears flap.

Getting Good Action Pictures

Goat kids a couple of weeks old are fast – very, very fast. A video would be nice, but I need still pictures to use as models.

An opportunity presented itself. The weather was cool. The sky was overcast. And the herd went out to graze. I kept the kids in as they are shorter than the grass. Hunting for lost kids is not fun.

These kids know me. I sat down out in the barn lot and they came out to play. My biggest problem now was focusing the camera on the right kid at the right time.

Time Is Short

Goat kids grow up fast. These four will be sold when they are three months old.

My herd is dwindling. The does are getting too old to have kids. I am too old to keep young ones to follow them.

By this time next year, there will be no more kids. So I am taking goat kid pictures now, both to remember them and to have models for my picture book illustrations.

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GKP Writing News

No Writer Is Perfect

The Carduan Chronicles have been a work in progress for years. The draft for Ship Eighteen was written and rewritten several times. But, no writer is perfect.

Plot Premise

As Ship Nineteen appeared and landed in an Ozark ravine in the midst of a February ice storm, Ship Eighteen appeared somewhere between Mars and Jupiter on the far side of the sun from Earth which they call Cardua. This ship must make the dangerous voyage from their landing spot over the sun and to Earth. Then they must land on Earth, if they make it that far.

Obviously the first step is to determine the time it will take for this ship to make the voyage. I decided on fifteen weeks. And I wrote the first draft.

No Writer Is Perfect

I had looked up the distances between the planets and the sun. Fine. However, I neglected to do the math to determine where the ship would be each of the weeks. Instead, I wrote a great draft with lots of action in it guessing my way along the voyage.

Then I did the math. Most of what was in the first draft was not possible as the timing was all wrong. So, I wrote another draft. And another draft. Finally, the voyage worked timewise and I fit in some of the action from the first draft, rewrote some new action.

The Draft Is Done?

A friend volunteered to read the draft. I read it over and sent it on.

When it came back, the things I thought my friend would notice were overshadowed by other errors. Spelling and grammar make or break a book. An occasional mistake is overlooked, but not a dozen.

Another edit was done on the draft. Maybe all the mistakes are corrected now. I can hope so. And I found a number of other things that needed changing. Perhaps the draft is done now. I need another reader to look it over as I am so familiar with it, I see what I expect, not what is.

cover for "Dora's Story" by Karen GoatKeeper
When I wrote “Dora’s Story”, timing was crucial. And I made a major mistake in it. After rewriting the novel, a friend read it and found several places where the new draft still reflected the old one. that allowed me to fix it before publishing it.

Accepting Criticism

A book is a personal thing. It is something a writer has worked on, babied along, based hopes on. Then someone reads it and criticizes it.

The first reaction is resentment. But the criticism isn’t about you or your effort. It is a way for you to improve your work.

Even if you decide to ignore some of the things a reader points out, you should consider them first. The reader wants you to have a better book. Hopefully, you do too.

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Black Snakes Love Eggs

Years ago, there was an invasion of burrowing rats that moved in under my barn. After black snakes moved in, the rats disappeared. Unfortunately, black snakes love eggs too.

Buff Orpington Pullet
Buff Orpington chickens are a pretty color and grow into a large, gentle hen that lays big brown eggs often. This is a February pullet.

Eggs In Winter

Egg production does fall over the winter. The new pullets start laying in the fall and lay most of the winter eggs.

Hens move into the hen house nests. Nothing bothers them except the other hens. They do have a favorite nest and, when it is occupied, the next hen will stand on the other nests squawking.

I come by in the evening and collect the eggs.

Dominique Hen on Nest
Goat hay troughs are the best places to lay eggs, at least, my chickens think so.

Eggs In Spring

All the hens decide to start laying. The hen house doesn’t have enough nests so some hens move out to other places. Hay troughs are popular.

Now I collect eggs a couple of times a day as my egg bucket fills up each time. The biggest challenge is tracking down the latest nests outside of the hen house.

Black Snake Eating an Egg
Snakes are amazing. The egg was bigger than this four-foot black snake’s head, but it managed to swallow it.

Eggs In Summer: Black Snakes Love Eggs

Once the black snakes arrive for the summer, egg production and collection change. More hens move out of the hen house after a snake slides in under them a time or two.

However, one snake was defeated. A setting hen was not about to move or tolerate any interference. The snake had a few peck spots on its head as it left.

I begin a race to the eggs. Every few hours I check the favorite nest sites and collect any eggs in them.

Since these black snakes spend every summer in the space under the barn floor, they are familiar with the animals and me. If a snake is in a nest, I encourage it to leave. If it has engulfed an egg, I can reach in and take the others out as the snake is too busy to bother with me.

Both the black snakes and I get enough eggs every day. The hens get used to both of us raiding the nests. They aren’t happy, but they tolerate us. They sit there for me and leave for the snakes.

Many people would kill the snakes. I prefer our race to the eggs to rats. And someone has to keep the mouse population trimmed down. Poison kills hens too both as bait and as dead mice they love to eat.

Eggs the Black Snakes Missed
I much prefer to find eggs in a nest rather than a black snake. My flock includes Easter Eggers that lay colored eggs.

Eggs In Fall

Sometime in the fall, the snakes leave. The older hens slow down production. New pullets start laying. Everyone settles in for the winter.

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New Arrivals: Twin Nubian Goat Kids

My days in town are packed and long. The objective is to leave for town early enough to get everything done. New arrivals cancelled those plans.

One of the new arrivals: Nubian buck
This little Nubian buck kid from High Reaches Spring is already practicing his buck stance: look cool and disinterested.

Watching Nubian Doe Spring

There are signs a doe is getting ready to kid. The kids settle low in the stomach area. Hollows appear beside the tail bone.

Spring had shown both these signs for a couple of weeks. One morning she was pawing at the bedding a little. Yet, her appetite stayed strong. She went out with the herd to graze.

Then Spring started staying in during the day. She didn’t want to get up on the milk stand. I got worried.

one of the new arrivals: Nubian doe kid
This little Nubian doe kid from High Reaches Spring is always hungry.

Kidding Problems

Large animal veterinarians are a vanishing breed. It’s hard and dangerous work. Cats and dogs are profitable. My nearest large animal vets are a hundred miles away.

In fifty years I’ve seen many of the problems common to a kidding doe. The most common is ketosis. The doe stops eating. It can be fatal.

Spring continued to eat. Ketosis was not the problem. That left the most probable problem as one with the kids.

High Reaches Spring's Nubian buck kid resting
Once this Nubian buck kid has a full stomach, it is nap time.

Kid Presentations

Normally a kid is born front feet first with nose on the legs. The only difficulty would be a large kid, too large for the doe.

If a vet is close, a cesarian is possible. I’m lucky to have large does, so I end up pulling the kid and helping the doe recover.

My first brush with kidding was with tangled twins. Two kids were trying to be born at the same time. One gets pushed back to let the other out. The second follows quickly.

The doe has a normal attitude, pawing the bedding. Feet appear, but too many. That didn’t fit Spring either.

More serious problems are a head back or a breech. Both produce the symptoms I was seeing with Spring. These require pulling the kids.

Sibling Cuddle Time
Nubian doe Spring goes out to graze all afternoon. Her twins curl up together and sleep. At least, that’s the plan. It works until they get hungry again.

New Arrivals

I went out to the barn early Friday morning planning to get to town early. Spring was pawing, but not seriously. She was definitely trying to kid.

Morning chores went on as normal. Town would wait as I returned to the barn after putting up the milk.

Spring’s first kid was backwards. This isn’t a big problem as long as the kid is born quickly. A pretty brown buck kid was soon on the ground talking to his mother.

There had to be a second kid. No kid appeared. I slid a hand in to check and found a big lump. The kid was breech with only the rump showing.

I could only find one back leg to pull up. It was enough. A spotted black doe kid joined her brother.

With both new arrivals doing well, I could head for town. Late.

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GKP Writing News

First Book Mistakes

I finished my first novel and was so thrilled to hold it in my hand. Then someone pointed out what was one of the first book mistakes.

In this time of self publishing, these first book mistakes are common. Traditional publishers pounce on these and have the author rewrite, edit, rewrite to get most of these out. Indie authors need to do this on their own.

cover for "Exploring the Ozark Hills" by Karen GoatKeeper

An Easy Mistake

As I edit “Exploring the Ozark Hills”, I see the same easy mistake I made in “Broken Promises. It’s easy to fix, once you notice it.

Open a reading book and look at the margins. In a regular print book the left and right margins are even all the way down the page. This is called justified.

When you write, the default setting is for left justified so the left margin is even. The right margin is ragged. This is fine for eBooks, but not print books.

The fix is to select all and click on justified. However, the fix doesn’t stop here as some lines will be stretched out and look funny. A bit of word editing fixes this.

Daffodils
“Exploring the Ozark Hills” is getting a makeover. I wrote the book years ago and it still sounds good. However, I’ve taken many, many pictures since then. This one of daffodils will replace one in the original book.

Widow Lines

When I write, I don’t create chapters. There may be chapter headings, but the entire manuscript is one long document.

After the draft is finished, edited, rewritten and edited again, I break it into chapters to format it to be printed. In addition, I set the manuscript size, margins, gutter, page numbers etc. I will use in the final book.

Looking over this draft, I check the ends of chapters for widow lines. These are the single or two lines left at the top of the final chapter page. They are a waste of a page and annoying to the reader.

The fix is simple, but time consuming. I look back through the chapter for paragraphs ending in one or two words. Some rewriting can shorten the paragraph that much and reduce the chapter by a line. No more widow lines.

Serious Mistake

How good is your grammar and spelling? Nothing turns a reader off faster than several of these mistakes on a page.

There are lots of fixes for these. Spell check and grammar check are places to start, but they don’t spot all of them. That takes critical reading of the draft by you or someone who has better skills than you do or both.

First Book Mistakes Gone

Writing a novel is the easy part. It can be fun. But taking the time to find those problems and fixing them is worth it. The result is a first or second or fifth book you can be proud to claim authorship of.

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Visiting Conservation Areas

This year I have been visiting conservation areas looking for new plants for my Dent County Flora project. Missouri is special having so many of them.

Since I do my plant research only in Dent County, I looked up the conservation areas in the county. To my surprise, there were seven of them.

visiting conservation areas like ShawneeMac Lakes
Walking along one trail around a lake, The distant dam creating the lake is visible. One of the parking areas where picnic tables are available is in the distance as well. Sometimes there are others walking the trails here at ShawneeMac Lakes Conservation Area, but not on this day.

ShawneeMac Lakes

I have long been familiar with this conservation area. It is on the edge of town and popular for fishing, hiking and picnicking. The parking areas are large, the trails nice and the archery range is used.

There are several plants there I do not find at home. Much of the time the trails are quiet as they go around the two lakes with a loop through the woods.

visiting conservation areas at Gerhild and Graham Brown Conservation Area
One of the first things I saw by the parking lot at Gerhild and Graham Brown Conservation Area was a large patch of sumac. It turned out to be smooth sumac, much less common that the winged sumac near my home. Sumac is one of the first plants to invade a pasture left to grow up.

Gerhild and Graham Brown

I found out about this conservation area by accident. It isn’t very large, but is a nice place to visit. I’ve found some new plants here too.

The other thing I’ve found out is how rarely some of these places are visited or maintained. There is a small parking lot. Sometime this spring someone ran a bush hog down to make a hiking trail. It is now growing up which is fine with me as I find several plants easy to photograph there.

Rough Fruited Cinquefoil flower with katydid
Although rough fruited cinquefoil is not rare, it is a pretty wildflower. The flower shape puts this plant into the rose family. The katydid doesn’t care. It smells like food.

Visiting Conservation Areas

I’ve asked around. Many of these areas have very few visitors. Some have trails, some have rutted roads, some have nothing. Most have visitors only during hunting season.

Perhaps I understand why few people go visiting conservation areas in rural areas. I spend most of my hiking time near home as I have lots of land to look over. And city people seem unwilling to go off into wild areas unless they look like city parks.

The media is full of warnings about ticks. I pick up a few, especially when I forget to spray up more than my pant legs.

People are afraid of snakes. I rarely even glimpse one. Besides, snakes are our first line of defense against ticks as they eat the rodents supporting the population.

Confederate Violet
I checked out some of the White River Trace Conservation Area one day. There are supposed to be roads to use as trails. I ended up just wandering across the fields toward a wet weather creek. This is where I found the Confederate Violets. These are a color variation of the common blue violet.

Reason for Concern

This year the conservation/state park sales tax comes up for renewal. It isn’t much, only a penny on eight dollars spent.

Conservation areas are great places to visit. Perhaps, if more of us used them, there would be more trails. But, without the sales tax, there won’t be these places.

Please vote Yes on Proposition 1. Then go visiting conservation areas and find out what makes them and Missouri special.