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

Resident Black Snakes

All winter the mice living under my barn floor have been living the high life as I presently have no barn cat. This ends in the spring when the resident black snakes return for the summer.

I had resorted to setting mouse traps as the mice were skittering across the barn floor as I milked. One was eating in the feed bucket while I milked, leaving when I walked over and returning to eat when I walked away. Several fled from the chicken feeder every time I opened the door.

What Are Black Snakes Worth?

The first of these black snakes arrived when rats had invaded the barn. It took a couple of years, but the snakes got rid of the rats.

Now the mice are disappearing for the summer. They are still there, but their populations are going down. They only come out at night.

One of the returning resident black snakes
Most people living here would drive over this old black snake. I usually appreciate having my resident black snakes. The gravel is just wide enough for two cars to pass and this snake stretches out almost two thirds of the road. Its body is as thick as my forearm. It is one of two this size living under my barn over the summer.

How Big Is That Snake?

Some of the resident black snakes were already under the barn. I’d seen them. So it was a surprise to find one of my big ones stretched out across the road when I pulled up to unload feed.

The snake was between me and my parking spot. It had to move. It had no intention of moving.

Small, up to about three feet long, will vanish quickly if prodded. Larger ones start defying the urging to move. This one, at around seven feet, ignored the car, ignored stomping on the road and coiled up when prodded.

The snake put on a display, beating its tail on the gravel, opening its mouth and refusing to budge. I used a stick to flip it over and over getting it closer to the side of the road.

defensive black snake
This snake was relaxing in warmth and didn’t want to move. When urged, the snake coiled in a defensive posture. It never tried to strike, only intimidate. Having inhabited my barn for many years, this snake is accustomed with people. Still, it would not be a good idea to try to pick it up.

Company Arrives

A car stopped behind my truck. The driver got out to see what was going on. He and his companion were teenagers on their way to the river.

Exclamations of amazement were yelled back and forth as the two of us used sticks to lift the snake over to the fence. It promptly decided to head for the safety of the barn.

So now all my resident black snakes have arrived for the summer. Two seven foot, one six foot and a new five foot snake now chase the mice. And, yes, they do snack on the eggs when I don’t get them picked up several times a day.

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Crazy Weather

Gardening is getting to be a big challenge. This isn’t due to age or time constraints. It has to do with crazy weather.

Midwest weather is changeable. Every season argues with the next one resisting its ouster. But this crazy weather has gone beyond that.

Rain and Drought

Floods came in May. A six-inch rain fell overnight or over a day and the creek rose. The next day the waters settled lower.

Now floods come any month of the year. They don’t take a six-inch rain as even a couple of inches pouring down in an hour or two brings the creek up.

These sudden floods tear out the creek banks. They undermine big trees. Most of the water runs off down to the river.

These rainy times give way to dry weeks to months. Often the dry spells take plants to the edge of survival before another rainy time moves in. This too will be followed by a dry time.

The Ozarks traditionally does have hot, dry summers. However, the new wet dry cycles may or may not fall into the old patterns.

Cold, Wet Springs

I love growing potatoes. It’s not that I can’t buy potatoes in the market or that I prefer some exotic variety. It’s that I love growing potatoes.

Spuds do like cool weather, but not cold weather. They need to get planted in March to beat the summer heat.

Now cold March weather keep them from growing. Frosts keep nipping any brave sprouts off. By the time the plants can finally grow, it’s late April and summer hits.

I no longer grow potatoes.

crazy weather allows snow peas and lettuce time to grow
Cool weather crops like snow peas and lettuce are lucky to survive long in an Ozark spring. This year the temperatures flirted with 80, but are staying in the 70s. Those flowers say I may actually harvest some snow peas this year.

Summer Crops

Every plant takes a certain amount of time to grow and bear fruit or reach harvesting size. That’s why gardeners in northern states grow different crops and varieties than those in southern states.

Tomatoes take sixty to ninety days. Peppers are much the same. Okra takes seventy-five days.

Killing fall frost arrives around October first. When summer crops can’t be planted due to cold and frost until late May, that puts summer harvest into late August.

As one who loves to garden, I’m trying to adjust to the new crazy weather patterns.

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GKP Writing News

Annoying Details

Writing a rough draft for a novel is fairly straight forward for me. I start at the beginning and write through to the end ignoring all the little annoying details like facts as I write.

In “The Carduan Chronicles” Ship Eighteen drops out of the worm tunnel somewhere over the solar system. To reach Cardua (Earth), the ship must go toward and over the sun and on out the ecliptic. The time frame is fifteen weeks, their time or ninety days.

Over April the former drafts came together into one piece. The journey of the Arkosans soon to become Carduans after landing, is almost complete. All that remains is to merge the last week into the tale of Ship Nineteen.

This ship dropped out of the worm tunnel into a February ice storm and landed in an Ozark ravine. These nine Carduans have spent the fifteen weeks learning to live on this strange, new world.

Going the Distance

One of those annoying details for Ship Eighteen happens to concern their voyage. How long does it take to get to the sun? Or over the sun? Or on to Cardua?

This meant I needed to know how far apart the planets are from the sun and each other, how big the sun is and the revolution times for the planets. Writing the draft, I guessed.

Thanks to some library books I have more accurate figures now. What I do know for sure is that this is one speedy little ship. It travels a lot faster than any ship we’ve developed so far.

That’s one of the joys of writing science fiction, being able to make some things up. Even so, the ship’s journey must be consistent so those annoying details are important.

Another Draft

Once I have the voyage mapped out timewise, I get to write yet another draft for Ship Eighteen. One advantage is having much of the draft already written, only needing adjustment to the new times.

Ship Nineteen offers a new set of annoying details. I do tend to try to accomplish more in a day than time allows. Unfortunately for the Carduans and my draft, I tend to do the same for them.

The other consideration is the height of the Carduans: four inches. It is a real challenge to see an Ozark ravine from that height.

cover for "Capri Capers" by Karen GoatKeeper
Those annoying details came close to sinking this book. Harriet’s place abuts a national forest. Some of the action takes place on the forest roads. I finally had to devise a map of her place and the forest roads, then rewrite scenes so everything happened where it was supposed to.
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Wildflower Hiking

It’s that time of year again. The weather has warmed up. Wildflowers are blooming. It’s time to go wildflower hiking.

Mostly I stay around home as I have many interesting places to check out. Once a week I hike the trails at ShawneeMac Conservation Area. In spite of doing much the same wildflower hiking for nearly thirty years, I still find new plants and take time to admire old friends.

wildflower hiking find of Robin's Plantain
Robin’s plantain is one of the fleabanes. Daisy fleabane is the common one. What sets this one apart is the number of rays. When first spotted, this flower seems surrounded by a halo of pinkish to white fringe. As with other members of the Asteraceae or Aster family, little tube flowers are massed in the central disc. I find these about two foot tall plants scattered, usually in low areas such as ravine bottoms or, as this one is, in a river floodplain.

Some Recent Hikes

One recent hike was to check out a patch of lady’s slippers. They bloom in May. This spring has had several frosts which slowed things down a little. The patch I checked will bloom in about a week.

The Canada geese are enjoying ShawneeMac Lakes. There are so many water loving plants along the lake edges. This hike is often done wearing boots so I can wade in a little for better pictures of the pond weed and water shield among others.

One of my old friends was missing on my wildflower hike along the river. I used to find Confederate violets back in the sandy floodplain. This year I found Virginia bluebells Robin’s plantain, but none of these violets. The river has changed its course this year wiping out some of the banks and gravel bars, creating a few new ones.

Canada geese preening at ShawneeMac Lakes Conservation Area, Missouri
Going wildflower hiking doesn’t mean not looking at other things such as these Canada geese using a submerged tree as a resting spot, a place to clean, straighten and oil feathers. These birds and others find ShawneeMac Lakes Conservation Area in the Missouri Ozarks a nice place to visit or stay.

New Plans

Another change this year is in how many pictures I am taking. Last year I ended up with over 18 Gb of pictures. It takes hours and hours to work all of these up. Many of these flowers I’ve taken pictures of for years. This year I’m trying to not take so many of these concentrating on new ones or ones missing pictures or ones I’m not sure of my identification of.

Much as I enjoy going wildflower hiking, I have many other projects as well. Gardens, goats, chickens and others take up time too. And there is “Hopes, Dreams and Reality” to finalize and publish.

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GKP Writing News

You Cannot Go Home

Everyone has memories, good and bad, of where they grew up. If the memories are good, it’s tempting to go back. However, you cannot go home again.

Nonsense? Think about it.

“Tell Me Three Things”

“Tell me Three Things” by Julie Buxbaum is my latest reading book. Josie, still grieving the death of her mother, has been uprooted, moved from a middle class Chicago neighborhood and school to Beverly Hills with a new stepmother and stepbrother and a posh private school. Talk about a tough learning curve.

Of course Josie is homesick, wants desperately to go home. After two months, she is given the chance to go home for a weekend. And in two months, everything has changed. Her best friend has a new best friend and a boyfriend. She no longer fits in, isn’t part of things there.

You can find my 5 star rating and a review of this book on my Goodreads page.

You Cannot Go Home Again

I grew up in southern California. People sometimes ask if I would ever want to move back. My answer is that my California doesn’t exist anymore.

I remember open meadows between Los Angeles and San Diego. There were grape vineyards with grapes laid out on paper between the rows during harvest. The beaches were empty of people during week days. A dairy with real cows and a bottling plant was a few miles away from my home.

None of that is there now. Houses and people have replaced all of it. Even my school, when I visited a year after graduating, was an alien place.

“The Carduan Chronicles”

My little Carduans are stranded 6,000 light years or so from their home. They have no means of ever going home.

How would you react if, suddenly, you were cut off from friends, family, home? These 60 Carduans are trying to cope with this while planning and creating a new life in an alien place.

For them the phrase you cannot go home again has taken on a terrible meaning. Yet life goes on. It changes, it takes on new dreams and new relationships.

cover of "Old Promises" Hazel Whitmore #2 by Karen GoatKeeper
“Old Promises” deals with moving to a new place. Hazel Whitmore grew up in New York City. She has been uprooted to the Missouri Ozarks to deal with relatives she has never met before, a rural life style and a new school. There is no going back to her old home. She is forced to create a new home.

You may not be able to go back, but you can create a new home.

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Raising Seedlings

The easy way of raising seedlings is to buy transplants others have grown. One drawback to doing this is being limited to those varieties offered for sale.

Buying seeds and raising seedlings is a lot of work and takes planning. One advantage is browsing through seed catalogs and selecting varieties that sound interesting.

Take Peppers

I grew up despising green peppers. They were bitter and tasted terrible. I thought all peppers tasted like that.

A friend introduced me to the world of sweet peppers. Then I found bell peppers came in at least eight colors. When I grew them, each had its own flavor.

My friend grew Macedonian sweet peppers. I loved them too.

Most of these are not available as transplants. This year I started seeds for four Macedonian peppers and three colors of bells.

Raising Seedlings My Way

I don’t have the set ups with shelves and lights. They look nice, but I couldn’t justify the expense for something I would use only a few weeks a year.

I’ve finally settled on using Styrofoam cups with holes punched in the bottom and cat litter trays. Yes, that is correct. I use cat litter boxes.

The cups come in various sizes although I favor the eight ounce. I dump potting soil in each, label each and add two seeds.

The litter boxes are an easy to move size, waterproof and hold 19 cups. Since I move the trays out on the porch in the morning for light and back in at night, these are important qualities.

raising seedlings in pots
Labeling the pots is crucial. One pepper plant looks like all the other pepper plants. This particular tray has Balkan Blue and Balkan Yellow seedlings in it. (No, you won’t find these in a seed catalog.) When repotting those second seedlings, I label the needed new pots, fill them with potting soil and start lifting out one seedling. An ice tea spoon works really well for this. These slide down into a hole in the new pot and get watered in. Care must be taken to not crush the stems or tear off the leaves, but the spoon helps with this. Once the seedlings are established, watering is easy as water is poured into the tray and absorbed by the pots.

Germinating Seeds

Tomatoes and peppers need warmth. I have a shelf over the wood rack where I pile the boxes of cups. Old window glass is over the trays both to hold moisture inside and keep the trays from squashing each other.

Warm air bathes the boxes. Most seeds germinate in five to seven days. Any box with seedlings is moved out to where it gets light.

This year I started a number of seeds that like cooler temperatures. These set out on a table I usually use for painting until they germinated.

Last Steps

Since two seeds went into each cup, most cups will have two nice seedlings in them. They can’t both stay in the same cup.

Unless something is wrong with one of the seedlings, I set up another cup and move one seedling as soon as the first true leaves appear. This does require more cups and litter boxes. And time and space to move them in and out of the house.

Ultimately these seedlings will move into the garden. And raising seedlings is over for this year.

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GKP Writing News

Designing Book Covers

There are two things a prospective reader looks at first: title and cover. The title must sound interesting. But designing book covers is a real challenge for me.

My Challenges

Since I do my own covers, the design must be one I can draw. Animals and plants are much easier for me than people.

Photographs are a good source of ideas for me. So I want a design that can be partially photographed.

Cover Considerations

People seem to like seeing people on a cover. Some genres seem to require having people on it. “Hopes, Dreams and Reality” should have Mindy on the cover.

Since I try to put a book out as an eBook as well as a print book, the cover must be easily seen on a mobile screen as well as on a big cover. This is more challenging than you might think.

cover for "Waiting For Fairies" by Karen GoatKeeper
This cover began as photographs of mushrooms and a white deer-footed mouse. This was sketched onto drawing paper for painting with watercolor. This was then uploaded onto a computer and darkened.

Designing Book Covers

Nothing is more irritating about a book cover than when it has little or nothing to do with the book. DVD covers are notorious for this.

Publishing companies have a staff of cover designers. They send over a synopsis of a book. An artist comes up with a cover. The author is stuck with it.

This doesn’t concern me as I self publish. The reasons are many and I might address them another time. It does leave me doing the writing, editing, illustrating and designing book covers, then trying to do marketing so readers will notice my little book among the thousands of other titles published each year.

cover for "Capri Capers" by Karen GoatKeeper
This cover began with a photograph as I really did have a baby goat in the house for a couple of weeks and she napped in a chair. The chair was old and ratty so I looked at a chair ad to redo the chair. This was sketched, painted with watercolors, uploaded on computer to add the background color and titles.

“Hopes, Dreams and Reality”

As with the title, I had to do a lot of thinking about the cover. It was so tempting to find a cover looking at a sunrise or goats or chickens. Anything but Mindy.

But Mindy needs to be on the cover. She needs to be fighting the storm.

That left me putting on a show out in the yard. Luckily we have no neighbors. I got to set up my camera on delay, press the button and race over to pose holding my umbrella as though fighting wind and rain as the sun lit up the yard.

I needed a rain slicker, but don’t own one. Oh, well.

Maybe I am now ready to take my fast sketch and do a real design. And the watercolors will get used again.

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Goat Gym Repairs

One thing about homesteading or farming or ranching, there are always repairs needing to be done. Presently I am working on some long overdue goat gym repairs.

Wood rots in moist climates like the Ozarks. What doesn’t rot attracts termites and carpenter ants. The goat gym is twenty years old or so and some of the wood is rotten.

Some Repairs Are Important

These goat gym repairs are very important. The goats run up and down the ramp, leap onto the platform and jump up and down the stairs.

Rotten wood can collapse under a goat and break a leg. Although broken legs do heal, they are a nuisance and, in this case, would be my fault.

The main part of the gym got repairs done a couple of years ago. Now the platform and ramp are falling apart.

I saw the boards collapsing a year ago and did nothing. I’m not much of a carpenter and this was obviously a two person job. I am one person.

What Happened?

The goats came in from pasture the other day. The kids raced up to play on the goat gym. And the platform and ramp were gone.

A friend came over to help me get started and we demolished these. We also cut the long pieces needed to rebuild these. There is a pile of old oak pieces to take nails out of and cut to length for stove wood next winter.

platform for goat gym repairs
It might be tempting to just drive a nail through those boards. Seasoned oak won’t allow that. The C clamps hold the board in place so the drill can put in the nail holes. Not using those clamps is a sure fire way to break the drill bit. Then the nails can be driven in. Ten boards take a long time, but the platform for the goat gym is done. The goats tried it out and approve.

New Goat Gym Taking Shape

The new pieces are cut. Now I’m putting the pieces together. I’m working on the platform first as one end of the ramp sits on it and it is flat, easy to work on.

With help, the long runners are together. It does take two people as seasoned oak requires drilling holes for carriage bolts and for nails.

Why am I using oak? Oak lasts a long time. Seasoned oak is tough enough to withstand goat assaults. And oak is available here, cut with a band saw sold several years ago.

How Long?

The goats want their playground back soon. I am slow as my carpentry knowledge is limited. And the goat gym repairs take care to be done right.

I finished the goat gym platform. The ramp? That depends on my figuring out how to cut the top and bottom angles.

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Farmers Market Preparations

Gardening is a great hobby for lots of reasons like exercise and good food. Lots of good food. More than we can eat. That’s where farmers market preparations come in.

Many people don’t garden for one reason or another. Some neighborhoods won’t allow food gardening. Many people live in apartments and haven’t heard of container gardening. Others have small children who destroy seedlings.

These people are potential customers for fresh vegetables.

What’s Growing?

Farmers market preparations begin with seed selections. Some vegetables sell much better and for better prices than others.

I like spinach so I grow spinach. It wouldn’t sell well at the market. The same goes for turnips, beets, kohlrabi, Jerusalem artichokes and others.

Tomatoes are a big hit with customers. They are a favorite with market gardeners too. So the supply outruns the demand for much of the summer.

farmers market preparations include growing vegetables like these snow peas
Peas don’t stand much of a chance in the Ozarks. The taller varieties barely get grown before temperatures are in the eighties, too hot for peas. This year I’m trying a short variety of snow pea, only two feet tall and hoping it will win the race so I can enjoy some peas before the heat arrives.

Rule of Thumb

If you won’t eat it, don’t grow it. Some, maybe a lot of the produce taken to market goes home again.

That leaves the grower trying to use it up in some fashion. I freeze a lot of produce, especially peppers and tomatoes, to use over the winter. This last winter I enjoyed pureed summer squash as soup stock.

Competition

The worst competition comes from people who give produce away to their neighbors. It’s not a bad thing as the produce is used, usually.

However, it does mean fewer people coming to the market buying the produce being offered. Since the seller pays for their booth and spends time and labor to produce their crops, this hurts. Some of these sellers stop bothering to participate.

Getting Ready

My pepper and tomato seedlings are up. Onions are growing in my containers. Snow peas are several inches tall and trying to beat the race to summer temperatures.

This year I will attend a vendor’s meeting for the first time. I’m hoping to be a more serious seller this year.

However, my farmers market preparations are like my garden, subject to time and weather considerations.

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GKP Writing News

Writing Projects

How many writing projects in progress at the same time are too many? I’m trying to find out, I guess.

Writing Projects List

At present I have two science projects going. One is rewriting “The City Water Project” as teaching units. The other is writing units for “The Chemistry Project”.

There are also two novels. “Hopes, Dreams and Reality” is being looked over by some friends before I do a final rewrite and edit. In the meantime, I am brainstorming cover ideas.

And I am trying to finish the draft for “The Carduan Chronicles: Arrival” Since I haven’t worked on this one since last October, this entails reading through seventy pages of manuscript trying to not do a total rewrite to get back into the story.

Then there is the idea for a picture book. I have the idea, the setting, possible characters and the perfect candidate for a character model in mind.

bloodroot flower for writing projects
This bloodroot flower is one of the first Ozark wildflowers to bloom. Even though the Dent County Flora page is complete, I still enjoy seeing them and can’t resist taking another picture.

Is This Enough?

I don’t think so. It is wildflower season once again. That means the “Dent County Flora” books are again open.

Already I’m trying to get out walking and have even completed pictures for a plant to enter into the “Dent County Blues” book. Another tree, a new one, has bloomed and I only need to get some seed pictures and the tree picture to complete it.

Virginia bluebells flower picture for writing projects
The Virginia bluebells page for the Dent County Flora is done. But I saw this plant in bloom and loved this view showing the side of the flower as well as how the flowers staart out one color and usually turn blue as they open. I have found plants whee the flowers stay pink.

Getting Books Off the Writing Projects List

The only project close to being done is “Hopes, Dreams and Reality”. If I can keep to schedule – and I’ve already overshot it, the book will be published in May.

cover for "The City Water Project" by Karen GoatKeeper

“The City Water Project” teaching units are supposed to be done in May. I will get them done as it is mostly just adjusting the book into pieces and changing some explanations.

The problem with these units is setting up yet another account, this one with teacherspayteachers, to sell them. Since I am already juggling accounts with Amazon, Smashword, IngramSpark, Goodreads, Pinterest, NaNo (National Novel Writing), iNaturalist and Flickr (also new), my five to six hours a week of internet time is spread very thin.

Justification: I’m not bored.