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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GKP Writing News

Doing Digital and Print Versions

Normally I write my science activity books in a format for printing. “The Chemistry Project” is different as I’m doing digital and print versions at the same time.

There needs to be some clarification. “The City Water Project” does have an eBook version which can be considered digital. With “The Chemistry Project” there will be an eBook version, but the digital version is like a serial version where the separate parts are done as teaching units and offered as digital downloads.

cover for "The City Water Project" by Karen GoatKeeper
Unlike “The Pumpkin Project” or “Goat Games”, I tried to make this book more eBook friendly with my image placements. However, the pdf version is the best digital one.

Print and eBooks are Different

Even print and ebook formats have differences. The most obvious one is the lack of page numbers in ebooks. What these do include are hyperlinks making it easy to move around within the book or even outside the book to internet sites related to the book.

Images concern me. My science activity books have lots of photographs in them. In a print version, those images can be placed singly or surrounded by text. In an ebook version the image must stand alone with the text preceding and following it.

Keeping Track

Doing digital and print versions at the same time can get confusing. I’m trying to minimize this by keeping them much alike, at least to start with. However, each has a different file name.

Both versions have the same Investigations, Activities, puzzles and chem notes. Each Part is being done separately with a title page and equipment list. The puzzle answers are at the end of each part.

When the print version is complete, I will move the puzzle answers to the back of the book. The only title page will be at the beginning as will the cumulative equipment list.

doing digital and print versions requires a title page
This is what I think will be the title page for “The Chemistry Project”. The print version will use this only once. The digital versions, as this one is, will have one for each Part.

Getting It Done

The biggest part of doing “The Chemistry Project” is going over all of the Investigations and Activities. Yes, I did them, even have pictures for them, from ten years ago.

Now I am going over each one, rewriting and editing them. So I get to redo them taking new pictures.

That means doing digital and print versions of this science activity book will take longer than expected.

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Latest From High Reaches

Winter Eggs

I like eggs and use them year round. That means my chickens need to lay winter eggs even though they normally wouldn’t.

Chickens are what is called a long day bird. This means they naturally lay eggs when the days are growing longer or are long as in spring and summer, then stop in the fall. Since chickens lay eggs to raise chicks, this puts hatching at the best time of the year.

Domestic chickens don’t usually raise their own chicks. Some breeds don’t get broody and try to set. Other breeds are a disaster breaking the eggs they try to set.

Columbian Wyandotte laying winter eggs
The Columbian Wyandotte hens settle down into a nest pretending they are invisible. They seem to like staying in the nest. Perhaps they are warmer sitting there. They do leave winter eggs behind.

Instead, domestic chickens are supposed to have one mission in life: laying eggs. That leaves the tie to daylength a problem for people like me who want winter eggs.

Using Lights

I have two ways to encourage winter production. One is using lights. This developed thanks to my goats.

Over the winter I milked after dark so the barn lights were on until long after the sun had set. Now I milk before dark, but walk out to turn the barn lights out later on. (This is one of the adjustments to getting older.)

Not All Lights Work

When the first energy saver lights came out, I put them up in my barn. Changing light bulbs out there is a nuisance and these were supposed to work for years.

Egg production almost ceased that fall. It didn’t start up again until mid-January with longer days.

I went back to incandescent bulbs and had eggs the next winter.

My next experiment was with Daylight LED bulbs. A friend assured me these do work. They didn’t for me, although I suspect I needed more wattage.

Rhode Island Red hen laying winter eggs
I find the Rhode Island Red hens are nervous and easily upset. This one was sitting quietly until I aimed the camera. She began to panic. I left so she would settle down again as I do appreciate those winter eggs.

Raising Pullets

My second method is to raise pullets each spring. If the chicks are hatched in April, the pullets should start laying about October into November and continue laying over the winter.

There may be other approaches that work. These two work for me and result in plenty of winter eggs.

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GKP Writing News

Reality Check

Living in the Ozark hills can be challenging. The last couple of days have been a reality check for my novel.

Storms, especially big ones, can knock out the electricity in the rural areas. A derecho went by one year soaking the ground, snapping off trees and power poles. The power was off for almost a week. Intercounty Electric moved the lines up from the creek bed then so we’ve had little trouble with outages since.

Until yesterday.

Four inches of wet snow fell overnight. That’s not much. It did sit on wires, branches, everywhere. And the electric power went off about 8 a.m.

In the novel Mindy loses her electricity. I’d dredged through my memory to fill in details like having no water, a quiet house etc.

Another result is loss of the refrigerator. Here I’d goofed. I’d thought things inside would gather condensation as they began to warm. My surprise reality check showed they don’t. Instead, everything gradually goes from cold to cool to room temperature. I didn’t get into the freezers as I had a lot of frozen food and preferred it to stay frozen as long as possible.

snow brings a reality check
The snow doesn’t look like much. Its weight on branches brought down trees and downing electric lines, my novel come to life. The green patch is watercress which stays green year round, even under ice.

Waiting

The day moved on. It’s a bit unsettling how dependent we’ve gotten on having electricity as we didn’t up north. No computer so no writing. No fans so no furnace letting the house slowly cool off.

We did have some heat. Living in the country with wooded property, we have a wood stove. A fan normally blows the heat out into the house, but convection air currents do that too, although more slowly.

As evening moved in, there were no lights and no movie. Cooking by candlelight is challenging. Evening time was spent reading by candlelight.

The electricity came back on a little before six the next morning. My reality check ended with the roar of furnace fans and refrigerator hum.

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Latest From High Reaches

Snow Days

Weather forecasts said snow was coming to the Ozarks. The kind six to ten inches of white stuff enforce.

Up north in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, ten inches isn’t much. The big snow ploughs race over the roads and life continues.

In the Ozarks ten inches is a big deal as so much at one time is rare. There are no ploughs to clear the roads. There are trucks with blades to shove the snow to the sides of the roads where it builds into a berm and slowly melts.

Snow Falls

After dark, when I locked my chickens up for the night, flakes were starting to fall. The temperature remained a degree or two above freezing, so it didn’t stick on the ground. It did freeze to branches and electric wires.

More kept falling over night. The temperature didn’t drop much, so it was a wet, heavy snow.

In the morning four inches was piled up on everything. The temperature was slightly above freezing leaving gutters and roofs dripping.

birds waiting to eat
This year has brought a lot of finches along with the juncos and sparrows to our bird feeder. Purple finches predominate, but goldfinches are around too. They perch in a neighboring peach tree waiting for room on the feeder so they can swoop in for a sunflower seed or two.

Wet Snow

Heavy, wet snow is hard to clear. It sticks to the shovel. It crunches down into ice.

The chickens and goats had snow days looming. Neither likes to be out in the white stuff.

Wet snow on tree branches brought down trees downing electric lines for over 1600 residences. My barn lights went out leaving the chickens and goats in a dimly lit barn. They were not impressed.

Birds mob feeder on snow days
Our bird feeder is cobbled together and used year round. Visitors vary in number. Snow days bring in record numbers of birds. Cardinals, various finches, red-bellied and downy woodpeckers, blue jays, morning doves, titmice, chickadees, nuthatches and sparrows are common.

End of Snow Days

The next morning brought the electricity back on. The barn was again light as the chickens were still locked in.

The clouds broke up and sunlight turned the back wall of the barn warm. The goats stood around soaking up the rays.

Roofs began to melt off. Some pasture grasses were visible again. And the reason we moved to the Ozarks was reaffirmed: Snow only stays a few days.

Read more about Ozark nature in “Exploring the Ozark Hills“.

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GKP Writing News

Science Basics

One of my professors told his students that, if someone read all the scientific journals in only one field of science twenty-four hours a day, they could not keep up with all of the changes and discoveries in that single field. My Chemistry Project activity book tries to stick to science basics and ignore these rapid changes.

A reminder of this professor was in “Science News” this week. It seems the 27th Annual Conference on Weights and Measures have added four new metric measures: the ronna, quetta, ronno and quetto. These extend the prefixes for both larger and smaller measures needed for some of today’s discoveries.

Why does a change in metrics matter to my Chemistry Project? Although these units won’t, science, including chemistry, uses the metric system.

Why Have a Metric System?

There was a time a few hundred years ago when every town and village had their own system of measurement. When these became part of countries, a countrywide system was used.

Science is international. Scientists in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Africa need to use the same system to make exchanging ideas easier. That system is the metric system.

Every major country in the world except the U.S. uses the metric system. Unknown to most U.S. citizens, we do use it every day as our money is a metric system. Any business doing business overseas uses the it.

Metric Is Part of Science Basics

The first part of my Chemistry Project is on the metric system. The only requirements for using the metric system are knowing the prefixes and being able to count to ten.

One of the puzzles in this part is a word skeleton for the various metric prefixes. Perhaps I should add the new ones.

However, I won’t. Devising a new puzzle takes time. And very few of these prefixes will be used in the Chemistry Project. I will stick to the science basics and leave those students interested to look up these new ones on their own.

cover for "The City Water Project" by Karen GoatKeeper
This science activity book has many investigations and activites about water. These use the metric system for most measurements.
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Latest From High Reaches

Bad Weather News

Floods, tornadoes and such are definitely bad weather news. The pictures and stories about these are terrible.

In my corner of the Ozarks, these events are not happening. There is another, more silent disaster threatening.

Now, I am not a winter enthusiast. Snow is nice out the window from a warm room. Cold is to be avoided whenever possible.

That means our recent warm temperatures have felt nice. Walking and working outside without heavy coats on is great. Even in winter gardens need things done.

However, I would forgo this pleasure to stop the approaching ecological disaster.

Necessary Cold

Plants around here expect cold weather to last until March. They sit tight waiting for warm weather to announce the spring growing season. Warm weather like the last few weeks.

Greeting the New Year were wayside speedwell flowers spread across part of the yard. These bloom during any warm spell all winter.

Speedwell flowers not bad weather news
These Wayside Speedwell, Veronica polita, flowers may be small, but their summer sky look cheered up New Year’s Day this year. An international traveler, these are tough plants blooming when winter offers even a week of warm weather.

The daffodils and iris have started to grow over a month early. Both can take a lot of cold, but not common February temperatures.

Slippery elm trees are almost in bloom as are several maples, a month early. Flowers don’t survive really cold temperatures.

Many of the usual spring plants around the yard such as plantains, shepherd’s purse and white avens are looking like spring is coming soon. That does not bode well for the many spring ephemerals such as bloodroot and trillium.

Many plants are annuals. If they sprout now and get killed by cold before seeding, many will not come up again.

Trees with frozen flowers produce no fruit. Two of the last three years have seen few pawpaws for this reason.

Floods and tornadoes affect people as well as plants so these get bad weather news coverage. But the silent disaster of warm winter temperatures for weeks is bad too.

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Latest From High Reaches

Planning My Garden

Planning my garden is actually a waste of time. Every year I go over what worked and what didn’t last year and vow to change things this year.

Hah.

Every year I look over the crops I grew, which I liked, which were a nightmare. And I vow to make changes.

Hah.

Garden Changes

There isn’t a lot I can do to change my garden. The size and shape are finite. The black walnuts won’t vanish. Weeds will do their best to take the place over.

Planning my garden comes down to arranging which crops will go where. Even that is restricted by the black walnuts as these kill tomatoes and peppers.

Climate change has altered weather patterns. March is often too cold to plant even peas and potatoes now. Drought and flood alternate.

This sounds so discouraging. But, being a gardener, I persevere. And planning my garden is the first step.

planning my garden includes Zephyr summer squash
Zephyr summer squash is a favorite and will grow in my garden again this year. Last year the leaves werre huge and four feet high hiding the numerous squash near the ground, a few of which got too large. The goats didn’t mind as they love summer squash too.

What To Grow?

The monster squash was a problem last year. I don’t eat much of it. The goats adore it, getting it parceled out over the winter. So the monster vines will be back.

I’m trying a second kind of long bean this year and will need to add a trellis. The posts are there. I’m checking around for some wire.

Snow peas are a favorite. The last couple of years they don’t come up because of the cold. When they do, summer heat cooks them. This year I’ll try a short variety in my plastic-covered shade house.

The regulars will be back: red, yellow and paste tomatoes; sweet peppers; Zephyr squash; butternut squash; okra. Spring will be mizuna, napa cabbage, bok choi, cylindra beets, cabbage, turnips and lettuce. Maybe some carrots in the new raised bed.

It’s fun planning my garden. Now I need to finish mulching, weeding and setting up trellises so the garden can grow.

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GKP Writing News

Winter Snow

Some winter snow is trying to fall. I watch it out the barn door, the house windows. Big clumps of flakes fall down to melt on the ground as it’s too warm to snow.

Snow was something special when I was growing up in southern California as it was so rare or meant a trip up into the mountains. And I was young.

That white stuff loses its appeal when chores take me out tromping through it. The goats and chickens are disgusted. Extra chores of hauling water and putting out hay need doing several times a day.

I am lucky. Winter snow is in the forecast a week in advance. There’s time to prepare.

winter snow on persimmon tree
Last winter in the Ozarks this wet snowfall sat on branches, fences, buildings and ground for a few days. This is an old male native persimmon tree, one of three growing in the barn lot.

Winter Snow of 1888

New England wasn’t so lucky in 1888. This wasn’t the biggest nor the worst snowstorm. It is the best documented as I learned in “Blizzard” by Jim Murphy.

Electricity was found in the cities in 1888. Every company had its own lines so every street downtown stretched under a forest of live wires.

If you were rich, you had a nice house with coal heat. If you were poor, you might have a tenement room shared with several families or you might crawl into a coal storage room under the street.

March, 1888, saw a winter storm come across the northern states heading east and picking up moisture over Lake Michigan. A southern storm with hurricane force winds was racing up the coast picking up ocean moisture. They met up over New England on a Sunday when the Signal Corps, an army attempt to predict storms, was closed for the Sabbath. Their last prediction sent out Saturday night was for warm winter weather.

By the end of the storm hundreds of animals and people were dead. Also dead were the old attitudes about government’s role in weather forecasting and snow removal and emergency aid.

This is listed as a juvenile book, but is well worth some time to read. It is filled with personal accounts and pictures from that time. At a little over 100 pages, it is easy and short reading.

And it makes me realize how lucky I am to watch only a few flakes fall for winter snow.

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Latest From High Reaches

Using Plant Identification Keys

Several of my plant guidebooks include plant keys. The directions for using plant identification keys are simple.

How to Use a Key

Each numbered entry has two choices. You pick the one that describes your plant. It directs you to the next numbered choice. One choice at a time you progress through the key until you arrive at a name for your plant.

I had my students devise keys in my classes. Each group was given a set of cards with imaginary creatures on them. They made up a series of choices and passed it to another group who was to use this key to identify the creatures.

It sounds so simple. Why is it so difficult?

using plant identification keys to confirm this is a black walnut bud
I thought getting a bud from a tree I knew would help me learn about the winter plant key. This is from a black walnut and has a very distinctive look. One part of the key asked me to split the twig lengthwise to see the pith. This is the soft center of a twig. In the case of the black walnut, the pith has a line of chambers. Other twigs have a solid pith. In cross section the pith can be round or have shapes. The practice did help a little.

Do you speak botanese?

The trick to using plant identification keys is understanding what the choices are. This understanding depends on knowing what the terms mean.

I have a new guidebook: “A Key to Missouri Trees in Winter” that uses terminal buds. I’ve looked at small plants for years, ignoring the trees. They are far over my head and I don’t climb trees.

That must change if I want to complete the Dent County Flora. This winter I am trying to identify some of the many trees growing around the place.

This book uses terms like opposite and alternate which I know. I think I know lenticels. Then there are leaf scars, pith, rounded or pointed and bud scales.

The terms aren’t too hard. It’s identifying them on the buds.

oak buds
Oak trees don’t drop their leaves so I could look at the dried leaves on this tree and see the silvery bark in long strips. The leaves put this tree in the white oak group. There are several species in the group. The winter key was the place to try. Except I ended up at Carolina Buckthorn, not oaks. I backtracked from oak and might know where I made a mistake, not that I won’t make the same mistake in the future. On the oak key, the bud keyed out to white oak. I’m waiting for spring leaves to confirm this.

How am I doing?

So far the oak bud – I know it’s an oak – keyed out to Carolina Buckthorn. The black walnut bud did key out correctly. I cheated on the Osage Orange and Sassafras.

Simple as they are, using plant identification keys is not simple. There are several more trees I do know like redbud and dogwood I can practice on.

Then again, spring isn’t that far away. Leaves will appear.

cover for "Exploring the Ozark Hills" by Karen GoatKeeper
Many of the nature essays in this book are about plants found in the Ozarks.
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GKP Writing News

Book Challenge

A book challenge isn’t really necessary to encourage me to read lots of books over the year. I love to read.

I love to write and don’t really need to have a writing challenge to keep me writing. Yet I love participating in NaNo (National Novel Writing Month) and Camp NaNo over the year.

Setting goals might not be necessary, but they do keep nudging me to make sure I set time aside for meeting those goals. They are like deadlines.

My reading goal on Goodreads is 70 books again this year. The number is doable and challenging.

Books are not the only thing I read over the year. Science and writing magazines take up time. The Sunday newspaper is enjoyed weekly.

That is why a book challenge matters. It’s too easy to read materials other than books.

Why does reading books matter?

As an author, I read not only for pleasure, but to see what works and what doesn’t in a book. Do I find the book enjoyable? Why?

What parts of the book bore me? Do the descriptions work well? How do they enhance the story?

These answers and more help me improve my own writing. There is no way I can ever copy some other author’s style or story because my background is much different. The answers tell me how I can focus my plot, bring a setting to life, increase the suspense or tension.

cover of "For Love of Goats" by Karen GoatKeeper
Do you like tongue twisters? The sound of words? I do. I’ve read books of these over the years and found the challenge of creating one stimulating.

What will I read this year?

I don’t really know. There are shelves and piles of books at home. And there is the library.

In fact, the library can be too tempting. I had to wait for someone at the library for ten minutes or so. First I browsed the table of large print books. Next I noticed the picture books on the bookcases. There is a table of juvenile books.

Yes, I brought home a book from each place even though I am half way through two books at home.

The juvenile book is “Virtual Currency” by Martha London. It was interesting. I like starting to learn about a complicated subject with a juvenile book as adult books often make the number one teaching mistake of assuming the reader knows vocabulary or other things the neophyte doesn’t.

So I have completed my first book of the 2023 book challenge. Only 69 to go.