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.

Latest From High Reaches

Racing the Brushcutter

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date June 3, 2022

Roadsides are great places to find wildflowers to photograph. Many of these flowers are only found there. My problem is racing the brushcutter.

My county, and I’m sure it’s not alone in this, firmly believes roadsides should be like well-kept lawns. Wildflowers are not welcome.

Back in the 1960s there was an attempt to change this mindset by Lady Bird Johnson, the wife of President Lyndon Johnson. She promoted planting native wildflowers along the roads and had some success at the time.

Roadsides are the new prairies. Native wildflowers are killed off for grazing land, farm land and lawns everywhere else. Roadsides offer perfect conditions for many of these plants.

Sunny yellow flowers of coreopsis dance along the roads until the brushcutter comes along. These are annuals and must set seed to grace the roadsides next year. Many wildflowers are annuals. After a few years, they disappear as they never get a chance to set seed.

Most plants do tend to get scraggly by the end of the growing season leaving behind clusters of brown stems. Cutting these down would be fine. The plants have bloomed and seeded by then.

Spring and summer are terrible times to mow these plants down. Many never recover. Many of those that do are ones most unwelcome such as poison ivy and sericea lespedeza.

I do a lot of walking along the roads near my house and check others on the drives to and from town. The other day one of these roads had the edge cut down to lawn height.

Panic.

I do know the brushcutter in passing. He and the road crew think I’m a bit crazy. Still, I stopped and marked a unique plant so he wouldn’t cut it down.

How do I mark all the plants I’m interested in? He would have to skip the whole road and won’t do that.

So, I am racing the brushcutter. Everyday I can I will be out walking the roads, stopping at all the areas with interesting plants, trying to get pictures before they are gone.

Dogbane is a perennial. It will regrow next year. But this year’s flowers will be gone a will any seeds. Many perennials like milkweeds put up a single stalk each year. If it is cut, that year’s bloom is gone. And the pollinators like bees are left to starve as they can not live on grass.

Once he has gone by, all the lovely flowers will be gone. Oxeye daisies. Coreopsis. Sweet clovers (I photographed this the day before mowing.). Deptford pinks. The milkweeds, elderberry, daylilies, rose gentians getting ready to bloom. So many more.

After my wildflowers are gone, I will go back to walking the hills. Walking the roads is too sad.

Yellow sunflower type wildflowers are among the casualties. Read more about them in “Exploring the Ozark Hills“.

Tags Ozark wildflowers

Latest From High Reaches

Building PVC Gates

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date May 27, 2022

Seven years ago, I finally got fed up with building wood garden gates every year as they rotted away in the wet weather. Instead, I decided building PVC gates would be a better option.

The size determines the design. My gates were three feet wide by four feet tall, so I decided to put in a cross brace. I’ve since found this is wise for every two feet in height.

The Materials Needed for Building PVC Gates

This is for each gate the size I built. You can modify this for your size gate.

Four elbows to form the four corners

Two T’s for the cross brace

There are reasons for laying out the parts for the PVC gates ahead of time. First, you can be sure you have all of the parts. Second, they are arranged so you know what attaches to what. This is really important when you are building several gates. I was doing three. My working area out under a black walnut tree wasn’t quite flat so my gates are a bit bowed.

Four two-foot lengths of PVC pipe (I used two-inch pipe. It must be thick enough to be sturdy.)

Three three-foot lengths of PVC pipe

Glue

Welded wire to fit the gate (I used one by two inch.)

Thin wire like electric fence wire to attach the welded wire to the gate.

Building PVC Gates

A flat working area bigger than the gate is necessary or the gate will bow.

Lay out the pieces in the places where they will go. The four corners with a three-foot length across, a two-foot length up to a T and a three-foot between the two T’s.

Follow the directions on the can of glue to spread glue inside one corner and on the ends of the pipes to attach to it. Put them together.

With the PVC parts laid out, you can see how to glue two pieces together in more than one place. The glue takes a short time to set, so only two pieces can be done at a time. The important thing to watch is that the pieces are flat so the PVC gate will be flat. Once the glue is set, you can’t make any changes.

Do the same for the diagonal corner and let these set.

Put the cross brace between the two T’s. Make sure the T’s lie flat at each end.

Do the last two corners. Make sure these pieces lie flat. Once the glue sets, that’s the way the pipes are.

Once the upper and lower pieces are done, attach them to the T’s. Let the gate dry several hours or overnight.

Adding Hinges and Wire

Drill holes and use bolts to attach whatever hinges you plan to use with the gate.

The PVC framework has big holes in it and defeats the purpose of the gate. I had the 1″ x 2″ welded wire, but chicken wire will work (not as long lasting). It does take time to ‘sew’ the wire to the gate. I used old electric fence wire. That way the wire doesn’t sag open anywhere.

Place the wire over the gate. Tie it on at each corner to keep it in place.

I wrapped old electric wire around the PVC pipe going through the wire every two inches. It does take time, but the wire stays in place. Do the same on the cross brace, but stand the gate up to make putting the wire around easier.

I drilled holes for regular gate hinges and used bolts to attach the hinge to the gate. Other hinge types might work. I chose these as they swing freely and make it easy to remove the gate, if necessary. It is possible to bolt a latch on the gate as well. My garden set up lends itself to using bungie cords.

Results

Building PVC gates was a great idea. The gates are light weight, easy to open. I use bungie cords to hook them. They are maintenance free. I wish I’d built them years earlier.

Tags garden gates

GKP Writing News

Photographing Spring Wildflowers

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date May 20, 2022

The biggest problem with spring is the unending demands on my time. Between the goats, chicks, garden and photographing spring wildflowers, I seem to do nothing but work and run.

Each item on my list is important. This year they are complicated by the rain storms that keep rolling through. Most drop only enough to be annoying, if welcome for the moisture.

One last one added an item to my list as it washed seven planks off the bridge. These must be found, collected and put back in place. In the meantime the goats stand gazing longingly over to the hill pasture.

I try to go out walking somewhere every day photographing spring wildflowers. Rain is not good for a digital camera so I pack a plastic bag just in case.

Robin’s Plantain comes up, blooms, makes seeds and dies back by mid summer. That is typical for a spring ephemeral wildflower. It makes photographing them challenging as you have to get out to find the plants while they are to be found.

Many of the early spring wildflowers are ephemerals meaning they come up, bloom, set seed and vanish until next year. That makes it important to get out often as the flowers may only be there a day or two.

Photographing spring wildflowers is the easy part. It’s easy if you don’t count the ticks, mosquitoes, fallen trees to clamber over, poison ivy, standing water puddles, slippery gravel, steep hills and other fun things encountered. Yes, there are snakes, but I am far too noisy for them to stick around so I can spot them.

Once there are a hundred pictures or so on my camera (one or two walks worth), there is the time to download all of them. Each type of plant must be put into the proper folder so I can find it later.

I’ve been told I can simply tag the pictures. Then I have to know the names as unknown number will do nothing for retrieval. It’s easier to sort them by families as even ones I don’t recognize normally do end up in the right folder to make identification easier later on.

These white slippers are bigger than the ones on a redbud tree. They hang in numerous streamers from branch tips of a black locust. The trees grow wild along an urban creek, but can be planted in yards for shade. They are Ozark native trees.

The final step is picking out the pictures, resizing them and placing them into the botany project page for that plant. There are roughly 2000 plants in Dent County and that is a lot of pages.

I’m setting up all the pages. So many of them are still blank as I’ve not found the plants yet. Perhaps I never will complete this project.

The best part is hunting for and photographing spring wildflowers, both old friends and new ones. And I’ve already found half a dozen new ones this year.

Tags photographing Ozark wildflowers

Latest From High Reaches

Cheeky Carolina Wrens

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date May 20, 2022

Spring is nesting time for lots of birds. Carolina wrens are one of those nesting now.

Wrens are interesting little birds. When unobserved, as far as they know, the males have a pleasant song. Most of the time they scold.

These are easy birds to recognize. They have longer beaks and a short tail that sticks up. Although there are several kinds of wrens, the Carolina wrens are the ones around here.

No matter how hard the parent Carolina wrens work to bring insects to their growing babies, they are always starving. Any disturbance causes mouths to open, each hoping to be the lucky recipient of an insect.

These birds are always looking for places to build a nest. Buildings are a favorite haunt. I’ve had nests in my milkroom. The workshop is another favorite place, usually on a shelf.

This year the chosen spot is on top of the unplugged air compressor in the garage. A blanket is tossed over the top and the nest is tucked in under it. I guess I will check my tires in town for the next few weeks.

A Carolina wren nest looks haphazard, but isn’t really. They like to use long pieces of straw so the ends sticking out make it look messy.

These birds got noticed as they kept going in and out of the garage. They carried something in and came out with nothing.

Carolina wren parents are on the go from first light to dark scouring the area for tasty caterpillars and other insects to bring back to feed their nestlings.

That is understandable as it takes thousands of insects like caterpillars to raise up those baby birds. And this couple has five mouths to keep stuffed.

These baby birds won’t be there long. That isn’t due to the four cats living here. It’s due to growing up fast. These will fledge or take off in only a couple of weeks now.

Once this family is grown and off on its own, the Carolina wrens will be looking for another place to build a nest. All it takes is an open door and the birds feel they have been invited in.

We’ll have to be careful to keep the house screen doors closed.

How well do you know vultures? Read about them in “Exploring the Ozark Hills“.

Tags Ozark nesting birds

Latest From High Reaches

Irises Are Blooming

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date May 13, 2022

Flower gardens are so pretty, but I don’t have time to do much. One solution is to put in perennials, so my irises are blooming.

Here in the Ozarks, irises have been a popular flower for decades or longer. Lots of them in a wide variety of colors got planted. Like flowers do, these set seeds.

The result is wild irises. Usually these are near some old home site or along roads.

In the guidebooks irises are listed under blue. Wild irises around here are usually pale yellow and smaller than the garden grown ones.

My irises are blooming in mostly blues and purples. Some are yellow. One is white. A friend was separating her irises and passed on the rhizomes to me, so the colors are whatever came. It doesn’t matter as all of them are lovely.

My irises are blooming. There is a patch of lovely lavender in one spot. A patch of white stands tall in the flower section of my garden. Yellow is starting to show. Along the road wild irises are blooming here and there. These are often not as big and partially hidden by the grass.

The hummingbirds visit the flowers several times a day. Perhaps they find a meal. Perhaps they pollinate the flowers. Later the flowers will leave behind a few seed pods.

So far, the daffodils, the surprise lilies and the day lilies are happily spreading around the yard and into the woods. Interestingly, the orange day lilies never set seeds, yet still spread all over along the roads. My yard day lilies were dug up by the road grader one year. Their patch has doubled in size in spite of being mowed both by the mower and by the deer.

Although wild irises could be considered an invasive species, they, like the daffodils and ox eye daisies, are here to stay. Therefore, I will stop along the road while the irises are blooming to complete the set of pictures of irises for my botany project.

After the irises are done blooming, the blackberry lilies will open. Like the irises and the daffodils, these escaped from home gardens probably a century ago. We are a country of immigrants.

“Exploring the Ozark Hills” has several Ozark wildflowers among its essays.

Tags Ozark wildflowers

GKP Writing News

Getting Enough Sleep

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date May 13, 2022

Writing advice often includes sitting down daily and writing. When I’m not getting enough sleep, forget that.

I’ve been accused of never sitting still, always being busy doing something. There is truth to this. Sitting still makes me feel guilty as I have a long list of things to accomplish.

The entire day is spent moving from one item on the list to the next with a few minutes between to prepare. In hot weather this includes gulping down liquid.

Does this sound familiar? When I read about other writers, they seem to be on the move all the time too.

Cats are opportunists. Anyone trying to take a nap seems to become a magnet for any passing cat. It’s impossible to sleep being kneaded or walked on by a hefty cat like Orange Cat. If that doesn’t work, some object can be shoved onto the floor.

Usually, I do wrap up before midnight and get some sleep. There are times my schedule falls apart.

Some items on my list destroy getting enough sleep. Mucking out the barn is one. It is hard, physical labor even using the tractor for hauling the manure away.

Even with the usual amount of sleep, the next day drags. Being tired makes putting one foot in front of the other a struggle. The mind is hazy. The head is heavy. Time ceases to exist. Hurrying is a foreign concept.

Sitting down in front of the computer is a waste of time. The page is there in front of me. The words blur and make no sense. The eyes close between every key stroke. The head sinks onto the keyboard resulting in half a page of dots.

The cure is a morning nap. An extra hour or two of sleep is the prescription. Filling the prescription is a challenge.

Three-toed box turtles march through the Ozark woods crunching the dead, dry leaves. Anyone trying to snooze wakes up expecting a monster on the loose.

Knowing I need to sleep, I settle in. The cats thump by. The phone rings. A tick or two start digging in.

The resolution is to get to bed earlier than usual. Getting enough sleep is essential. I cannot function tired.

Then again, maybe I will go for a walk up the hill. I can settle in against a tree and sleep with only the creatures and wind to disturb me.

“My Ozark Home” visits some of my favorite places.

Tags writing and health

GKP Writing News

Finding Writing Time

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date May 6, 2022

So many happenings occur in spring, I’m having trouble finding writing time. I know, excuses, excuses. Except it’s true.

My does are having spring kids. This year I have four bottle babies. The barn needs cleaning out again and it rains every two or three days.

That makes gardening difficult as the dirt is now mud. The only good thing is the lack of frost. I was tired of putting blankets over the tomato and pepper plants.

The wildflowers are blooming. I do have that ongoing botany project needing pictures. It is tiresome to get out on the hills and have rain start. Digital cameras hate to get wet.

So do I.

Well, the novel I’m supposed to be working on is about a flood and its aftermath. The weather seems to be reminding me. Our neck of the Ozarks has been getting rain every two or three days for over a month. The south pasture has standing water several inches deep along the hill above it which is different. Even the garden with its gravelly soil is getting muddy.

What excuses do you have?

Your excuses are likely as true as mine. At least we tell ourselves they are.

And it is so easy to keep putting off our writing. Until writing becomes little more than a vague dream.

Enough already!

It is Writing Time!

Repeat after me: Finding Writing Time is possible. I will make the time. I will use the time for writing.

What will I write? I have two projects competing for my attention.

My botany project is running hot right now because I am bringing in so many new pictures. This year I am participating in a citizen science project putting up plant pictures.

The many Ozark wildflowers like these Virginia bluebells make finding writing time harder. So many of these plants are spring ephemerals, blooming for a short time in the spring, setting seed and vanishing. The botany project makes heading out with the camera valid, but no writing gets done.

The downside is how much time it takes. The upside is the incentive to get out to take the pictures and a chance to have some help identifying some I don’t know.

The allure of the botany project is how easy it is to do the pages. Each plant page has pictures and a single sentence.

My novel is complicated. I’m about half through the draft and it’s getting sticky. It digs up emotions.

Finding writing time is only part of the problem. Tackling the tough parts of writing is part of it too.

Several Ozark wildflowers are essay subjects in “Exploring the Ozark Hills“.

Tags drafting novels

Latest From High Reaches

Baby Chick Time

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date May 6, 2022

Every March I browse the online chicken catalog admiring the various breeds. Every April is baby chick time.

There are so many lovely chicken breeds to choose from. This year I ordered Columbian Wyandotte pullets. The white hens with black heads and necks look good and the Wyandottes are a friendly breed.

Fresh water is essential for chicks. I have several ancient glass bottoms for young chicks. For a week this needs refilling once a day. At two weeks it is refilled twice a day. By next week the chicks will graduate to a regular water fount. I’m glad my garden rain barrels are right behind the chick house.

Why is April baby chick time?

April is a good month for baby chick time or has been. Spring is supposed to be moving in. Not this year. And the pullets will start laying in the fall for a winter egg supply.

These twenty-two chicks have had a hard time. The temperatures bounce up and down. One day I turn off one light to keep them from being cooked. The next I turn it back on and put blankets over the top to keep them warm.

At two weeks old the chicks are putting on feathers. They belie the breed pictures. These pullets will range from nearly all white to mostly black. The one characteristic most of them have is a black line at the tops of their beaks.

Chickens love to eat. My baby chicks start with chick starter, go to grower, followed by egg crumbles which is later mixed with scratch feed and sunflower seeds, my adult hen ration. All of these pullets are Columbian Wyandottes. Most have lots of white feathers. A number of them have lots of black coloring. A couple seem to have black tipped feathers.

Baby Chicks Grow Fast

Up until now the chicks have been confined to half their little house. It’s easier to heat the smaller area and they don’t need the extra space.

This week the barrier will come down so the chicks have more room. Already they are trying out their wings to fly across their space.

Once the chicks are feathered out, I will open their door so they can explore the outdoors. Bugs beware. In the chicken world, if it moves, eat it.

Baby chick time only lasts a couple of months. My hen house won’t hold all these pullets so most will be sold. The others will move into the big hen house.

And I will start planning for next year.

Hazel Whitmore decides to raise pullets as a 4-H project in “Old Promises“.

Tags Columbian Wyandottes, raising chicks

GKP Writing News

Doing Research

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date April 29, 2022

Making up a draft is easy when the writer just writes with no regard for facts. The problem with that comes when the book is out to readers who quickly spot all the mistakes. Before doing the final draft, doing research is vital.

That much is obvious, I suppose. My problem is that I spot all the places I need to be doing research while I am supposed to be writing that rough draft. And I don’t get the writing done.

Most people would say doing research isn’t a problem. Just Google it.

Except it is a problem for me as I live in a dead zone which officially does not exist. I can’t ‘just Google it’.

I do have one advantage. I’ve lived in many places and done lots of things. Each place, each job, every person and happening from my past is a source of information.

Memory can play tricks. And times change. So, I may use the past to write the draft. Then double checking by doing research is a good back up.

In my present novel this has come into play. I have one character who carries all his financial information with him in a briefcase. What information needs to be in the briefcase?

My past experiences with finances, good and bad, let me come up with a credible list. I went with that to write that chapter. Then I asked a professional and got confirmation of my list.

The next hurdle will be beyond my experience. I will write the scenes from what little I know to start with. This will let me know what questions and information I will need. Then I will ask a professional.

I suppose I could ‘just Google it’ and get the information. Asking a professional takes the guess work out of the equation. And that is the point of doing research.

Sometimes the research requires drawing a map as for “Capri Capers“.

Latest From High Reaches

Summer Visitors Arrive

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date April 29, 2022

Feeding the birds is great entertainment. Spring is especially so because all the summer visitors arrive.

Our bird feeder is nothing fancy. It’s a platform sitting on four T-posts with a roof structure over it. The sunflower seeds go out in a metal tray. Scratch feed is in a bowl. Water is in another bowl. Suet is in a cage.

All winter the usual crowd is around. Downy and Red-bellied woodpeckers enjoy the suet. Cardinals, titmice, morning doves, chickadees, nuthatches and juncos gorge on the sunflower seeds, milo and corn.

Nuthatches and downy woodpeckers are not summer visitors to the Ozarks. They enjoy the bird feeder all year expecially when winter weather sets in.

Blue jays are the first summer visitors to arrive. They are really close to being here year round, only missing a month or so.

After that, things change almost daily. The goldfinches and purple finches show up. The juncos leave as they are winter visitors.

Rose-breasted Grosbeaks have stopped by several years now. They would be welcome to stay for the summer, but don’t.

Orchard orioles are b ack this year. They move in on the hummingbird feeders to the dismay of these summer visitors. They also love the suet cake which was a surprise.

Towhees stay a day or two. Northern flickers raid the yard for ants and ignore the feeder. And the cowbirds move in. They are a rowdy bunch.

Orchard orioles and summer visitors in the Ozarks. Most years they visit the bird feeder a week or so and move on. One year a pair stayed to nest. Their brilliant orange makes them easy to spot.

The neighborhood squirrels know about the feeder, but rarely visit. They have a stash of black walnuts to keep them busy.

Raccoons are the biggest problem. They too are one of the summer visitors. The feeder trays are taken in at dark every day and go out with fresh supplies in the morning.

There is usually one enterprising raccoon that comes during the day. It’s livetrapped, relocated and more cautious upon returning in a few days.

Sunflower seed prices have gone up by half this year. They are still a bargain as watching the bird feeder replaces fees for satellite TV, the only kind available here.

And the birds are much more entertaining.

Meet more Ozark residents and visitors in “Exploring the Ozark Hills“.