Category: Latest From High Reaches

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 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.

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.

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 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.

Tags black snakes, raising chickens, rodent control

Latest From High Reaches

New Arrivals: Twin Nubian Goat Kids

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date June 12, 2026
No Comments on 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Tags kidding problems, raising goat kids, raising goats

Latest From High Reaches

Visiting Conservation Areas

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date May 29, 2026

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Tags Conservation Tax, Hiking, Ozark wildflowers, Ozark wildlife

Latest From High Reaches

Two Savoy Cabbages

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date May 22, 2026

I loved the picture, so I ordered the seeds. Alcosa Savoy cabbage is a nice, petite head with crinkly leaves. This year I found another Savoy cabbage and am growing two Savoy cabbages.

Alcosa cabbage makes a nice little head surrounded by crinkled leaves.

Cabbage Is Cabbage, Right?

No. Regular cabbage has smooth leaves and makes a tight head. It has a slight bitterness.

Savoy cabbage has crinkly leaves and a looser head. It has no bitterness I can taste.

Both are very cold hardy and I grow most of it for a fall crop. It survives to about twenty degrees without protection.

Alcosa Savoy cabbage (right) is not that small. When I pick some to take to Farmers Market, I have trouble getting it into a plastic bag. Violacea is on the left, or rather, a leaf that dwarfs the Alcosa next to it.

Time Is Important

The Ozarks has spring. Some years it is very short. Other years it hangs around flirting with winter.

Cabbage likes it cool to cold. All the relatives – broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts – agree. Hot temperatures make them bitter, even kill them.

Time to maturity or harvest matters. Alcosa is 74 days. If I plant it in the garden in March, I usually get a few heads. It is a hybrid, but I plant it anyway.

One thing not on a seed packet is how big a plant gets. Yes, the spacing does give an indication, but I wasn’t prepared for this Savoy cabbage. It is the biggest one I’ve ever grown and is just getting started. A nearby leek is having a tough time. the frilly leaves are dill.

Violaceo di Verona

According to Baker’s Creek, this cabbage is from northern Italy. It matures in 120 days. That makes it a fall crop in the Ozarks. However, I did want to see what it looked like, so one is growing in my garden now.

Supposedly this makes a medium-sized head. It dwarfs my other ones. The leaves are huge!

This cabbage is just starting to form a head. summer is coming along with hot weather, enemy of cabbage. The shade cloths are going up.

Two Savoy Cabbages

Summer is blowing into the Ozarks. My Alcosa cabbages are ready for harvest. The Violaceo has two months to go.

I did plant it in the shade house and will put the shades up within the next week. That may help a little.

Now I have to plan where to plant my two Savoy cabbages in September. Perhaps I will have fresh cabbage all the way to New Year’s.

Tags growing cabbage, Ozark gardening

Latest From High Reaches

Mule Jumping Competition

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date May 15, 2026

People love to compete. Who is better? Whose car or horse is faster. The mule jumping competition tries to determine which mule can jump higher.

Bonita is a little under 52 inches at the withers. This jump at the mule jumping competition is a bit over 40 inches high. Her owner is leading her up to it.

Missouri Mules

A mule is a cross of a male donkey and a mare. They vary a lot in size from miniatures to big and tall. Height is measured in hands (four inches) to the withers or top of the shoulders.

Mules were popular for work in pioneer days. They were strong and didn’t need as much care and feed as a horse. Missouri bred many of the finest mules.

Stubborn as a mule is quite true. If a mule decides to not do something, it doesn’t do it. But this is also a bit of temper on the part of the owners as mules are smart and many of the refusals were because the mule thought a path was too dangerous or had another good reason.

Bonita looked at the barrier at the mule jumping competition as she listened to her owner and the crowd urging her on. She decided to try jumping over the barrier.

Mule Jumping Competition

Horses have riders as they race to a jump and over it. Steeplechases are popular races around a jumping course.

Jumping mules are not ridden. The owner walks them to the jump and urges them to jump over it.

There are several classes for the mules. One is for little mules. Another is for those thirteen hands (52 inches) and under. The third is for the tall mules.

A clean jump at the mule jumping competition is one that does not knock the barrier pole down. Bonita has cleared it with her front feet. Now she is tucking her back feet up to get over the jump.

The Set Up

Two poles are set up, each with a moveable bracket. A third pole is wet in the brackets. A cover is over this pole making it look like a solid barrier.

If a mule doesn’t clear the cross pole, it will fall down. This way the mule isn’t hurt.

Many people came for the mule jumping competition. This was new to me and I went down to watch.

Watching the Competition

A crowd gathered at the Rendezvous at the River to watch the mules jumping. We sat around on hay bales or in chairs set up in the shade.

A mule was led over to the jump. It stopped and looked at the barrier. Then it jumped over this two-foot high pole. When all the mules in the class had jumped, the bar was raised two inches and the mules jumped it again.

As the barrier got higher, one by one the mules refused to jump it. The winner was the last mule that would and did jump over the pole.

One little mule was fun to watch even though the owner was very frustrated. It decided not to jump that day. However, it needed to go over the barrier to make the owner happy. It walked up to the pole, knocked it over and walked over.

There are only a few of these mule jumping competition events. The next big one will be at the Missouri State Fair.

Tags Author event, Mule Jumping, Rendezvous at the River

Latest From High Reaches

Cabbage Loves Cool

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date May 7, 2026

Ozark springs used to be warm and short. This year, like last year, is cool and wet. Cabbage loves cool and wet.

Garlic is another plants that likes cool weather. This patch was planted last fall, started growing over the winter and is now getting ready to send up flower stalks called scapes. These are edible and should be removed.

Cole Crops

Broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and cabbage are all cole crops. When we lived up North, these crops grew big. They tasted great.

The summers up North were cool by Ozark standards. Frost could happen most months and did. That was one reason we moved to the Ozarks.

Although okra is grown for its edible pods, the flowers are large and beautiful. Okra is a member of the mallow family like hibiscus. This plant loves hot weather.

Garden Experimenting

For several years we tried growing many of the crops we were familiar with. Cole crops taste bitter when they grow in the heat. In the Ozarks, these crops became fall crops.

New crops moved into the garden. Tomatoes are a real challenge up North as they love heat and need a longer summer. Peppers and okra joined the tomatoes. All of these are good summer crops in the Ozarks.

Surprisingly, summer squash doesn’t like really hot weather. It is frost sensitive and likes it on the hot side of warm. This is Zephyr squash, a hybrid between yellow and acorn squashes.

Squash

Everyone thinks squash loves heat. It is frost sensitive. Up North squash grew big. Winter squash got huge.

World record pumpkins come from places cooler than the Ozarks. You can grow giant pumpkins in Missouri, but they are not world record sizes.

Still, squash, both summer and winter varieties, do grow well enough to give good crops. The winter varieties store well. But the summer varieties are soon over producing and the gardener’s neighbors quickly learn they need lots of squash recipes.

Alcosa cabbage makes a nice little head surrounded by crinkled leaves. In hot weather, they can turn bitter and the heads can rot.

Cabbage Loves Cool

I started cabbage seeds the end of January. The little plants moved to the garden in March. Now there are small heads forming.

When the cabbage first moved to the garden, I had to water as the Ozarks, like much of the country, was in drought. Rain does fall every week now. Most storms only drop half an inch, maybe an inch. It’s enough

Each storm brings in cool weather. The last one brought light frost at the end. Cabbage doesn’t mind.

Frost is a worry now. My tomatoes have moved out into the garden.

Tags cabbage, Ozark gardening

Latest From High Reaches

Spooky Goats

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date May 5, 2026

Last night I went out to milk. The chickens were glad to see me. Only one of my spooky goats was in the barn.

My Nubian goat herd is coming in. Wait! What is going on over there?

Where Are the Goats?

Rose was most unhappy. Goats are herd animals and her herd was missing. She stood in the doorway calling. No one answered.

The herd had been in the front pasture a short time ago. They were not there now. And, why was Rose alone?

The old bridge is in sorry shape, but the goats can still use it to cross the creek. When they get frightened, that is what they do. After crossing the bridge, they head up the hill.

What Happened?

There had been a truck parked in front of the house. People were around the truck.

Our creek is part of a research project this summer. A student working toward her master’s degree is studying cold water creeks, ones resulting from spring water.

Nubian doe High Reaches Rose evidently didn’t notice the other goats ran off. She was probably in the barn and didn’t see them turn a race off. Rose is about twelve years old.

Spooky Goats

When my herd came into the barn lot, they saw and heard these strangers. The herd went back out the gate and headed up a nearby hill. Somehow Rose didn’t notice and stayed in the barn.

I have defined goats as perpetual two to three year olds with a double dose of orneriness at a hundred plus pounds. Like young children, they are afraid of strangers.

Years ago, when I took my goats to the county fair, my goats weren’t spooky goats. They were used to noise and people.

None of my present herd has ever left the property. They rarely see anyone other than us. Everyone is a stranger and strangers are run away from.

The truck and the people left. The goats wandered down into the barn. everything was back to normal in the morning when sun basking and napping are the best occupations.

Now What?

I knew which hill the herd went up. Spring is usually the ringleader.

It was near dark. This is a very steep hill and loose gravel covers the sides. I am not about to go up this hill with a flashlight after these spooky goats.

Instead I went out and called. Usually the herd will come back when I call. They didn’t.

Poor Rose was left alone to have her dinner and wait. The herd did come back before morning pretending they had never been gone.

Tags raising goats

Latest From High Reaches

Climate Change

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date April 24, 2026

Every chance I get I head out to check out the spring ephemerals as they will be gone soon. Some are already setting seed. What I see is how much the area has changed due to climate change.

Flash floods flooded the upper Meramec River spreading deep sand over much of the floodplain. I was glad to see these lovely Confederate Violets, a color variation of Common Blue Violets, still grew and bloomed in the area. The flooding washed out wide swaths of river bank washing out many big trees. These trees didn’t just fall over into the river, they left, carried off by the flood.

Skepticism

Some of the people I talk to think climate change is not happening. They have various reasons for believing this.

One didn’t realize this referred to global temperatures rising, not just around here. Others use the excuse climate has always changed from time to time not understanding the rate at which it is changing. Of course, there are those who think people are only along for the ride, not the driver of these changes.

Usually I have several places where Lady Slippers grow. These are the big ones that grow in clumps. All I find now are these single plants of small Lady Slippers.

What I Have Seen

For me, everything began changing in 2012 with the extreme drought. Now, I had seen summer droughts before and everything got back to normal in the fall. Not after this one.

May had been the month of high water here for years. Now floods come any month of the year.

Big rains came to cause the high water. They were gradual. Now the rains drop in a short time and cause flash flooding that is washing out the creek banks.

The creek looks so peaceful now. During high water the creek rises to the top of the banks, sometimes over it. This was normal. Now the water rises in half an hour and tears the banks out, toppling trees and tearing out several feet of bank.

As a Gardener

May has been the time to plant okra, summer squash, tomatoes, peppers for years. Some years warmed up faster, some slower, but the month held. No more.

Now I often have to wait until June to plant okra and summer squash. Planting winter squash that late can mean I don’t get a crop at all.

Adapting

I am trying to adapt to these changes. It’s hard. Planting times can move. Crops can change.

Fixing the creek is another story. The creek divides our pastures, two on the west side and two on the east. We had a bridge.

One flash flood destroyed the bridge that had withstood high water for thirty years. The succession of floods has created drop offs into the creek bed making it impossible to get equipment across the creek. Two hay fields are now inaccessible.

So, you skeptics say, that’s just a minor thing, a simple normal change. I say, yes, if it was only here, maybe it’s a normal change. But melting glaciers, intense heat domes, extreme weather globally, say otherwise.

More important: Changing my lifestyle to accommodate the changes won’t matter, if I am wrong about climate change. Can you and the Earth afford to ignore it, if you are wrong?

Tags environmental changes, global warming

Latest From High Reaches

Lawn Mowing

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date April 17, 2026

Spring is a busy time of year. Everything suddenly needs attention. And you find you are walking through ankle high grass. It is lawn mowing time again.

Pineapple weed may be non native, however, it is a pretty flower. It grows along the edge of the driveway and the lawn mower somehow misses many of them.

Lawnmowers

As soon as my siblings and I were big enough, we were introduced to the task of lawn mowing. At that time, we had a reel mower.

This type of mower is a real challenge to operate. First, it requires a level yard. Second, it requires and builds arm and leg muscles. Third, it punishes you if you don’t mow regularly as it works best on short grass.

We graduated to a mower with a motor to turn the blades. The mower still required leg power, but it wasn’t as finicky about the level lawn and length of grass.

Mullein has really big, furry leaves. It is a rosette of leaves the first year. The second year the flower stalk reaches up four, five, six feet and lines itself with lemon yellow flowers. It is a spectacular sight. The leaves make a good herbal tea.

Power Lawnmowers

Our so-called lawn here has slopes and holes. We did use leg power to mow for a time, but age made that difficult. The mower became a self propelled one.

This worked well as we have odd plantings scattered about. And there are wildflowers we want to watch bloom. But age keeps moving along.

There is now a small riding mower for the large areas. It makes mowing easier, but lawn mowing remains challenging.

Only a few daffodils bloomed in places in the yard when we moved here. Thirty years later the daffodils have spread across the yards and into the woods. They make such a lovely sight at the end of winter.

Daffodils

There are people who mow over their daffodils as soon as the flowers are gone. They wonder why fewer of them come up the next year. The time after blooming until the leaves yellow is when the plants store up food to maintain the bulbs until next spring.

We mow around the plants which can make us mow a maze.

Near the barn is another stretch of lawn. It is presently approaching knee height and I can’t mow part of it yet. The milkweeds are coming up.

Usually the mower cuts the grass before the common milkweed sprouts appear. This year they were early and the grass towers over them. The yard has sprouted stakes marking them. The grass and other weeds continue to grow. Lawn mowing is delayed, but not forgotten.

Milkweeds

Each day new stakes are put in to mark the outer rim of this year’s milkweed patch. Common milkweed is a perennial, but it has an underground stem that shifts one year to the next. The patch comes up in the same area, but not in the same place.

Maybe next week I can start the annual weekly task of lawn mowing that section.

Tags cutting grass, summer tasks

Latest From High Reaches

Garden Tub Greens

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date April 10, 2026

Spring is here in the Ozarks. It could still frost, but days are warm. It’s time to start those garden tub greens.

Although I do grow some taller snow peas in the ground with a trellis, I have much better luck with these shorter purple pod snow peas in the raised bed. Raised beds are a big version of a garden tub.

Which Greens?

There are several to choose from. The big question is whether or not frost will still visit. That takes bok choi off the list for a couple more weeks.

Thumbing through my line of seed packets, I take out Napa cabbage, beets, kohlrabi, green onions, red and green lettuces, tatsoi, red and green mizuna and carrots. These should take a light frost.

Savoy cabbage gets too big for a tub container, but is fine in this long raised bed. The mesh is some voile I found on sale. It isn’t real sturdy, but works well to keep cabbage moths off and is light enough to rest over the plants.

Why Garden Tub Greens?

My garden soil is still cold. The tubs sit out in the sun and warm up. All of the greens I’ve chosen may like cooler weather, but they don’t like it cold and damp.

The one disadvantage is the size of the tubs. Some of these do get big, so I can’t plant very many. My other option is pulling some like beets early for just the greens.

Another consideration is how long these take to mature. Ozark springs can be long and cool. More often they are short and become summer almost overnight.

I tend to really bury my containers with mulch over the winter. In a normal winter, most of the mulch would rot. This past winter has been dry, so I am having to remove the top layer when getting ready to plant.

Planting the Tubs

My garden tubs have mulch on them. Most of this mulch needs to stay or the weeds will have a party.

So I clear a ring around the tub a few inches inside. Seeds are planted in this ring.

The weeds will still have a party. At least, they will try. But it will be a small party.

The ring is down to dirt. The surrounding mulch helps keep moisture in the tub as it, like all containers, dries out quickly. I prefer using a ring around the tub for planting. This has Chinese or Napa cabbage planted in it.

Succession

About the time these greens are ready to harvest, summer will be moving in. I can still grow greens in some of the tubs, but ones that can take some heat.

Most of the tubs will have peppers, eggplant and other summer crops to fill them until fall cools things down again.

Tags container gardening, gardening, Ozark gardening