Category: Latest From High Reaches

Welcoming Rain to the Garden

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date August 21, 2026
No Comments on Welcoming Rain to the Garden

During times past, gardens were put in and everyone hoped for the best. There were no hoses and water taps. Instead, gardeners were welcoming rain to the garden to get the crops they needed to survive the winter.

Tomatoes are 95% water. Regular rain or watering is essential for them to get big and ripen. When water arrives haphazardly, almost ripe tomatoes often split their skins.

Irrigation Systems

When I was young, my father had large gardens. There was a trough along each row of vegetable. Once a week the hose was brought over and water ran down one trough, then another until the garden was watered.

Now I listen to people at the Farmers Market talking about various soaker systems. Some use hoses with holes in them. Others have pipes with nozzles at intervals.

These soaker systems are better than my father’s troughs as they deliver water directly and more often to each plant. There is less erosion, less evaporation.

Watering the Garden the Hard Way

My garden is across the county road from my house. We are miles away from any city or rural water system. There is an old dug well with a hand pump near the garden, but it can’t water the garden.

There are seven water barrels in the garden. Five of them will hold 55 gallons of water. The others are smaller. Water moves from them to the plants in watering cans. A watering can doesn’t hold enough water to satisfy a big tomato plant busy making tomatoes.

Using the Creek

Once a week during a hot, dry summer, I start up the water pump down by the creek. It pumps enough water in an hour to soak the garden.

This sounds great. In terms of water, it is. In terms of work, it isn’t. The discharge hoses are heavy and clumsy. They must be moved from one side of the garden to the other.

By the end of the hour, I am soaked. Some plants are crushed. And the hose is left draped down pathways to trip me up until the next week when it will move to other pathways as it switches sides of the garden.

The other problem is the creek. It no longer has a deep pool near the garden side. Instead, I have to excavate a pool and trench so enough water flows over for the pump to pull it up to the garden.

Welcoming Rain to the Garden

Last week I ran the pump. The garden was again getting too dry. I hauled water to the tubs from the rain barrels, but most of the garden waited.

I procrastinated.

Then the rain came. Over an inch of rain fell and the garden is watered for the week. And the pump will remain idle until next week. Unless the rain comes again.

Tags gardening, watering gardens

Latest From High Reaches

Kombucha Monster Squash

Since I have only a few goats now, I decided to stop growing the monster squash. My goats like butternut and so do we. Then I got seeds for kombucha monster squash.

The fence is six feet tall. The gate bar is nearly seven. The Kombucha monster squash vines grew over them faster than I could try to turn them back. Sometimes it seemed as though the vines added two or three feet overnight. I gave up and let them go.

Why Another Big Squash?

Of course, the packet didn’t admit it was a monster. It was just a big, winter squash.

Years ago, our market had sold kombucha squash in the fall. We tried it and liked it.

The squash was medium in size. It had a nice texture baked and a good flavor. Of course, it never showed up again.

This year Pinetree Seeds offered Kombucha winter squash. It immediately went on my seed list.

There are several easily spotted Kombucha squash growing on the ground. They are roughly round and ribbed.

Maybe I Should Read the Packet?

Kombucha is a hybrid squash between a Cucurbita moschata and a Cucurbita maxima squash. It requires a pollinator like butternut or Hubbard.

Most summer squash is Cucurbita pepo as are sugar pie pumpkins and cucumbers. These are bushy or have shorter vines.

Butternut and a couple of other winter squashes are Cucurbita moschata. They have longer vines.

Giant pumpkins are Cucurbita maxima. These have huge leaves, huge vines, in other words, they are monsters.

Look at the Leaves!

I planted several butternut and kombucha seeds in my squash section. The little plants didn’t look like a problem.

Then the roots hit the stash of compost under their hills. The leaves spread to a foot and more wide. The vines approached the thickness of my wrists and started streaking across the section.

Kombucha Monster Squash

The vines filled the squash section and climbed the fences. One climbed the mulberry tree in the little chicken yard. Others began spreading across the tops of the tomato vines next door.

One thing seems to be true. These squash vines are prolific. There are squashes on the ground under the vines. There are squashes hanging from the fences. One is hanging in the tree!

We and the goats should have plenty of squash to eat this winter. That depends on when I can get into the squash section to retrieve them.

And, perhaps, I should mark out a bigger, more isolated squash section for next year.

Tags gardening, growing squash, Ozark gardening

Latest From High Reaches

Nubian Breed Characteristics

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date August 7, 2026

There’s a book put out by the American Dairy Goat Association that details breed characteristics for the dairy breeds they register. As I filled out the forms to register my Nubian buck High Reaches Pamela’s Kingpin, I had to mark these off. More important, I knew he showed these traits.

Look at those ears! No other breed has ears to match those of a Nubian dairy goat. They don’t just hang down. Muscles do move them around.

The Ears Have It

Most people recognize a Nubian by their ears. It’s the first thing people notice in kid pictures.

The breed characteristics list these ears as pendulous. This means they are long and hang down.

What I notice about ears on a buck is that, no matter how long they appear to be on the kid, they get progressively shorter relative to their face. By the time a buck is full grown, those ears that wrapped around his nose as a kid barely reach the end of his nose.

Nubian buck Kingpin was not impressed by my camera. He thought I should get down in the dirt for a photo showing his Roman nose. Dirt is par for the course for barn clothes.

What About That Nose?

Nubians are supposed to have something called a Roman nose. This means it is concave or bows up from eyes to nose.

The amount of this curve varies, but is not supposed to be flat. My goats have a moderate curve now.

Years ago, I had a goat named Connie with the really high Roman nose. She was lucky as it didn’t make her top jaw shorter than her lower one. It sometimes does. The moderate curve is much better.

Nubian buck Kingpin has long legs, much longer than those of a Boer. Dairy breeds, both goats and cows, are bred for longer legs to make milking easier.

What Color do You Prefer?

Nubians come in a wide range of colors both plain and spotted. The different colors come in and out of favor.

For years, the color was black. As long as a goat was black, she was kept. Those goat lines lost size and milk production. But people bought them because they were black. Spots are the special color now.

Dairy goats are kept for milk production. Color doesn’t matter. That doesn’t mean you can’t pick out a goat with a color you like. But the production history is first, breed characteristics are second and color is third.

Kingpin’s Breed Characteristics

The boxes all got checked off. He has the right ears, the right nose, typical color with spots. His mother is a good milker.

Now Kingpin is official with a registration number. And next week he will have the DNA profile to add to it. On Monday, he goes to a new home. I will miss him.

Tags raising goat kids, raising goats, registering goats

Latest From High Reaches

Mushrooms Are for Dinner

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date July 24, 2026

This has been a dry year so not many mushrooms have come up. A few years ago there was lots of rain and lots of mushrooms. That doesn’t mean mushrooms are for dinner.

Take note of the envelope around the base of the stalk and the tissue ring around the stalk. The top tissue may still be covering the gills. This is an amanita mushroom and Very Poisonous! You can touch it, but Do Not Eat It!

Edible or Poison?

That is the question when it comes to mushrooms. Many look a lot alike and a mistake can be fatal or make you regret dinner with an upset stomach.

As Mike Snyder pointed out: Only eat mushrooms you are positive about. Any new one needs checking in guidebooks, asking someone who knows about them, definitely not an ID app. These are notoriously inaccurate.

Just as with wildflowers, the guidebooks only have some of the mushrooms in them. They tend to favor the really good ones and the really bad ones.

I settle this question by sticking to a few I am positive of: morels, puffballs and chantarelles. Summer is the season for chantarelles.

Although some kinds of red morels are considered toxic, the ones found in the Ozarks are not and reputed to be good.

Enlarging my Known Varieties

My public library offered an evening talk with Mike Snyder of Wildwise Botanicals. He has lots of experience hunting mushrooms, a new book coming out: “Foraging Mushrooms of the Ozarks” and a well illustrated talk. I went.

One of the good things about this talk was it concerned itself with local mushrooms. When I lived in the UP (Upper Peninsula of Michigan), I ate mushrooms that grew there. Not here. Now I want to eat more of the mushrooms found here.

I usually find these growing on dead black walnut branches right after a rain. They are very moist, so do not sauté them. They do well in soups or dried first and then used in stir fries.

Facts About Mushrooms

Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of fungi. They serve only to produce and disperse spores to spread that kind of mushroom to new places.

The main part of a fungus is composed of slender threads called hyphae. If you allow a slice of homemade bread or roll (store bought ones are full of chemicals to slow this down), you can see these hyphae when you slice through the fungus. If you wait, there will even be minute mushrooms.

Most of the maybe 15,000 kinds of mushrooms are edible. At least, they won’t make you sick or kill you. That doesn’t guarantee good flavor.

The main toxic mushroom in the Ozarks is the Death Angel, an amanita type. It is pure white and a classic shape. There is an egg-shaped part surrounding the base and, later, a ring of tissue below the cap.

However, another mushroom that often forms fairy rings in lawns is called The Vomiter. This is the biggest culprit in mushroom poisonings as small children and pets can easily take a bite. It’s called the green-spored parasol mushroom.

There are several different coral mushrooms in different colors. Some are edible and considered good. Check your field guide.

Mushrooms Are for Dinner

This book, officially out September 15, 2026, looks to be a good source for identifying local mushrooms. Even better, it includes recipes for those I bring back to the house.

A few of the mushrooms are mentioned in “Exploring the Ozark Hills“.

Tags "Foraging Mushrooms of the Ozarks", Hiking, mushroom hunting

Latest From High Reaches

Watching Tadpoles Grow Up

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date July 17, 2026

One of the fun things to do in my garden is watching tadpoles grow up. Four rain barrels attract grey tree frogs to come courting.

This is one of those activities parents and science teachers love to set up for children. All it takes is a bowl, algae source, water and tadpoles aka as polliwogs.

Late afternoon finds this gray tree frog sitting on the edge of a rain barrel waiting for his part in the evening chorus.

Getting Started

Occasionally I spot one of the frogs sitting on the edge of a barrel. Usually I only hear them when I am out doing evening chores.

Sneaking up on these male frogs is difficult. No matter how quiet I try to be slipping up to the garden gate and in, they go silent and sink down into the water or into nearby plants.

Since there are rain barrels around the house, the tree frogs are there too. These are often not as wary. They sit on the edge of the barrel, throats extended and calling.

All of those tan squiggles are tadpoles growing in their eggs. The eggs were laid a couple of nights ago. The tadpoles will break out of their eggs in a couple more days.

Morning Evidence

Masses of eggs on the water surface give evidence of the night’s activities. These globs of clear jelly float making it easy to see the tiny tadpoles inside.

Each tadpole has a tiny sac of yolk. They begin as a tiny black line that wiggles. Each day the line gets longer and fatter.

After a few days, the egg mass sinks down into the barrel.

Tadpoles grow fast in the rain barrels. After a couple of weeks, these are getting ready to start growing legs.

Watching Tadpoles Grow Up

Half inch long tadpoles line the rim of the barrel. They swim across the water. A slap on the surface causes them to sink down into the depths.

Each day the tadpoles get bigger. Tree frog tadpoles get about two inches long. Their bodies are black and fat.

Back legs appear and get longer. They just hang, not moving. The tadpole seems to not even notice them.

In the rain barrels, I rarely see the front legs appear. Instead I see tadpoles becoming frogs. They are no longer bulbous, but long and narrow, little frogs with tails.

The next morning, if I get there early enough, I find these tiny frogs climbing out of the barrel. Tree frogs have sticky toes, so the plastic barrel sides present no problems.

Tree frog tadpoles are a good choice to watch as they grow up. They are little frogs in a matter of weeks. Bull frog tadpoles may take a year or two. This tiny frog will leave the rain barrel tonight or tomorrow night.

Where Do They Go?

Baby frogs have a tough life. They must hide from a slew of enemies. My garden has plenty of hiding places.

Sometimes I startle one and see it leap away to find a new hiding spot. The garden provides plenty of insects to feed these little carnivores.

Unfortunately, their diet doesn’t include squash bugs.

There is another kind of tadpole – very different from these. They are baby salamanders. Read about them in “Exploring the Ozark Hills“.

Tags gardening, gray tree frogs, rain barrels, science project

Latest From High Reaches

Succession Planting in My Garden

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date July 10, 2026

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

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

What Is Succession Planting?

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

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

The Colorado sweet onions are planted in the fall and mature late the next spring, like garlic. The garlic matured and got dug. The onions were still growing. I put in the sugar pie pumpkin seeds thinking the onions would mature about the time these started growing.

Planting Onions

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

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

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

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

By the time the onions were ready to dig, the pumpkin vines were growing over them. It made finding all of the onions challenging as I was trying to not crush the vines.

Fall Crops

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

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

Sugar pie pumpkins aren’t supposed to have huge vines. My vines didn’t read those comments. They have filled the space allotted and are busy expanding up the fence to the tomatoes, across the pathway, wherever they can sneak off to when I’m not looking.

Succession Planting in My Garden

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

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

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

Tags garden planning, Ozark gardening, pumpkins, succession gardening

Latest From High Reaches

How Long Do Goats Live?

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date July 2, 2026

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

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

Even at a year old, Nubian doe Drucilla shows the old fashioned Nubian body type.

Drucilla

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

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

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

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

Taking Pictures

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

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

Dairy goats are in their prime years from five to eight. Although Drucilla is now ten, she still has that strong, healthy look. Even with her heavy build, her shoulders are strong.

Seeing Changes

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

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

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

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

In the past four years, Nubian doe Drucilla as gradually lost weight. Her frame is still strong, but she no longer looks filled out. Notice how her tail is now hanging downwards showing her social status has declined.

How Long Do Goats Live?

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

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

She is fourteen.

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

Tags growing old, raising goats

Latest From High Reaches

Cold Water Stream Project

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date June 26, 2026

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

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

Just a Creek

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

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

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

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

How Cold Is Cold?

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

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

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

Who Lives Here?

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

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

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

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

Cold water stream fish can be very colorful, especially during mating seasons. The top fish is a stoneroller. The bottom one is an orange throat darter.

Smaller Residents

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

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

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

Tags fish identification, Ozark streams, university project

Latest From High Reaches

Black Snakes Love Eggs

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date June 20, 2026

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.

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

Eggs In Spring

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

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

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

Eggs In Summer: Black Snakes Love Eggs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eggs In Fall

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

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

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.

Once this Nubian buck kid has a full stomach, it is nap time.

Kid Presentations

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Arrivals

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tags kidding problems, raising goat kids, raising goats