Gardens need water, lots of water. Did you know tomatoes are 95% water? That’s more than a watermelon’s 92%.
I have a big, thirsty garden and no hose. I do have rain barrels, but they empty fast. It takes a whole barrel to water my garden now and much of it is still in the seedling stage.
Find trivia, puzzles, stories, investigations and activities about water in this science activity book.
Rain is not a reliable option. Ozark summer weather does have rain, if you are under the right cloud at the right time.
My solution is to use creek water. Presently I run a pump once a week, soak everything down and fill the barrels. I use watering cans in between. Seedlings get everyday service. Bigger plants get water every other day.
When the plants get bigger, if the raccoon doesn’t get them first, I’ll run the pump a couple of times a week. Lots of produce takes lots of water.
Most people have hoses. I did growing up. There is just no way to hook one up presently.
Rural Missouri is different about water. Towns have water departments, water meters and bills. Rural people have wells, water tanks or springs. I found out lots about this as I wrote “The City Water Project”.
Young people in this country don’t concern themselves with water. Turn on a tap and water flows out.
Where dies the water come from? Where does the extra go? Do you know? Perhaps you should.
Right now this Ozark creek looks shallow and tame. It has deeper pools here and there. Numerous creatures like fish, crayfish, snails and insect larvae call it home. During and after a six-inch rain, this lazy creek is a muddy torrent filling this space to several feet deep. At one time people used creeks like this for water in the house. This is no longer considered safe to do. The water is appreciated in my garden.
Storms here in the Ozarks are different now. They dump lots of water fast, cause the creeks to flood, wash out their banks.
Other places get unimaginable amounts of rain as the monsoons in Southeast Asia. Others have droughts as the Southwest and Australia.
Lots of people need lots of water. It isn’t distributed equally. Too often water is wasted or polluted. And my garden isn’t the only place that needs lots of water.
Going to Farmers Market is interesting. I’m always late and never seem to have much to sell, but I like meeting with the other vendors and watching the people.
This week my garlic is ready to pull.
Every fall I shove garlic cloves into the ground, add mulch and wait. The leaves push their way out through the straw and stay green all winter.
Spring brings fast growth. Then the scapes or flower heads appear. Gardening books say to clip these off. They are good sliced and added to stir fry.
One of the vendors clued me in on the next step. I used to wait until the tops died down to pull the bulbs and had many of them split into cloves. He told me to pull the bulbs when the bottom couple of leaf sets turned yellow. This works great.
One of my difficulties taking produce like garlic and going to Farmers Market is pricing it. That is even more complicated now as prices soar in the store.
Another complication is dealing with people who believe vendors should charge much less than the store for their produce. Raising produce as a small gardener or farmer takes more work than large commercial operations.
Many people plant tomato transplants early. As long as the weather stays cold, even without frost, the plants sit there. Warm weather arrives. The plants thrive and the first tomatoes start forming. They seem to stay green forever. Once they start ripening, the tomato glut begins.
There is one exception: tomatoes. Nothing tastes like a vine ripened tomato.
Store tomatoes are picked green so they will ship with minimum damage. Ethylene gas is a natural ripening agent, but it only makes a tomato appear red. The tomato is still green with little real flavor.
Our cool, wet April has made tomatoes late for Farmers Market. I am watching my green tomatoes get bigger with no touch of red on any of them.
Will my tomatoes join me going to Farmers Market? Probably not many will.
Tomatoes are one crop we will eat lots of. Extras will be frozen. The day before frost, the green ones will go into the pantry where many will turn red.
The same routine as the store uses? On the surface. My tomatoes will still taste a lot better.
The store doesn’t carry Speckled Roman, Pineapple, Bonnie’s Best or Boxcar Willie. These are tomatoes bred for flavor, not marketability.
In “Mistaken Promises” Hazel Whitmore raises pullets to show at the county fair. Her mother and grandfather compete with their tomatoes.
I enjoy hiking the trails at ShawneeMac Lakes Conservation Area, but have rarely made time for the last few years. This year I go Saturday afternoon and spotted a muskrat.
The main objective is to take plant pictures. There are many species growing around and in the lakes, I never see around home. I even spotted an orchid I’d never seen before.
Many of the plants are what the Conservation Department calls invasive aliens. I see them as new immigrants as they are well established now regardless of whether they are wanted here or not.
There are two lakes. I usually start by going around the upper Lake Turner. This trail has more moisture, several wet weather creeks and marshy areas.
Instead of cutting across the earth dam as these are manmade lakes, I continue down the trail around the lower Lake Ziske. There is a newer trail loop off this trail, but I rarely take it. The plants are more interesting to me along the main trail.
With air temperatures near ninety, this muskrat may be working hard, but coolly as it swims in one of the lakes at ShawneeMac Lakes Conservation Area.
Along the way numerous creatures show up. Most are the usual insects like dragonflies and damselflies. Ticks are few and far between, probably because there are so many possible hosts going by.
The birds are the most common larger animals. Canada geese and other ducks love the water. Lots of fish fill the lakes attracting a few fishermen.
This last week I was on the final leg of the trail along the lake and wondering if the common milkweeds were in bloom as the purple milkweed were last week when something swam in through the water willow to disappear into the lake bank.
It reminded me of a beaver, but there were no beaver-cut trees. What was it? I waited and watched, camera in hand.
The first pictures were a mess, in fact, good lake views with no creature. I did get a good look at it. Head like a small beaver. Single tail. Muskrat.
The muskrat was out gathering plant clippings to take into its home tunnel. It dived down, popped up, dived down.
I’ve read “Wind In the Willows” with its muskrat character, but I’d never seen a live wild muskrat before. I’m glad to know one is living at ShawneeMac Lakes.
April was a month for babies here. Goat kids and chicks found they were in a strange new world. But farm babies grow up fast.
It is now June. Those cute balls of fluff are now lovely white with black necks pullets. They complain their little house is just that: little. Their yard is bare dirt as they ate most of the greenery. And it is too small.
It doesn’t take long for young chicks to eat and scratch up the greenery in their yard. These Columbian Wyandotte pullets have learned I let them out into a temporary yard on grass for a few hours most days. In the meantime they patrol their yard hoping some luckless bug will drop by.
I do have a 50-foot roll of three-foot chicken wire. This is staked up from the little chicken gate with electric wire posts to enclose an area of grass.
Don’t stand in the gateway when it is opened. For that matter, don’t stand in the doorway in the morning. Those pullets come flying and racing out.
There is a roost. According to this Columbian Wyandotte pullet, the feed container is more comfortable for roosting. And there are no grouchy neighbors.
Most of these pullets will move to a new home later this month. The remaining eight will continue to grow up into pullets big enough to move into the hen house.
The pullets will start laying in the fall. Then they will be hens at only six-months old. Farm babies grow up fast.
Goat kids are so cute when they are little. They depend on their mothers for milk. In a few days they are out exploring, playing, jumping on the goat gym.
Nubian doe High Reaches Agate’s spotted doe kid loves attention. She insists on attention. The best attention is scratching over her shoulders.
At almost three months old these kids are ready to move to new homes. The polled buck has already left for one up near Columbia.
The three doe kids will be advertised toward the end of the month. Hopefully someone good will take them to a new home the beginning of July.
Just last April this Nubian doe kid was easy to pick up and hold. High Reaches Spring has lots of milk. This doe kid is now a big armload to pick up. So far her spots are staying brown and look really nice against her black coat.
The buck kids are rarely so lucky. They too have to start leaving in July.
And then the barn will seem empty with only my thirteen adults in it. Augustus will be left alone all day again.
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“.
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.
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.
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.
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“.
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.
