Category: Latest From High Reaches

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Latest From High Reaches

Planning Ahead

So much is said about living in the now, appreciating what you see, feel, smell around you in the moment. That’s great up to a point. However, if you raise livestock or crops, planning ahead is essential.

goat coats keeping kids warm
If I want March kids, the does get to visit with Augustus in October. Part of planning ahead is to have the kids born when the weather is better. It doesn’t always work well as the goat coats on these kids of my Nubian doe High Reaches Drucilla say this March was a bit cold. Part of planning ahead is having the goat coats clean and ready just in case.

Livestock Planning

For a few years I ran a commercial rabbitry. There were around 120 does in my barn. These were roughly divided into eight sections. Why?

Gestation for a rabbit is four weeks. Weaning of baby rabbits is four weeks. The only income for a commercial rabbitry is from the sale of those baby rabbits, you guessed it, four weeks later.

Every week I bred some does, put nest boxes in for as many others, weaned babies for that many. If I didn’t keep a schedule, my rabbits went hungry.

It’s the same for other livestock. My goats have a gestation of five months. If I don’t breed in October, I have no kids to sell in the spring for money to put hay in the barn.

Planning ahead for Chinese cabbage
Napa cabbage is surprisingly cold hardy. However, cabbage worms love it. I was a bit late, but mine is wrapped with voile. The garden tubs work well for greens like this one, bok choi, peppers, eggplant and green onions among others. These seeds went in during August, so the cabbage will be ready to eat in November.

Raising Crops

Although I am only a homesteader, the same rules apply for farmers. The summer may be winding down and the summer crops with it, but spring will come again. The garden must be ready to plant then.

As a homesteader, I plant spring, summer and fall crops. January is the month to start cabbage and leeks. The end of February is time for peppers and tomatoes. August is time to plant turnips, spinach and greens along with broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage.

Without planning ahead for these deadlines, my garden won’t put food on my table and in my freezer. The full freezer is sure comforting in the fall.

a section of my Ozark creek
One of the joys of living out on this property is going walking up on the hills, into the ravines or along the creek. The same walks are never boring as the places change as the weather and seasons change.

Enjoying the Now?

Standing in the barn door as my goats eat their grain, I look out over the pasture to the far hill. A breeze ruffles my hair. Birds flit by or stop on a branch to scold the cat.

Even though I spend a lot of time planning ahead, enjoying the now is important. It’s what makes homesteading special.

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Fall Parade of Asters

Most of the sunflowers have gone to seed. They are replaced by the fall parade of asters painting the roadsides white to blue to lavender.

Although fall is not my favorite season as it is a reminder winter is close behind, the parade of asters is lovely. Wild ones may not be as big or showy as garden varieties, but they are prolific.

One of the small white heath asters
Several asters have large sprays of half inch flowerheads. Some are lavender. This one is white. I’m not sure which one this is – yet.

Which Is Which?

Like the sunflowers, asters are difficult to identify. They are like the sunflowers in that they have a ring of ray flowers surrounding a disk of tube flowers.

In the summer, the fleabanes started blooming. These look a lot like an aster, but their rays are very thin and numerous. Heath asters are the same size and similar in color, but their rays look fat and are a single ring fewer in number.

When I take pictures of the asters, there are several important ones, if I want to identify the aster. There is the flower, but the cup under the flower is important too. The leaf matters as some clasp the stem, others have long petioles. The petioles may have wings.

The first larger aster in the Ozarks parade of Asters
Spreading aster is the first larger aster to bloom along my Ozark gravel road. The flower heads are a bit over an inch across spread out along the several stems reaching out across the ground. The heart-shaped leaves clasp the stems. The cup under the flowerhead is light green and smooth with a few darker green bits.

Some leaves are long with a sharp point. Others are heart shaped. Some plants have basal leaves growing from the ground and stem leaves hanging on the flower stalks. Others have only stem leaves.

Stems are important. Some are smooth and shiny or grooved. Occasional hairs adorn some stems. Short fuzz lines others. Longer fuzz makes the stems look soft and white.

highlight of the parade of asters
New England Aster is a tall plant, up to six feet, with numerous branches topped with flowers. It is sold through nurseries. I enjoy seeing it growing along my Ozark gravel road where the ground is a bit moist. Many pollinators including bumblebees tromp over the many tube flowers sipping nectar.

Admiring the Parade of Asters

The identity of the different asters matters for my Dent County Flora project. However, the asters are worth looking at for their beauty.

My favorite is the New England Aster with its deep purple rays and golden disk. There were lots of these along the road for years until it got mowed too often. They are making a comeback this year.

All of the many asters, large and small, make my fall walks pleasant.

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Montauk State Park Trip

One thing about dairy goats is how they tie you to home. My free day begins at the end of morning chores and ends with the beginning of evening chores. That made my Montauk State Park trip short.

There were several reasons for going to the park. Somehow, they never added up enough to take a whole day. This time the need to get away from the unending “To Do’ list was enough.

Montauk Mill
The Montauk Mill is open during the summer, a time I’ve never been to Montauk State Park. Looking in the windows and reading the brochure, it look interesting.

The Grist Mill

Montauk was a small community that grew up near the big springs forming the headwaters of the Current River. The water allowed a grist mill for grinding corn and wheat to operate. Several mills were built and destroyed until the present one was built in 1896.

The mill is intact, but no longer operates. Over the summer, tours go through. This is fall, so the mill was closed during my Montauk State Park trip.

Montauk spring
The blue of the water in Montauk spring is from dissolved limestone. Karst springs flow through limestone often dissolving large amounts of stone to form caves.

Montauk Springs

Fifty-three million gallons of water flow out of the springs every day. This flow goes out to form the Current River.

Because the water has a constant cold temperature, it’s used for a trout hatchery. The river is stocked with rainbow trout and is very popular with fishermen and women. Opening day, March 1st, draws hundreds to thousands of fishermen to kick off the season.

trout seen during Montauk State Park trip
Montauk State Park is one of three rainbow trout hatcheries in Missouri. The trout are stocked in places around the area as well as in the Current River. These are two of many I saw, most of dinner size.

Wild Plants

Montauk State Park trip fisherman with trout
Wandering around near the Montauk springs, I came out on the river where these men were fishing. One caught a trout.

I’m not a fisherman, although my father tried hard to hook me into the sport. I am interested in wild plants. This is one of the big draws for me for a Montauk State Park trip.

Some years back I found a fire-on-the-mountain along a parking lot. I needed more pictures of it. This time the fire-on-the-mountain was elusive. However, I found a new plant totally new to me and a yellow coneflower along with some more familiar plants.

One other thing I found out. Monday is a good day to visit as the weekend crowd has gone home. That made it a lovely quiet escape from my unending list.

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Eating Jerusalem Artichokes

The yellow orange flowers of Jerusalem artichokes are along the roads now. My garden patch is just beginning to bloom. This winter’s menu plan includes eating Jerusalem artichokes.

Wild and garden chokes are not the same even though they are the same species. There are several big differences.

Jerusalem artichoke flowers
Like all the flowers in the Aster family, these flowers are really a ring of ray flowers forming the petals and small disk flowers producing the seeds. These are wild Jerusalem artichoke flowers as I can’t get up high enough for the garden ones, although they are the same as I’ve seen other years.

Wild Plants

All the plants along my road are five or six feet tall. They have an array of flowers at the tips of their stalks. The leaves look like spear heads as the petioles have wings and the leaves are triangular with a long taper.

According to Samuel Thayer’s book “Nature’s Harvest” the wild tubers are long, fat tubers. I’ve never dug any up, so I don’t know.

blooms precede eating Jerusalem artichokes
The top of the cattle panel is just below this picture. One of the twines broke and I had to replace it pushing the Jerusalem artichoke stalks up as I went. They are heavy! About frost I will cut the stalks off half way as the goats love the leaves. They don’t take killing frost, only light ones. Over the winter each plant can be dug for the sackful of tubers extending several inches below the surface. It’s impossible to find all of them so next year’s crop will grow here.

Garden Plants

Growing Jerusalem artichokes in the garden is challenging because of is their height. Thick two inch diameter stalks tower over my head. I haven’t measured them, but they are close to ten feet tall. Their roots aren’t deep enough to support this height.

My patch is lined on each side by cattle panels. A rope surrounds the patch with twine running between the panels to help support these huge plants. It’s a nuisance to have them fall over.

These plants bloom about two weeks later than their wild cousins. Each has fewer flowers on the ends of their stalks.

Eating Jerusalem artichokes from the garden is challenging too. These tubers are knobby with tight creases. Dirt clings to them and fills every crevice.

When I dig the tubers after frost, I have a bucket of water with me. First I shake and rub off all the dirt I can. Then I dunk them in the water and shake off more mud. Once in the kitchen I resort to an old toothbrush and often snap the knobs off the main tuber.

Eating Jerusalem Artichokes

Maybe someday I will sample the wild tubers. The description of them makes them sound a lot like the garden ones I grow, but smaller.

I find my tubers can be used like water chestnuts in stir fry or added to stews. Cooked they turn soft and taste a bit sweet. One plant produces lots of tubers, so my garden has a big supply.

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Enjoying the Sunflower Parade

Each season seems to have wildflower colors more common than others. Spring is blue and pink. Fall is purple. Summer is yellow with the sunflower parade.

This begins with brown-eyed susans assisted by yellow ironweed. Then the sunflowers begin.

One of the sunflower parade
This Helianth sunflower is typical of many wild sunflowers with the smaller disk and single row of yellow rays. The leaves are normally opposite. Another group normally has alternate leaves. The disks are usually yellow.

Lots of Sunflowers

To people driving by the many sunflowers look alike. They have yellow ‘petals’ and a yellow or brown center. They are usually tall with big leaves. Even now the fields of tickseed sunflower are just another in the sunflower parade.

If you stop and look, these plants are not all the same. They are alike in that these ‘flowers’ are really flower heads with bright ray flowers surrounding a disk of small, tubular flowers. But these are different on different plants too.

Look at the leaves. Some pairs of leaves are on opposite sides of the stem. Other leaves aren’t in pairs but alternate on their way up the stem. Some have smooth edges, some tiny teeth, others large teeth.

member of the sunflower parade
This sunflower is more like the grown sunflowers with the larger brown disk and short rays. Many of the wild sunflowers produce edible seeds that are too small to bother with except for the birds.

And the Flower Heads

Some ray flowers are short and broad. Others are long and thin. There are notches in the ends of others. Even their colors are different as some are very yellow and others have orange tints.

The center flowers can be yellow or brown. They put out stamens covered with pollen. Most of these are yellow, but not all. Some make a mound. Others are flat.

Naming Sunflowers

I’ve taken pictures of the different sunflowers for years. Most of them have names like 1 Sunflower, 2 Sunflower.

There are easy ones like Prairie dock with its enormous basal leaves. Tickseed sunflower is another one as the plant has a tapered look, the leaves have big lobes and the ray flowers are broad and thin.

The rest of them are still on my list to be identified. There is a key, several in fact. They haven’t helped much. This year I am looking up pictures to compare with my pictures. Perhaps I will spend some time setting up the pictures to put on iNaturalist in the hopes someone more knowledgeable than I will know what they are.

One other thing I will do is enjoy the sunflower parade even as the asters try to take over and signal the end of summer.

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Amazing Pawpaw

Although people might have heard of pawpaws, few of them know what a pawpaw is. When we first moved to the Ozarks, we didn’t know anything about the amazing pawpaw.

The Patch

Along a pasture fence was a patch of these strange trees. Their huge leaves had a tropical look to them. Their purple flowers opened upside down in the spring, but there was no fruit.

Down along the river were some other patches of these trees we identified as pawpaws. These had a few fruits, if you can call green potatoes fruits.

When these ripened in late summer we tried eating them. The next year we gathered pollen from the river trees for out pasture trees. Now these had fruits on them.

pawpaw flowers
Since mid spring blooming pawpaw flowers aren’t interested in having bees, wasps or bumblebees visit, they point down and advertise for flies and beetles. As the tree gets taller, it gets harder to get the flowers pollinated although the amazing cluster is nearly ten feet up.

Pawpaw Facts

These semi tropical trees are a native fruit probably from Florida or the Gulf Coast. Indians liked them, eating the fruit and using the inner bark as fiber. They spread the trees all through the eastern U.S.

Pawpaws are an understory tree near, but not in, water as in ravines or along creeks. With their large leaves, they can and do grow straight even growing in the shade. They prefer growing in the shade. When they like a spot, they put up sprouts around them and become a patch.

In the spring the flowers open facing the ground. They attract flies and beetles as pollinators. There must be two different trees, not another sprout, for pollination.

amazing pawpaw cluster
I hate climbing up ladders and needed to go up one more rung to get eleven fruits in the picture. One is always hidden in the back or underneath. Even with only nine showing, this is an amazing pawpaw cluster. It is not two clusters joined together, but a single cluster. Now we need to keep checking on it to pick it before the resident groundhog with a burrow at the base of the tree gets it. All of the fruits are still hard. As soon as they start to soften, we can pick the cluster.

Fruits

The clusters of green potatoes soften and take on a yellow tinge in late summer to early fall. Usually there are three or four fruits in a cluster. This year we have an amazing pawpaw cluster of twelve!

We pick the fruits as soon as they soften. They ripen on the windowsill. Once they are soft, we can eat the custardy insides discarding the large seeds. If any are left over, they make great sweet breads.

Those left on the trees are soon chewed on. We aren’t the only ones who like the sweet, custardy fruits. Deer, raccoons, opossums, foxes and others like them too.

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Finding Wildflowers

This is the busiest time of summer with putting food by for the winter and planting the fall garden as summer plants are ready to remove. Hiking the hills is not often on the schedule which leaves me finding wildflowers in different places.

finding wildflowers gave me this new bur marigold
Gardens attract lots of wild plants better known as weeds. Some are immediately pulled. Others are allowed to grow just to see what they are. This bur marigold turned out to be a pretty wildflower.

In the Garden

Wild plants want to grow and gardens are ideal spots. Gardens have open, rich soil. Water arrives often. Competition is minimal as vegetables get harvested regularly.

My garden hosts a variety of wild plants such as chickweed, dead nettle, dock, English plantain, wayside speedwell, two morning glories, evening primrose, chicory, bulbous buttercup and daisy fleabane. There are others and some occasional visitors such as pokeweed.

A friend asked me about a plant in her garden with lovely orange flowers. It reminds me of a marigold, but is one of the bur marigolds. There are several, but most have tiny rays people often call petals. I have pictures and will identify it later.

floating primrose flower
When finding wildflowers, the searcher needs to be on the lookout all the time. This floating primrose grows around the end of a lake put in near a house. Probably ducks or geese stopped on the small lake and dropped off the seeds. I spotted it by looking down after taking a picture of a pink rose mallow flower.

Other Places

Finding wildflowers is mostly a matter of watching for them. I love driving with no one following me as I can go slowly and look over the plants along the roads. Wild sunflowers are blooming now and I’m looking for new ones.

Across from my friend’s house is a large pond. Her ducks moved over to it. Around it are several clumps of pink rose mallow.

I’m sure these clumps were planted there. However rose mallow, the white ones, grow wild in several places. There are wild pink ones down toward where the witch hazel I visited in the spring, but that takes a morning to go to.

The planted pink rose mallows will do as examples of a color variant. So I traipsed across the road. The mallow wasn’t the only wildflower there.

The Yerba de Tajo was one I’d found at ShawneeMac Lakes. The yellow one was new. I very much doubt it was planted there. That adds floating primrose to my Dent County Flora.

Most of my produce I’m saving is stuffed into my freezer now along with the extra roosters. Okra and one more package of chopped peppers will finish packing the freezers.

Once the fall garden is planted, maybe I can go back to hiking the hills finding wildflowers.

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Giant Sunflowers

The roadsides are lined with yellow and orange wild sunflowers of many kinds. This year giant sunflowers are growing in my garden.

Last Year

Seed catalogs have lots of pictures of many varieties of sunflowers. Most are strictly pretty flowers. A few will produce edible seeds.

Some of these are giant sunflowers growing to ten feet or more. A packet of Mongolian Giants was added to the seed order just for fun.

Wind can be a problem for tall plants. After some thought, I placed the sunflowers along a tall deer fence so I could tie them up, if necessary.

The problem was how edible sunflowers are. Deer reached through the fence. Groundhogs crawled through. Only one plant, hidden inside yet another wire ring, survived.

This plant grew tall although a few leaves disappeared. It produced a large flower head. No bird even looked at this treat as every seed was empty.

giant sunflowers
Watching these giant sunflower plants get taller and taller is fun. The flowerheads seem to start small and get bigger. It’s a good thing they are against a fence as the flowers made the plants top heavy. I’ve had a couple tall over and tied the others to increase support for them.

This Year

I had left over seeds. A different fence was selected, an interior one. And the plants grew. And grew.

Giant sunflowers are giants. Some of these must be ten feet tall and tower over me as well as the tomatoes growing on the other side of the fence and the okra trying to grow alongside of them.

Now these giants are blooming. Interestingly, the heads open only about six inches across then steadily get bigger. They start facing out toward the sun and later bend down.

Just For Fun

Although we like eating sunflower seeds, there won’t be enough to last very long. The birds will probably get many of the seeds as the flower heads are too far overhead to bag.

The packets boast how tall the plants get. I remember county fair entries of these as people vied for who could grow the tallest ones.

We won’t enter these in any fairs as our county fairs are now past. However, these giant sunflowers have been fun to grow.

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My Ozark Creek

After two days dealing with baling and putting hay in the barn, I was tired. The day was warm and overcast so a walk down to visit the goats and explore my Ozark creek seemed a good idea.

This idea had another appeal to it. As I write about the Ship Nineteen Carduans, their creek, which they consider a river, is a place they go to often.

a section of my Ozark creek
This section of my Ozark creek is wider than I can jump, but it’s definitely a creek. But then, I’m five feet tall. If I were four inches tall like the Carduans I’m writing about, this same creek would seem very wide and deep and look much more like a river.

My Ozark Creek

Most of the creek banks are steep drops where high water and flood waters have scoured out the dirt. Roots hang out of these cuts. When enough of a tree’s roots are undercut, the tree begins to lean, then falls.

Once you are down the bank, the creek bottom stretches out. Much of this area is paved with gravel left behind as the water carries the soil away.

Water levels vary according to the rain. As I look over this part of the creek, it is more a series of pools with small streams of running water flowing between them than what might normally be considered a creek.

Some pools are broad and less than a foot deep. Other pools are deep cuts often where trees have been uprooted. Fish and crawdads inhabit the pools.

A wide variety of plants live along the creek. The trees are mostly sycamores with their white trunks studded with brown puzzle pieces and willows, black and Carolina. Underneath the trees is a mix. I notice jewelweed with its orange earring flowers dangling, a pink swamp milkweed, purple self heal and hog peanut vines draped over much of it.

my Ozark creek forms pools
Gravel moved into this area of my Ozark creek during the last flood. The young tree in the bank is undercut and a pool has formed under it. Broad Head Minnows swim back and forth through the pool. It’s deep enough for some of them to reach six inches long.

The Carduans

Food is a constant need for the Carduans of Ship Nineteen. The creek they find is a place to catch fish and crawdads.

There are stones to use for building. Honey locust trees supply thorns. Willows supply slender canes for making chairs.

When I wear boots, the creek is easy to cross. The Carduans, at four inches tall, find the creek is often deeper than they are tall. All of us think it is a great place to spend an afternoon.

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Oodles of Tomatoes

I will admit I probably over planted tomatoes. Every year I vow to cut back. And every year I end up with oodles of tomatoes.

Reasons to Cut Back

Two people can only eat so many tomatoes. Even the chickens and the wildlife can get overwhelmed by oodles of tomatoes.

Tomatoes take a lot of water. Ozark summers are often dry and I don’t have a convenient hose.

Tomatoes are a popular sales item for both sellers and buyers at the Farmers Market. However, lots go home again.

Speckled Roman paste tomato
Paste tomatoes have less water in them. I like the flavor of the Speckled Roman paste tomatoes. It is an indeterminate tomato, an heirloom, and prolific. The tomatoes are not uniform, but tend to be up to 7 inches long and 1 1/2 inches in diameter. This year I’m getting lots of shorter, but stouter ones. I slice them into rounds to cook them up for sauce or placing on cream cheese pizza.

Reasons For Growing So Many Tomatoes

My garden typically has three main types of tomatoes: red, yellow and paste. These are started from seed as I like varieties not commonly available.

There are also some purchased tomatoes as these will bear sooner. And a couple of cherry tomatoes are nice for snacks. One is by the house. The other is in the garden.

Things happen to gardens. Groundhogs. Chipmunks. Wood rats. Birds. Insects. Disease. Having a few more plants than necessary is insurance against total loss.

Gold King of the North Oxheart Tomato
This is an extra tomato for me this year. These tomatoes are huge with the characteristic oxheart shape. The vines are indeterminate and prolific. I find the taste a bit bland. The tomatoes seem to bruise easily.

What To Do With Oodles of Tomatoes

All dinner menus are now planned with tomatoes included. Sliced. Salads. Enchiladas. Spaghetti.

More tomatoes end up as sauce, broth and frozen. A few years back I tried freezing plain nice tomatoes. These are great as thawing them makes the skins slide off. If I’m doing chili, I only want one or two, not a bag of sauce.

When I make tomato sauce, I read the directions to boil skinned tomatoes down for hours until they are a thick sauce. First, I’m lousy at skinning tomatoes. Second, I hate spending that much time boiling off water. (Tomatoes are 95% water, more than watermelon at 92%. See the Pumpkin Project.)

My sauce is plain tomatoes, trimmed and cut into chunks, dropped into a large pot and simmered until soft mush. Then I use a colander to separate the pulp from the liquid tomato broth.

The liquid is frozen as broth. The pulp is pureed in the blender, then frozen. When I thaw these out, I can add the appropriate herbs, spices and salt for the recipe I am making.

Even so, this is a great tomato year. My garden is happily producing oodles of tomatoes. I hope it lasts to frost and beyond stored in the pantry and freezer.