Category: Latest From High Reaches

Chicks Love Greens

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date March 20, 2026

At a month old my chicks think they are ready to get outside. One reason is the chunk of chickweed I put in each morning. My chicks love greens.

New Chicks

February is not a great month to have baby chicks. Cackle Hatchery does have warming pads in with them so they arrive safely. But it’s too cold to put them outside at my house.

That means I have chicks in the house. Since the heat lamp is on all day and all night, it’s hard to sleep. The one good thing was how quiet this tiny flock of twenty-one chicks was.

My two cats ignore them. Mira is jealous of the attention they get. Besides, they are invaders in her house.

The way I learned to put baby chicks in a box with a heat lamp, was to set each one by the water fount and dip their beak in. These chicks were thirsty.

Moving Out

The weather improved. The chicks started getting feathers and spreading dust all over. I set up the outside house and they moved out.

The chick house is by my garden. There is one big patch of weeds right by the gate. It’s mixed, but mostly chickweed. Each morning I dug up a big handful and set it in with the chicks.

The cold weather stuck around into March. However, chicks become a problem in the house after a couple of weeks. So, I moved them out into my chick house. They enjoyed having more room. And I could bring in handfuls of chickweed for them to enjoy for eating and scratching.

What Is This?

The first day the chicks retired to the far walls of their place. Only one or two were brave enough to check out this strange lump.

The second day more chicks came over. A few even took a few pecks at the leaves.

By the third day, this lump of chickweed was popular. Chicks love greens and they now knew this was what they loved.

Warm weather arrived. The chicks feathered out. I opened the chick house door so the chicks could get outside to bask, eat greens and stretch their wings.

New World

In front of the chick house is a small yard. Every year I try to get grass to grow in it. Every spring some grass and lots of chickweed do come up getting thick and lush.

A nice day arrives, warm and dry. I open the door to the chick house. Chicks line up to look out at this new world.

It might take a day or two, but chicks love greens and that yard is full of greens. They come out and attack.

After the chicks leave this baby yard behind, I will start spreading grass seeds in the bare dirt. Next spring will bring another batch of chicks and grass needs time to grow.

Tags raising baby chicks, raising chickens

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Filling Garden Tubs

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date March 13, 2026

I have written about using tubs in the garden before, but it bears repeating. Since I am filling garden tubs again this year, it’s a good topic as I’ve learned more about them.

The tubs I am writing about are the empty plastic tubs from cattle licks. There are lots of cattlemen around me and these tubs are popular ways to add nutrition for their cows. My feed store buys back the empties and sells them to people like me so they are not left to get trashed out in the fields.

My garden tubs began as cattle lick tubs and are a nice size. The first step is to drill drainage holes. Then the tubs are set where they will stay as moving full tubs is very difficult and back breaking. I like the tubs because they come in a variety of styles and colors. These pepper tubs are blue and white.

Preparing the Tubs

Drainage holes are the first step. Originally I drilled several half inch holes in the bottom of the tubs necessitating use of blocks under them.

There are several difficulties with this approach. One is finding enough blocks, bricks or rocks to set under the tubs. Another is trying to pull the weeds that inevitably start growing under them.

I now drill these holes in the sides about two inches from the bottom. The tub can be set on the ground. The base provides a water reservoir for dry weather as tubs dry out fast.

Because I live near a creek that floods regularly leaving big gravel bars behind, I have a selection of gravel to choose from. As I drill four holes in a tub, I start with four larger flat rocks to cover the holes. Then I go to fist size rocks to fill up to a bit above the holes. It’s interesting to go gravel hunting as I never know what I will spot. Some rocks glitter with crystals. On rare occasions one will have an ammonite fossil in it.

Filling Garden Tubs

First and foremost is setting the tub where it will stay. Second is a layer of large gravel. I like some large, flat ones for over the drainage holes. The rest is fist sized or larger to a depth just above the drainage holes.

Then comes the dirt. It takes a lot of dirt to fill one of these tubs. My preference is a mix of dirt and compost. In reality, I use compost (sometimes pure in a pinch), dirt, sand and red dirt (clay). This last must be very well mixed in.

I have a mix of clay dirt, potting soil and compost in these garden tubs. They aren’t quite full, but close.

Using the Tubs

Most vegetables have shallow roots, so the tubs work well. One tub is sufficient for one tomato plant, three or four pepper plants or a ring of greens. I do put mulch on top to help hold moisture in.

The tubs do heat up when in the sun. I felt the dirt one sunny summer day and it was warm enough, if it was water, to take a bath. Vegetables don’t appreciate this.

This is one of the garden tubs in my garden proper with red Benigorro mizuna growing in it. The Jerusalem artichokes are in the background. Garden tubs need regular watering.

I hang sun screens on tubs in the sun. Others I place so they get afternoon shade.

Filling garden tubs is work and they do wear out in five to ten years, but they let me grow many things I couldn’t otherwise – like carrots – and my peppers prefer growing in tubs.

Tags container gardening, gardening, Ozark gardening

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What Milk?

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date March 6, 2026

I raise Nubian dairy goats. Note the word dairy. That means they are milk goats. So, what milk? My does are all going dry.

My Nubian doe Drucilla loves her kids. She produces plenty of milk for them and is very patient as they learn how to nurse.

Kids Are Necessary

All mammals produce milk to feed their offspring. Man decided he liked milk too and bred various mammals to give more milk. We often think of cows and goats, but camels, sheep and horses are milked too.

Since my bucks died last year, none of my does got bred. A couple milked through so I have had milk up until now.

My Nubian doe Spring is devoted to her kids. She likes to teach them to be very wary of anything new.

Importance of Dry Time

Producing milk takes a lot of energy, minerals and food. Producing kids takes a lot of energy, minerals and food too. A doe trying to do both, doesn’t do well.

My does are now bred. Their due dates are hazy, but several are starting to show.

Those does I have been milking are now deciding to shut down. What milk? No milk.

The does will spend their time building up reserves of protein and minerals so they can produce milk after their kids are born.

My Nubian doe Opal has grown up and has her first kid, a little doe. Even as a new mother, Opal takes care to stay with her kid.

Milking After Kids

Commercial dairies sell milk so they usually take the offspring away right after they are born. I am not a commercial dairy and leave the kids with their mothers.

Does think their kids come first. When the kids are small, I get the leftovers. As the kids get older, less and less milk is leftover.

By the time kids are six weeks old, they are eating well. I lock them away overnight and milk in the morning. Then we are both happy.

While writing “For Love of Goats”, I wrote a series of ten short pieces about growing up as a goat kid from the point of view of a kid. They were fun to write.

Waiting

So now I am waiting. First, I am waiting until the kids are born. That could be any time from late April to end of July.

Then I will wait until the kids are old enough to lock away at night. I’m hoping for early kids.

Tags goat milk, raising goat kids, raising goats

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New Dent County Flora Entries

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date February 27, 2026

Many things happened last year, so I didn’t go out hiking and photographing many new plants. That doesn’t mean the are no new Dent County Flora entries.

This goldenrod wasn’t really a new plant. I had seen it over the years. The problem with goldenrods is identifying them. I think I finally have this one as Hairy Goldenrod.

Beginning an Entry

Of course, I begin a new entry by taking photographs. This sounds easy, but can be very frustrating.

Plants don’t run off, however they do blow in the wind, get eaten by insects and other animals or stepped on. Then there are the ones I find once and, somehow, can never find again.

Each plant needs several pictures. First is one of the plant. Some plants are surrounded by other plants.

Second are pictures of the front and sides of the flowers, the leaves and the stems. These can often be done all at once.

The last picture is of the fruit or seedpod. Sometimes I have to go back several times before this is ready to photograph.

Swamp Milkweed is a very showy plant and is available from nurseries and in seed catalogs. It does like plenty of moisture and lots of sunshine.

Which Plant Is It?

I can usually spot new plants, ones I haven’t seen before. I may not know the name of these plants, but I know they are new Dent County Flora entries.

My book shelf has many plant books on it. Some are popular plant guides put out by the Missouri Department of Conservation. Others are botanical works like Yatskievych’s three volume “Flora of Missouri”. Another favorite place to look is missouriplants.com.

I put pictures on iNaturalist. Sometimes someone there can identify this new plant.

Although the leaflets have thumbs like Christmas Fern, this is a more delicate fern with a smooth, dark rachis. It does like growing near rocks and in moist areas, but not in water.

Making an Entry Page

Usually the flower is the main photograph on the page. I crop and resize it to fir properly. The side of the flower, leaf, stem and fruit or seedpod form a column down one side.

Under the flower picture is the plant picture. Between them is a short comment about the plant like its habitat or key identification hints.

One thing I don’t do is tell people exactly where I find a plant, if it is rare or something people want to dig up. Some plants are so commonly found, it doesn’t matter as all a person has to do is slow down and look.

As the saying goes: Violets are blue. This one certainly is along with several other violet species. It’s hard to tell them apart.

When Will the Flora get Done?

I don’t know if it ever will. In a way, I would like to finish it. In a way, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is getting out and looking for all of these interesting plants.

Tags Ozark wildflowers, plant identification

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Gravel County Road

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date February 21, 2026

My Missouri county seems to draw a lot of people from other places. Most of them are city people who don’t really want to live in the country so the county is busy paving their gravel county road system.

Me? I like living on a gravel county road. Like anything else, it has advantages and disadvantages.

County gravel roads are the highways for people and animals in rural areas. They are easy to walk on. Reptiles love how they heat up. Deer love to browse they reach along the roadsides.

Disadvantages of a Gravel County Road

Dust, lots of dust is kicked up by passing vehicles and the wind. All that dust drifts away to settle elsewhere – like in the house. It coats everything in a brown layer.

Every rain storm seems to leave pot holes behind. Occasionally the road grader comes by to fill them in, but never address the reason the pot hole appeared in the first place. This is usually a ditch choked with branches, dirt and rocks or sloped so the water doesn’t run off.

Ozark county roads have sides with ditches to hold water and sides covered with leaves and other plant pieces. This armadillo was spotted checking for grubs and earthworms buried under the leaves.

Loose gravel can be a problem too. It rolls under the tires letting them slide. Or the road develops washboards – a series of small mounds across the road – that challenge the shock absorbers which are another casualty of a gravel county road.

Gravel wears out tires. The best tires are all terrain or have mud and snow tread. The good ones are costly. Cheap tires with city tread can be deadly.

Mourning Cloak butterflies hide over the winter and often come out in the first warm days in February. This one is sunning on the road. There are no flowers for nectar, but it sips water and minerals from the roadsides and near streams.

Advantages of a Gravel County Road

My road has springs all along it and is no candidate for paving. That’s just fine with me. It discourages lots of idle traffic.

And that is the biggest reason for choosing to live on such a road. When the weather is bad, there is no traffic, only country quiet. Even many nice days have little or no traffic.

The rose verbenas aren’t blooming just yet, but the plants are already growing. These are among the earliest wildflowers to bloom and add their bright color to the roadside for months.

I can walk a mile or more up or down the road enjoying the wildflowers, spotting the wildlife that also use the road. And have no one drive by.

Tags nature walks, Ozark wildflowers, Ozark wildlife

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Wonderful Seeds

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date February 13, 2026

Like most people, I don’t bother looking at those wonderful seeds when I order or plant them. I look at the goal: the produce they will become.

Perhaps we should take a closer look at these amazing things. And it is amazing that something only a sixteenth of an inch in diameter can become a four pound cabbage.

As a gardener, I start with seeds like these for Savoy cabbage as they give me more varieties than commercial transplants.

Wonderful Seeds

When I wrote “The Pumpkin Project”, I did several investigations about seeds. Different varieties of pumpkins can have very different sizes of seeds.

Different vegetables and flowers have very different seeds too. Some, like portulaca (moss rose) have seeds almost too tiny to see. Cabbages and their kin have tiny round seeds. Lettuces are flat.

Each of these seeds has the potential to become a plant many times the size of the seed. Squashed inside that seed is an embryo plant and endosperm or food for that plant.

My seed starting preference is potting soil in Styrofoam cups, two seeds to a pot. These Savoy cabbage seedlings are just big enough to be separated into one per pot.

Seeds for Food

We eat lots of seeds. Perhaps you think of nuts. However, flour is ground up wheat seeds. Corn meal is ground up corn seeds. Beans and peas are seeds.

Wildlife eat seeds too. Turkeys and deer eat acorns. Squirrels eat those and other nuts. Birds feast on grass and other seeds.

Each of those consumed seeds could have become a plant. In a way we are lucky they don’t all have a chance to grow.

My Savoy cabbage is started in January so I can transplant it to the garden in March, before my frost date. Cabbage takes a lot of cold. The mulch helps keep the soil from freezing and later from getting too warm for the plants.

Prolific Plants

What if a single dandelion invaded a lawn one spring. By the end of that spring, if all of the seeds it produced grew in that lawn, there would be no lawn. That expanse would be a field of dandelions.

Don’t believe me? Get a dandelion seed head and count all the seeds in it. How many of these does a single plant produce in one spring?

I grow Savoy cabbage because I love the crinkly leaves. This variety has smaller heads, just right for only two people.

In the Garden

I might have a fairly large garden. It produces, I hope, enough produce for us to eat for the entire year, fresh or stored. If everything goes well, there will be extra to sell to cover my seed costs.

Even so, I rarely use all the seeds in a packet. Each of those wonderful seeds wants to grow and I feel bad about not giving them a chance. Some of them will get lucky when they get shared with other gardeners.

Tags gardening, Ozark gardening, starting seeds

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Goat Retirement Home

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date February 6, 2026

My barn is now a goat retirement home filled with old goats suffering through the cold winter weather. I get to sneak back into the house to warm up. My old goats stand out shivering even with sweatshirts on.

There was a time when the old barn was full of goats, young goats keeping each other warm and busy as they debated which goats got the best spots. That is now a decade in the past.

It’s hard being young surrounded by older goats. High Reaches Kingpin wants to play and they don’t.

Nine Goats Remain

Once the goat herd numbered over forty. Now there are nine. The big goats range from four to thirteen years old. Kingpin is bored with all the old goats.

At seven months old, Kingpin loves to play. The does don’t. They get mad and whomp him. Pest is his playmate.

There was a time when Pest was very small. He is now over 200 pounds and trying to be dignified as befits his age of seven. However, Kingpin is persuasive and they have head butts every morning.

Nubian wether Pest or Big Lug was such a small kid. He is now middle aged and 200 pounds.

Late January Thaw

The cold weather is supposed to take a break this week. My goats are already feeling better as their itchy sweatshirts are off.

Snow is disappearing from the pastures. Smashed grass is reappearing. The herd is abandoning the boring troughs of hay for the taste of grass.

Goat kids grow up into adult goats. These get older and need special care.

Looking Forward

My goat retirement home should get lively in several months. My old goats are not too old to have kids.

Kids are so cute. They are also temptations. Surely I can keep one or two.

It will be so nice to have lots of milk again. The prospect of buying milk is so disappointing after fifty years of my own fresh from the barn.

Goat kids are so lively. They race ahead of the old does who lag further and further behind the herd.

Being Practical

My barn will remain a home for old goats including me. My goat retirement home will have no new members.

Time marches on and my goats and I must deal with it, like it or not.

Tags Nubian goats, raising goats

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Snowy Week

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date January 28, 2026

This is a snowy week in the Ozarks. We left this behind us in the UP (Upper Peninsula of Michigan) over thirty years ago. It has come to visit.

Snow is pretty to look at. Those flakes drift down dampening sound, making a silent world. When the sun shines again, the snow sparkles and errant bits in the air shine like diamonds.

My garden tubs have snow mounds on top. There was some wind so they each have a hollow around them. The moisture from the snow will get the tubs ready for spring planting.

Reality

The Ozarks is not prepared for a snowy week. They are so rare, the road department has no real snow removal equipment. Drivers don’t know how to cope with snow and ice on the roads.

My barn was never built for the cold. Now over a hundred years old, it is drafty and too tinder dry to put any kind of heat lamp in.

Slogging through eight or so inches of heavy snow is hard work. Unlike city people, I can’t sit it out looking out the windows. Chickens and goats need attention.

Wildlife suffers too. The squirrels curl up in their nests and sleep. Birds must find food to keep themselves warm.

The birds are lining up on the feeder at first light. They mob the place all day. Other food is under the snow and they need food to keep warm.

Double Edged Sword

We feed the birds and have ever since we moved here. This morning a flock of cardinals was waiting for breakfast to arrive. They were trying to move into the tray even as it was being set out. These birds depend on the feeder’s bounty.

If the feeder were to suddenly disappear, these birds would be in trouble. There are many more living around us than the place can actually support. They would have to fly off for miles to find another good food source which is hard to do in the snow.

Snowy Week with Cold

Often the snow disappears in a day or two in the Ozarks. This time the cold is staying for over a week so the snow will too.

It isn’t all a problem. The garlic and winter onions have a snowy blanket. They will be warmer for this snowy week.

“Exploring the Ozark Hills” has a section on winter.

Tags Ozark gardening, Ozark winter, raising goats, Snow Storm

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Winter Ferns

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date January 22, 2026

Killing frost takes down most plants in the Ozarks. There are some that stay small huddled close to the ground. And there are four winter ferns.

With the warm weather this year in the Ozarks, some of the other ferns are still green. They are not true winter ferns as a harsh winter makes them vanish.

Over the summer Christmas fern gets fairly big resembling a Boston fern. It will grow as a house plant. Over the winter, the fronds darken and hug the ground, but stay green giving it its name.

Christmas Fern

The name says it. This fern is still green at Christmas. It stays green all winter. The green is darker and the fronds more ragged than over the summer.

This is a bigger fern. I have grown it in a pot where it is much like any of the commercial ferns.

Ebony Spleenwort is a delicate looking fern with its dark rachis and green leaflets. The winter has been warmer, to it still has the tall fronds. Most winters only the little fronds curl around just above the ground.

Ebony Spleenwort

Unlike the Christmas fern, ebony spleenwort has upright fronds looking a lot like green feathers against the rocks. Especially over the winter there are many smaller fronds spreading across the ground.

It is easy to identify as the rachis or main stem is a smooth purple stalk lined by alternate leaflets with little thumbs. Christmas fern has the thumbs too, but the rachis is much bigger, green and a bit hairy.

Walking fern doesn’t look like a fern with its long leaves. But, in the spring, the new leaves unroll from fiddleheads and older leaves have sori under them. Over the winter the leaves darken and hug the rocks is likes to grow on.

Walking Fern

Ferns are supposed to have these fronds. This is one fern that doesn’t. It snuggles into the moss on big rocks with its leaves wide at the top and tapering to the end.

Although walking ferns do produce spores like other ferns, it has a faster way of spreading. The long tapering tips of the leaves wedge into the moss and grow into new ferns. The fern walks across the rocks using its leaves.

Cut Leaf Grapefern

Not all winter ferns are green. This one is purple. All summer its single leaf is green. When frost comes, it turns a brownish purple for the winter.

There are two varieties of cut leaf grapefern. One has wide leaflets. The other is lacy. Both turn color.

Winter ferns are much easier to spot now as the competition is asleep for the season. Once spring arrives, taller plants will hide these ferns.

More about these is in “Exploring the Ozark Hills.“

Tags Ozark ferns, winter hikes

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Never Ending Repair List

Post author By Karen GoatKeeper
Post date January 16, 2026

From time to time I find a copy of some homesteading magazine. You know, the ones with the beautiful pictures of neat, clean homesteads and well dressed people. Reality hits when I look at my never ending repair list.

My chicken nests are old. I built them over thirty years ago from scrap lumber. This one finally wore out possibly due to the last time I tossed it out the door containing a black snake. The chickens insist it needs to move to the top of the to do list as it is one of their favorite nests.

Do It Right the First Time

How many times have I heard this? There is some fantasy out there trying to make me believe that, if I build something right the first time, I won’t have to do it again.

I replaced a narrow gate with a wider one so the former brace no longer reached across. The PVC pipes are over T-posts so I could hang additional wire to thwart a deer. However, the outer post leans and causes the fence to lean.

The Ozarks makes a mockery of this saying. Rain, heat, cold, humidity attack as soon or even sooner than a project is done.

My PVC gates are a good case. The pipes are holding up well. The wire is rusting. It leaves rust tracings on the pipes.

The hinges sag. I’m not sure why they sag, but they do. That leaves the gates scraping on the frozen dirt or catching on walnuts the chickens kick into their path.

Shoring up the garden fences is on the never ending repair list. Perhaps I can get to some of it this summer.

The plywood may be old, but most of it is still usable. I replaced the bottom and nailed the sides back together. This hen approves my work.

Barn Cleaning

There was a time when I scraped down to the cement when I cleaned the barn. Not now. After all, I will be tossing new bedding down and the goats will be making new deposits almost before the old bedding is out the door.

Chickens make a big mess. They toss feed out of the feeder. Their new roost pole decided to sag and refuses to stiffen up. A nest box needs rebuilding.

One thing a homesteader needs to learn is to have a pile of usable stuff. I used the old brace, bent, and a piece of PVC pipe left when the septic tank was replaced and had a brace to straighten the gate post. The metal brace was from an old lawn mower that stopped working.

New Homesteaders

Now and then I meet some people, cheery people, people who are so happy to own a place in the country. They have such big plans and dreams.

I always wonder if I will see them again in a year. Will they still be so cheerful? Or will they have met the never ending repair list, you know, the one that laughs at those fancy homesteading magazines.

Tags making repairs, Ozark gardening, raising chickens, to do list