Category: Latest From High Reaches

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Winter Ferns

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.

Christmas fern is a winter fern
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 winter fern
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
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.“

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Never Ending Repair List

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.

never ending repair list for chickens
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.

never ending repair list for the garden
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.

Chicken nest repaired
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.

garden gate repaired
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.

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Growing Weeds

Last year had lots of problems and the garden suffered. The result is that now I am growing weeds.

Doing a little weeding isn’t a problem. It can be relaxing sitting there in the garden in the sun letting the mind wander. A few weeds are to be expected.

tools to prevent growing weeds
The weeds are attacked with the potato fork to break up the soil, the soil knife to pull them and the cardboard to stop them.

Weed Overload

What is in my garden right now is a weed overload. There are lots of weeds that start growing in the fall and do their best to take over by spring.

Other weeds are perennials. These are harder to find as they spend the winter as roots hidden in the soil waiting for warm weather before exploding up.

Chickweed
The weeds are solid in the Jerusalem artichoke patch. The scalloped leaves are dead nettle and not edible. The smooth edged leaves are chickweed, an edible green. It has some frost damage on it.

Tackling the Overload

It’s really easy to be overwhelmed by the growing weeds. This is part of their strategy for success. There are so many, the gardener gives up and they can take over.

Unfortunately for the weeds, I am too stubborn to yield my garden to them. So, I have to have a strategy to avoid the overwhelm.

Moth Mullein rosette
This is a moth mullein rosette. Although it is one of the weeds, it is also a lovely wild flower. I leave a few rosette here and there to enjoy the flowers next summer.

Since my garden is divided into beds and pathways, I target a section at a time. When I get too stressed, I focus on places with only a few weeds. Or I do a strip across a bed just a foot wide.

The objective of any weeding strategy is to make enough progress against the weeds each time to feel successful. Then it’s easier to come back the next day.

No growing weeds here
The pathways have cardboard on them. The vegetable bed has thick mulch. It’s ready for spring when tomatoes or peppers will move in for the season.

Growing Weeds for Food

Chickweed is one of the overwintering weeds. It has colonized the Jerusalem artichoke bed along with much of the garden.

This is one of the wild greens filled with nutrition. It has a mild taste and is good in salads, stir fries and other ways. And it is always nice to have some fresh garden greens in the middle of winter.

However, chickweed is a miniature kudzu. Left alone it smothers everything around it and produces thousands of seeds.

Spring will be vegetable growing time. Growing weeds is not part of this. So, some of the chickweed will end up on the dinner table. Most will end up in the compost pile.

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Raising Goats

I never intended to be a goat keeper. Raising goats never made my wish list growing up. When cold weather settles in, it is not on my list of favorite things at all.

One day, the temperature hit 76 degrees. At three in the afternoon, the cold began moving in. By five, when I went out to the barn, it was only 36 degrees. Winter was back.

raising goats in winter
The grass may be dormant, but my Nubian dairy goats prefer it to hay. Besides, the sun is warm.

Cold Goats

In the morning, the goats were shivering in twelve degrees. They wanted their sweat shirts back on. I considered this and decided to wait.

The sun was shining. One thing about goats standing in the sunshine is how fast they warm up. It is tempting to snuggle into their warm fur, so much warmer than any jacket.

water is popular
When water gets poured into the dish, chickens race over to get a drink. Most of the rush is over in this picture.

Cold Water

When the temperature is only twenty, water freezes quickly. Ice water may be nice on hot summer days, but not on cold winter ones.

One of the raising goats rules of such cold days is: No water is left standing at the barn. Instead, water is carried out in the morning, at noon and at night. Everyone who wants one gets a drink. Any water left over gets dumped out.

Buckets are for drinking
For some reason chickens love to drink out of the water buckets. Even when the water level is half way down, they strain to reach it.

Cold Chickens

My chickens don’t like such winter cold either. They do have nice feather coats to fluff up. So, the chickens race around looking for bugs that have disappeared for the winter.

Chickens are funny about ice. They love to peck it and eat it. But the ice makes them cold too.

The same rule applies: No water is left outside during the day. This is not popular at all.

When I take water out to the chicken yard, all the chickens come running over to mob the pan. I make sure there are several pans as the chickens argue about which one is first.

raising goats on pasture
Nubian doe High Reaches Opal is not fond of cameras. They may be some kind of monster. Everyone else is too busy clipping green grass encouraged to grow by warm temperatures to notice.

Raising Goats and Chickens

Books about livestock don’t mention water in winter cold. It’s one of the things you learn the hard way that first winter. The water freezes solid and must be chipped out of the pails so everyone can get a drink.

It’s easier to go out to check on everyone and give them a drink two or three times a day.

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Winter Mullein Rosettes

On a winter walk the side of the road is green with chicory, dandelion, dock and more stubbornly hugging the dirt. More noticeable are the winter mullein rosettes.

A number of plants called biennials spend a year growing, overwinter and bloom the next year. Mullein and thistles are some of them.

thistle winter rosette
Thistle rosettes are easy to know. The prickly leaves mark this one as a bull thistle.

Thistles

Bull thistle rosettes invaded the yards around the house a number of years ago. These are a biennial so the rosette appears first and the flowers the next year. We left a couple to see what the plants would be like.

Great shafts lined with thorns grew up reaching five or six feet tall. These had many branches and each branch was tipped with a pink hairy flower head.

These flowers are very popular. Hummingbirds drink nectar. Butterflies walk around on them sipping. Later a variety of birds including goldfinches, cardinals and sparrows eat the seeds.

Moth Mullein flowers
Moth mullein is a lovely wild flower. I let several grow and flower in my garden as well as in the yard. They do tend to come up in the hundreds the next year.

Winter Mullein Rosettes

Two mulleins invaded the front yard years ago. One is moth mullein with spikes of white flowers with purple hairy stamens. These usually get two feet tall, but can make three.

winter mullein rosette
Nothing else looks like a winter mullein rosette. The leaves can be darker green, but they are always fuzzy.

Common mullein rosettes have big, furry leaves looking like a bird nest on the ground. Unlike thistles that hug the ground, even under where the lawn mower reaches, mullein leaves stand up.

In the summer, tall stalks grow up five or six feet. Usually there is a single one with others appearing later as branches. Other times the stalks become elaborate candelabra. Yellow flowers open randomly along the stalks.

Herbal Tea

Nothing seems to be fond of the furry mullein leaves. However, they do make a nice herb tea. It has a slightly dusty, mild taste. A single leaf is good for two batches of tea for me. I usually toss in some mint leaves or calendula flowers with it.

The impressive flower spikes and wild tea are good reasons to let the mulleins grow.

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Watching the Birds

Cold weather and snow make for indoor days. We would rather be outside, but settle for watching the birds at the bird feeder.

That feeder was one of the first things we put up over thirty years ago. It has seen some changes over the years, but the bird crowd doesn’t mind as long as the sunflower seeds arrive every morning.

Watching the birds is fun with blue jays
When the blue jays move onto the bird feeder, they try to chase everyone else off. It doesn’t work well. Squirrels sneer at them.

The Feeder

The feeder is a simple affair. A metal tray is balanced on four t-posts with a wood rim to hold it in place. Four wood posts go up to hold a tin roof.

The tray holds a rectangular tray of sunflower seeds. An old pan without a handle holds water if the temperature is above freezing. A pottery bowl holds scratch feed. One corner has a wire cage with a suet cake in it.

cardinal watching the birds from the feeder
It’s late in the day. This cardinal has found the tray empty, but waits for it to refill as it must do magically if he only waits long enough. The magic is someone tromping out with more sunflower seeds.

These trays and dishes are collected at dark every evening and brought into the house. Night forays by raccoons and opossums are not welcome as they make a mess on the main feeder floor.

In the morning, the birds gather in neighboring trees and the feeder tray and roof to wait. Sometimes a squirrel comes early to check over the spilled seeds. The bird seed arrives shortly after dawn.

Squirrel on bird feeder
Squirrels on the bird feeder are annoying and little gluttons. This gray squirrel stays to one side so birds can come by on the other one. Some sit in the middle and chase off birds and squirrels alike.

Watching the Birds

Some birds are regulars all year, as the feeder is put out all year. Cardinals and morning doves are the main ones. The other visitors vary by the season.

Winter brings the titmice, chickadees, nuthatches and house finches. The others are more in evidence then too. Downy and red-bellied woodpeckers eat the suet. Blue jays attack the corn in the scratch feed. Doves like the milo.

red-bellied woodpecker facing morning dove
The red-bellied woodpeckers generally hop around the outside of the feeder until they get to the suet cake. Still, the morning dove finds him intimidating and tried to insist he go away.

Squirrels come too. Gray squirrels are sometimes good visitors by sitting at one end of the sunflowers allowing the birds to eat at the other end. Some gray and all red or fox squirrels hog the tray.

Arguing with the squirrels is pointless. It’s easier to let them nibble up what they want and leave. Then the tray can be refilled for the birds and we can get back to watching the birds for the afternoon.

More about feeding the birds is in “Exploring the Ozark Hills“.

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Getting Garden Seeds

My favorite wish books are arriving: the seed catalogs. The pictures are gorgeous. The varieties are tempting. In a month I will be getting garden seeds.

After drooling over the seed catalogs, it’s time to settle down into some serious garden planning. Getting garden seeds shouldn’t mean a pile of unopened packets sitting in the seed box for years.

Getting Seeds catalogs
Although Pinetree and Baker’s Creek are the main two companies I order from now, I have ordered from Shumway, Gurney’s, Jung’s and Johnny’s among others.

Serious Garden Planning

I do have a fair sized garden. However, it is finite. Mature plants take up space and don’t do well crammed in making both growing and harvesting difficult.

Every year I start with a garden diagram and a list of must grows. These are penciled into various beds. Leftover spots can be filled in with other plants.

My garden diagram needed before getting seeds
The main garden is roughly 50 feet square with the front section 16 feet square. This is not really accurate or entirely to scale. This does not matter as the only purpose is to let me decide what will be planted where.

Before going wild with the order form, there is another consideration: What will be done with the crop? Why purchase and grow a crop no one will eat?

My garden is in the Ozarks. Growing conditions aren’t the same as other places. Plants get hit with heat, humidity, flood and drought. Lots of vegetables don’t do well under these conditions.

Wild consumers are another consideration for me. Although we love eating sweet corn, I never grow it. The raccoons move in and demolish the crop and I refuse to camp out in the patch with a gun every night until it is picked.

Maturation time is important too. Tomatoes taking over three months to mature a crop are not on my list. Cabbage and other cole crops must mature before the weather gets too hot in summer or too cold in late fall.

Back to the Catalogs

Once the planning is done, it’s time for getting garden seeds picked out and ordered. My orders go in the first week of January as those leek and cabbage seeds need to be started by February.

My spring garden is a going concern already with garlic and onions. The cabbage (Savoy preferably) and leeks go into the garden in March. I have almost three months to get ready.

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Sweat Shirt Time for Goats

Ozark winters have gotten erratic and mostly warmer. However, the cold decided to visit for Thanksgiving. Shivering goats made it sweat shirt time.

Animals do put on extra winter undercoats. Nubians don’t do so as much as they are descended from tropic goats. When it gets cold and stays cold, they huddle together and shiver.

Being Cold

Some people don’t seem to mind winter cold. I am not one of them. When it gets cold, I huddle near the fire and/or wrap up in a blanket. Triple layers help when I go to the barn.

My Nubian goats can’t enjoy a hot wood stove. If they are cold, I get less milk. When they stay cold, they can get sick and have a harder time recovering.

Up North

In the Upper Peninsula of Michigan winter brings temperatures below zero and deep snow. People wear wool to keep warm.

We bought old wool blankets at the thrift store, cut them in half and tied them on our goats. They weren’t thrilled, but they were warm locked in their barn. The blankets stayed on.

Nubian doe High Reaches Lydia in her winter wear
Sweat shirts may not be Nubian doe Lydia’s favorite wear, but it does keep her a little warmer during winter cold spells.

In the Ozarks

The temperature has plunged below zero here for a night or two. One winter brought foot deep snow. But these are not the usual winter weather routine.

We tried tying blankets on the goats to warm them up. They decided the blankets were itchy. The baling twine was too tight. The blankets landed in heaps on the floor and trampled.

Sweat Shirt Time

The goats still got cold. People wear sweat shirts to get warm. Why couldn’t the goats?

So now, when winter cold moves in and the goats begin shivering, it’s sweat shirt time. My herd sports a variety of colors, stops shivering and finds them comfortable enough to keep on until the weather warms up again.

Learn about goats while solving puzzles in “Goat Games“.

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Winter Seeds

Wildflowers are gone. Most trees are bare. Is there anything to see on a nature walk? Perhaps winter seeds can provide a guessing game.

Elephant Foot Seeds
Elephant foot sends up flower stalks almost two feet. The pink flowers are interesting to look at. Then winter comes. The stalks turn dry and brown, but are recognizable.

What Is This?

A bare stalk sticks up with a crown of pointy seeds on the top. There are no leaves or flowers to give a clue to which flowers produced these seeds.

Thinking back, I know what this is. There were big leaves and pink flowers with petals like fingers in little boats on top of stems.

This is elephant’s foot in winter. There are lots of these stalks so there might be lots of plants next year.

Buckbrush or coral berry fruits
Buckbrush spreads underground. It’s flowers are small bells. Then the red berries show up. These are supposed to be good wild bird fruits. They are not considered edible by people, just something colorful to see in early winter.

Looking For Clues to Winter Seeds

One good clue is remembering what flowers I saw in this place last summer. This narrows the list of possibles a lot as spring ephemerals and plants not found here are eliminated.

Leaves might be a clue. Sometimes a few green ones are left. Usually there are some dead, brown ones. It takes care to uncurl a dry leaf.

The shape of the seed head is another clue. Monarda flowers leave behind a ball with pockets where the seeds were. These are called beebalm and horsemint commonly.

Fruit is another clue. The persimmon trees often have a few persimmons still hanging on. These are shriveled and dry, but definitely persimmons.

Buckbrush has long stems lined with clusters of red berries. These dry and shrivel and turn dark after a time. I read that lots of birds like them, but I think they are a last choice on the menu.

Tall Goldenrod seed head
Tall goldenrod seed heads look like little, fuzzy hats perched on top of brown stems.

Why Bother?

Cold winter walks can be more about exercise than looking at plants. The faster the walk, the sooner the return to warmth.

Overwintering bees and caterpillars or pupae value these winter seeds and stalks. They hide inside them or under those fallen leaves to survive the cold. That’s fine for them.

For me, I like having an idea where to look for various wildflowers next year. Those winter seeds give me clues.

There is much to look at during an Ozark winter. Some of it is in “Exploring the Ozark Hills“.

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Rooster Regime Change

Mr. Smarty has ruled my chicken flock for several years. He is a big Columbian Wyandotte. Three Easter Egger upstarts moved into the hen house and one dreamed of a rooster regime change.

An Accidental Rooster

I normally order pullet chicks every spring. About four years ago the order was for some Columbian Wyandotte pullets.

The chicks arrived and grew up. Only one chick was not the expected pullet. He was a self assured rooster that loved showing off giving him his name.

My big rooster was getting old, so Mr. Smarty escaped the freezer. The next year my old rooster died and he took over. None of the hens were impressed.

Defiant even after rooster regime change
Columbian Wyandotte roosters are big, 8 to 10 pounds, with a rose comb. Mr. Smarty now runs from the other four roosters and holds court below the garden.

This Year’s Mistakes

Sexing baby chicks is not easy. Mistakes are made and Cackle Hatchery does warn that one out of ten pullets may be a rooster.

However, out of the ten ordered and one extra Easter Egger pullets for this year, three were roosters. They are pretty things and I decided to keep one. Both big roosters were four years old which is getting old for a chicken.

One was going to be dinner. Another was going with some pullets to a neighbor’s hen house. Except Easter Eggers are small for meat and the neighbors never picked up their chickens.

Easter Egger rooster Rusty enjoys the rooster regime change
Easter Egger roosters are slim, maybe 5 pounds, with a rose comb and cheek puffs. Rusty had help defeating Mr. Smarty. Another Easter Egger rooster, Herald, joined in.

Rooster Regime Change

The rooster scheduled for dinner had dreams. He was head of the pullets and longed to extend his reign to the hen house. Mr. Smarty was challenged.

It took several days to wear the big rooster down, but he finally abdicated. The new rooster called Rusty has taken over.

Mr. Smarty is taking the rooster regime change hard. He was in charge for so long and now he is bottom rooster. It will take time, but he will adjust as other roosters have in the past.

Chickens are a 4-H project for Hazel in “Mistaken Promises“.