Category: Latest From High Reaches

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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“.

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Garden Fences and Gates

As stated in “For Love of Goats” “Fabulous fences are a fallacy fervently foisted on foolish farmers.” The same is true for garden fences and gates.

cover of "For Love of Goats" by Karen GoatKeeper
Goats are notorious for escaping fences. This is one of the tongue twisting topics in this book of tongue twisters, homonyms, alliteration, short fiction and memoir about goats.

My garden fence started as a way to keep chickens and wildlife out of the garden. This does work for chickens, as long as I remember to close the gates. Wildlife finds this as a minor barrier quickly circumvented or climbed.

PVC Gate Update

I wrote many years ago about constructing garden gates out of PVC pipe. The wood gates disintegrated in a couple of years with the moist Ozark weather. PVC pipe lasts a long time.

At the time, I had never worked with PVC pipe and this did affect the outcome. The other factor was putting the gates together out under the trees on somewhat level land.

Today the gates are still operational. They don’t hang straight because the gate posts lean (Another problem to tackle another day.) However they do not need replacing and do keep the chickens out of the garden.

There is one gate that needs repair. The garden gates have a mid pipe to strengthen them. The top and bottom are about two feet from it.

The chick yard gate is much taller and I put in only the one brace. When I snugged it up tight, the brace broke loose and needs regluing. When I replace this gate, I will use two braces as well as straightening he gate post.

garden fences and gates
Wooden gates need replacing every other year. PVC gates are harder to construct and put wire on, but they last for years. Mine have some dirt on them and the green blush of algae here and there, but they still work well.

Garden Fences

Most of my garden fence is two by four welded wire. This works for chickens, but not for rabbits. I saw a rabbit hop through the fence. Chicken wire is getting added to the bottom of the garden fences and gates now.

This fix might work for rabbits. Woodchucks, raccoons and opossums just climb over. I suppose it is possible to fence these animals out too. My garden fences and gates will keep me using livetraps when necessary.

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Golden Ginkgo Tree

Years ago we acquired some ginkgo seeds from Missouri Botanical Garden and grew them. One of those seedlings is now a tall tree and this fall is a golden ginkgo tree.

Meeting Ginkgoes

I very much remember the first ginkgo tree that caught my attention. It was a huge tree standing next to the cemetery where Benjamin Franklin is buried. This was summer and it was dropping fruit all over the sidewalk.

Since ginkgoes are related to pines, fleshy fruits are unusual. The problem was the smell. It was as though every dog in Philadelphia had come here to leave their piles.

golden ginkgo tree leaf
Usually people think of pine type trees as having needles. Ginkgoes are different with their flat, deciduous leaves. The central notch is there because of the vein pattern. This leaf hasn’t fully turned yellow yet and shows the typical pattern of color changing on the edges spreading to the center common to all deciduous leaves.

Maidenhair Trees

Where does this name come from? I don’t know. It does reflect the leaf shape. This is a fan because the main vein splits in two, each of these splits in two and so on to fill the leaf.

A native Ozark fern has similar leaves. It’s called the maidenhair fern. I find it in moist ravines.

Maidenhair Fern
From above the leaflet shape shows well as well as the circular arrangement of the fronds. All of these sit on a single stem one to two feet tall. The ferns grow in clumps in moist ravines.

The tree itself was once – during the time of the dinosaurs – one of several species. Only this one species is left and was found on temple grounds in China. The Chinese roast and eat the seeds.

Because the trees are pollution resistant, they were once popular in cities. The fruit was not a problem as ginkgoes have male and female trees. Only the females produce fruit, so cities took care to only plant males.

golden ginkgo tree
I rushed the picture so the tree isn’t fully yellow yet. Frost will cause the leaves to fall and this tree rarely turns before frost. It has gone on to full yellow and the other two trees are now yellow as well.

Home Trees

There are three ginkgo trees in our back yard. All were grown from seed and we have no idea if they are male or female. Perhaps we will find out in a few more years as the trees are almost old enough to bloom. That starts at around thirty years old.

In the meantime we admire their lovely shapes and leaves. Most years these three never turn color in the fall, staying green until killing frost strips their leaves. This year the oldest one is a beautiful golden ginkgo tree. Another is thinking about it.

We are just enjoying the late, lovely fall colors.

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Changing Colors

Nothing stays the same one day to the next. They may be similar, but never exactly the same. It shows a lot with changing colors.

Winter

Hills are gray all winter. Bare branches are gray. The sky is often gray.

On clear days the sky is a deep blue. The pastures are a rusty tan. Occasional pines are dark green with the red cedars a gray green. Mosses and lichens glow green on the trees and ground.

One day the air seems lighter, warmer. The sun rises higher and stays a little longer each day. Then the changing colors start.

Spring

At first the green is only on the forest floor and in the pastures. Then the spring ephemerals start emerging. Blues, pinks, whites erupt under the still bare gray trees.

From my barn door I watch the hillside beyond the pastures. One day it is still gray. The next there is a delicate hint of green.

As the spring ephemerals finish blooming and set seed, the hillsides turn spring green with new leaves. Other plants grow up hiding the fading ephemerals and add color to the forest floor.

Summer

Changing colors in the sky reflect the change in the seasons. The sky is now a lighter shade of blue. The clouds have white tops and puffy shapes.

On the hillsides the green has deepened to a mature green. Even there the greens vary from one kind of tree to another ranging from Kelly green to dark green.

Flowers are changing colors too. They now tend more to the white and yellow flowers on taller plants.

Sugar Maple changing colors
Although sugar maples are native trees, this one was planted in the front yard before we moved here. Bald Faced Hornets built a nest in it one year as I found out the hard way. Orchard orioles nested in it another year. This year it was late changing into fall colors.

Fall

It is fall now in the Ozarks. The hillside I watch is turning orange slowly as frost is late this year. Flowers are again mostly the blues, but darker than in the spring.

Many people love the changing colors of fall. They are pretty, but I know they are fleeting. Soon the hillside will again be gray under gray skies leaving me counting the days to spring.

See how colors change through the Ozark year in “Exploring the Ozark Hills“

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Remembering Wild Flowers

Killing frost is looming over the Ozarks. Already plants are preparing for winter. I am looking through my pictures remembering wild flowers I saw over the summer.

This has been a tough year so I didn’t get to go walking as much as I would like. Most of the flowers I saw were familiar ones. Some were not new, but were incomplete for my Dent County Flora.

remembering wild flowers like Jacob's Ladder
Jacob’s Ladder is an early spring ephemeral. It likes moist, shady spots. Some years it is numerous. This year I only came across this one plant.

Big Reason

I joined the Missouri Native Plant Society years ago. They take part in the citizen science listings on iNaturalist (www.inaturalist.org). Now and again I post pictures of flowers on the site.

Identification of the flowers can be difficult. Since this site has many people checking over the pictures and identifying the flowers, I find it helpful. There are those flowers the site has trouble with namely asters, goldenrods and sunflowers. I do too.

Asclepias tuberosa or Butterfly Weed
Roadsides light up in the Ozarks when the butterfly weed starts blooming. It ranges in color from yellow to red, even bicolor, but is usually bright orange. It is a milkweed and loved by many insects including butterflies. You can find out lots more in “Missouri’s Milkweeds, Milkvines and Pipevines” by Dr. Richard Rintz.

Another Reason

Since I do work on the Dent County Flora from time to time, I need to have my wild flower pictures. Although many are still on my computer, backup is important.

There have been years when my picture stash for one year has been over a gigabyte. (One year was over 3!) I don’t want that much sitting on my computer. They are copied onto flash drives.

Royal Catchfly flowers
The brilliant red of Royal Catchfly flowers along the road do catch the eye. The long, green calyxes have hairs with sticky goo on them so small insects like flies get stuck on them.

Personal Reason

I enjoy remembering wild flowers I’ve seen and photographed over the summer. As winter cold moves in, I can look back to bask in the summer sun.

Sorting through the pictures and preparing them to post on iNaturalist, I identify the old friends and try to name the new ones. There are many I didn’t take pictures of because I have so many of them already. Now I wish I had as one or two more wouldn’t hurt.

And I find the ones that complete sets for my Flora. Over the winter these will fill out more pages and help me make out a list to search for in the spring.

There is more about the wild flowers of the Ozarks in Exploring the Ozark Hills.

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Putting the Garden to Bed

Fall is a difficult time for a gardener like me. The summer garden is shutting down, but is still producing a little. Frost is imminent along with the death of summer crops. Do I leave the crops a few more days or pull them? Putting the garden to bed for the winter is next on my list.

Unhappy Peppers

Peppers like night temperatures above sixty followed by warmer days. Night temperatures in the forties are disliked intensely.

Many of my pepper plants are now looking like they are wilting. The soil is moist. They are starting to die. Peppers still hang on their branches trying to ripen.

Tomatoes may like the same night temperatures, but many of those plants are growing happily. Their tomatoes may not be as flavorful as summer ones, but they are much better than anything from the store.

The long beans too are shutting down. There are still some beans growing on them. It is time to pull the vines.

Ajvar Pepper, Macedonian sweet pepper
Ajvar peppers are from Macedonia. They are thick walled and sweet. This one is hard to beat on the grill. I halve, clean and roast them at 350 degrees until they wilt. Seeds are available from Bakers Creek.

Goat Treats

My goats are another factor in this decision to close up the summer garden. There are plants they like to munch on like long beans, peppers, sweet potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes. Tomatoes are not on their list.

I will pull the bean vines and the pepper plants soon while they are still green. The sweet potatoes get dug just before the forecast calls for frost. Once the goats are finished munching on them, I will add them to the compost pile.

The Jerusalem artichokes are a problem. They are over twelve feet tall with thick stems. Perhaps I will cut tops off first, then the main stem.

Putting the Garden to Bed

This may sound like the end of the garden. It isn’t. It is the beginning of next year’s garden.

Now is when I add compost and top with mulch. This adds nutrients to the garden and discourages weeds. Spring is not that far away.

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Persimmons Are Falling

Fall may still rule here in the Ozarks, but its grip is weakening. The black walnuts are carpeting the ground making walking a challenge. And the persimmons are falling to the delight of the goats.

fallen persimmon
Persimmons must be ripe to taste good. Then they are delicious. The marks of a ripe persimmon are a nice orange color, wrinkled skin and soft feel.

Lazy Summer

Horseflies kept the goats lazing about in the barn most of the day all summer. These biting demons like it hot and sunny. They don’t come into a dark barn.

Around here these insects come in several varieties from the housefly lookalike stable flies to deer flies to half inch horseflies to inch long terrors. Being bitten by one of these is like being stabbed with a hot needle.

My small Nubian herd dozed the day away. I put out hay so they could get up and snack. Getting water meant risking the horseflies.

It’s not safe to put buckets of water in the barn. By the time it’s half empty, one goat or two will knock it over. Then the chickens fill it with straw and manure.

persimmons are falling, goats are racing to the trees
My Nubian goats amble out the pasture gate and shift down to the end of the barn lot. Violet is usually first to start off with Spring right behind her to take over the lead in a mad dash across the pasture to the first persimmon tree.

Fall Arrives

Cool weather meant the horseflies and their ilk subsided. The goats kept up their lazy ways. They waited until I led them out sometime in the afternoon.

Then the goats discovered the persimmons are falling. These are delicious goat candy. The first goat under the tree gets the most.

Now I go out to the barn after lunch (Mornings are writing time.) and find only the chickens are in residence. Cleaning out the barn is much easier. Making the rounds of the hay troughs looking for eggs is easier.

persimmons are falling, delighting the goats
First to arrive under the persimmon trees is first to find the fruit. Nubian goats love persimmons, will eat them until they get upset stomachs.

Goat Treats

The persimmons are falling in the yard too. Walking to the barn now entails searching under the yard tree and collecting persimmons. They become dessert placed on the grain at milking time.

All of the goats, even Kingpin, eat dessert first.

Goats are fun to write about. For a wild romp of a tale, check out “Capri Capers”.

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Goldenrods Are Blooming

In spite of the drought many wildflowers are trying to put on a show along the roads here in the Ozarks. Goldenrods are blooming with their bright yellow making them hard to miss.

Downy Goldenrods are blooming
I stopped because of another goldenrod and found this Downy goldenrod right beside it. The reflexed bits under the flower heads make this one easy to identify as the only other one like this is very hairy. The rays on these flower heads are very long and showy.

How Many?

It’s easy to say goldenrod and give the impression there is only one. Driving by it’s also easy to think these yellow blurs are all the same.

They are not. Four goldenrods are blooming now and several have finished. As I try to get something done on my Dent County Flora, I’m taking pictures of some.

The picture taking is the easy part. Identifying the different ones is the hard part. Several look a lot alike. Luckily the four in bloom now are easier.

Hairy Goldenrods are blooming
Most goldenrods have big, branched flower tips. This is one Hairy Goldenrod, doesn’t. It is a single stalk with clumps of flower heads from the leaf nodes. The stalk is stiff. The rays are small and there are no recurved bits under the flower heads.

One Patch Missing

For years I would take pictures of the Tall goldenrod blooming just down the road. The road grader scraped that section away and none grew there this year. There are some along the road to town, but I miss the little patch. Orange day lilies are taking over that spot.

However, three others are still found along the road on the walk to the river. I do have several books to help me identify them. Unfortunately, I don’t really understand the descriptions with all the botanical terms.

My main way is through drawings and pictures, both in the books and at missouriplants.com. The flowerhead arrangements are different on the different kinds. The leaves are too.

Rough Goldenrods are blooming
Rough Goldenrods are smaller plants. they like to grow on roadside banks and nod over them. In a good year I will see these drooping out along a long stretch of roadside. They like lots of sun, although their bright color rivals it.

Other Roadside Attractions

Yes, the goldenrods are blooming. Their yellow is so attractive. They are not the only wild flowers along the road.

This is aster season. New England purple and gold, spreading blue, heath white are some of the colors. There are several blue lavender asters and several white heath asters.

White snakeroot, yellow brown-eyed Susans, sweet everlasting and thistles are wrapping up their time. The trees may not be in fall colors yet, but the roadsides are.

More about wild flowers can be found in my book Exploring the Ozark Hills.

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Molting Time

Feathers litter my hen house floor, the chicken yard, the free range area, everywhere I look. Several of the chickens look like refugees from a feather factory.

There’s nothing wrong with my chickens or the rest of the wild birds. Fall is molting time, the time when old, ragged feathers are replaced with new ones.

Easter Egger hen molting
My Easter Egger Pippi is usually a sleek grey with a proud tail. Right now she is covered with feathers dropping off and new feathers starting to grow in. She likes to spend the day in the milk room picking up the grain the goats drop.

Examining Feathers

One of the first things I notice about all of these feathers is how different many look. Of course, there are the usual ones with their long, central shaft. These are the ones in pictures as they were used to make quill pens.

Molting time is quill time
Chicken wing feathers aren’t very big, but they are big enough to make a model quill pen. The white wing feather is from a smaller pullet. The brown quill is from an adult chicken. The first is from the front of a wing as the uneven sides show. The other is from lower down on the wing or, possibly, the tail.

Chicken quills can make small pens, but goose quills and, especially swan quills were the preferred choice. Quills are wing feathers.

When I use fingers to smooth these ragged feathers, they try to lock together again to form the wing feather they are supposed to be. Tiny hooks or barbs lock together to zip the pieces into place.

Other Feathers

Chicken down feathers
It’s hard to find nice down feathers. All that fluff sticks to bits of dirt, leaves and other things. Being fluffy, it’s hard to get this debris out of the down. These are very soft feathers.

Other feathers are soft with the side pieces branched and puffy. These are down. Chicken down could be used in pillows, I suppose. Duck and goose down is preferred. Just as in jackets and comforters, down is used to keep a bird warm.

Down only works if it is kept dry. Body feathers do this job. These resemble down at the base, but have a top more like wing feathers at the top, only softer. Lots of these overlap over the bird’s body.

Lots of chicken body feathers blow across the yard during molting time
The amount of down on a chicken’s body feather can vary. The top sections should hook together, but these old ones don’t do it well.

Tail Feathers

Tail feathers can be very elaborate and showy. My roosters have long tail feathers. I did find one, but it was very ragged. Peacock ones are prized for decorations. Every once in a while I will find a turkey tail feather off on the hills. Molting time is a good time to go looking.

Molting Time Problem

Making feathers takes lots of protein and energy. My chickens are using their food to make up their new feathers which will make them look gorgeous.

There is little food left over to make eggs. Shorter days add to this and older chickens will often take a winter holiday lasting to the end of January.

My pullets are taking up the slack. Their eggs may be small, but I still have eggs in the kitchen.