Category: Latest From High Reaches

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Noisy Country

There is a mistaken belief that the country is quiet and peaceful. Maybe it is at some times. Right now the noisy country is in full swing.

tree frog waiting for dark
Easily mistaken for a lump of mud and hoping to be ignored, this gray tree frog sat near my trays of seedlings all day. I would prefer that it was a bit more active in the bug eating realm. It was resting up for a night calling from the neighboring rain barrel.

Tree Frogs

The house is ringed with rain barrels. We use the water for plants inside and outside the house.

Looking around the house there are these gray mottled lumps tucked into nooks. Closer inspection shows these are frogs, gray tree frogs. They don’t seem to do anything all day. It would be nice if they would snack on some of the flying insects zipping by them.

As evening approaches, these frogs migrate to the rain barrels. They think the barrels are there just for them. One or more line up along the top edges. By dark the chorus is in full voice, almost loud enough to drown out any converstaion or other noise near them.

City people find this annoying. Noisy country frogs make sleeping impossible.

Whip Poor Will

One lone whip poor will still comes to the valley. He claims the valley as his own, moving from place to place calling whip poor will over and over.

This year the bird begins calling at eight thirty and continues until dawn. I can listen while I milk. Some nights he sits just outside the milk room to serenade me.

noisy country culprit: red-eyed cicada
Every year the green annual cicadas announce summer’s arrival in the Ozarks in June to July. The red-eyed cicadas appear in their thousands only rarely. They are earlier than the annual invasion. Last time they hung on bushes and trees all over the hills. This year they fly up into the trees where they are heard, but not seen. This one stuck around long enough for a couple of pictures, then flew off to join the chorus.

Cicadas

This year the cicadas are already buzzing from the time the sun lights up the trees to sunset every day. These are the ones that emerge every thirteen or seventeen years.

Usually the annual cicadas don’t start emerging and calling until June or July. Their chorus is louder.

People

I’ve heard people complain about the noisy country sounds. Then they drive down the road with their radios blaring. I can hear them laughing and shouting for a quarter mile as they pass the house. Then the four wheelers and side-by-sides with no mufflers come roaring by.

Given the option, I far prefer my noisy country filled with cicadas, tree frogs and birds to the noise people make.

More of the wildlife is featured in essays in “Exploring the Ozark Hills“.

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Flash Flood Aftermath

The big storm srrived in the Ozarks and left use ith a good two inches. It seemed to be over until we got up in the morning to find the flash flood aftermath staring at us out the window.

How both of us managed to sleep through what must have been a downpour, puzzles us. Perhaps we were more tired than we realized.

flash flood aftermath damages fences
The main part of the flood had gone by morning. The debris line on the road indicated the water was at least 18 inches deep where it crossed the road. Water still flowed down over half the road as it sought to get to the creek. This area of fence has a place for the water to get through. However the water brought down leaves and small branches which caught in the fence. Road gravel piled up with the leaves. The water pushed hard and the posts leaned over as the water topped the debris to get into the pasture.

The Road

A small wet weather flow comes down along the yard. It was still running in the morning, but the debris indicated it had been over a foot deep overnight.

The water carried mulch left by the electric company, leaves and small branches down across the road, down the road, covering most of the road. Some of the water diverted down an old creek bed into the buck’s small pasture.

Field fence is great fencing for goats. It’s a disaster in a flood.

The flash flood aftermath at the fence was a heap of small branches, leaves and shredded wood piled up against the fence. The only way to clear this mess is to wade in, pull up armloads and dump it over the fence.

flash flood aftermath debris on bridge
Weather changes have made flash floods more the rule than the exception for several years here in the Ozarks. These rise quickly, tear out the creek banks and subside fast. This latest one didn’t top what remains of the bridge, only topped it enough to pile it with branches, leaves and whatever is tangled in these. Such floods used to carry off the bridge planks, but there are several old railroad ties on one side now to hold them in place. So far, these are working.

The Bridge

After the previous two inches of rain, the creek was flowing strongly. The more than two inch downpour brought the creek up over the edges of the bridge where it piled up branches and leaves.

This means working my way across the bridge one pile at a time. The leaves and small stuff can be shoved off into the creek with a hoe. Larger branches and small pieces of trees must be pulled up, shoved across and into the creek to lodge somewhere else doesn the way.

Animals

The flash flood aftermath was almost tragic for the Canada geese. Their nest is down in the creek floodplain. The flood waters came within a foot of sweeping it away.

I found a few creatures in the debris on the bridge. A snail was tossed over onto the grass across the creek. A spider ran off. A small midland brown snake was carried up to a brush pile and turned loose.

How many other creatures were swept away? There’s no way of knowing. A flash flood aftermath may mean lots of cleaning up for us, but it’s a disaster for small creatures.

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Baby Chicks and Weather

The year 2012 brought a terrible drought and the beginning of weather upheaval. I’ve always started with baby chicks in April with its relatively settled weather. Now I’m juggling baby chicks and weather every year.

Baby Chick Requirements

Other than the obvious food purchased from the feed store and water from the well, baby chicks require a warm, not too hot, temperature. a heat lamp with a light bulb worked quite well as the wattage could be increased or decreased as necessary.

Now LED bulbs give off no heat. This necessitates purchasing a heat bulb. They come in two sizes: 250W which is much too hot for my little chick house and old heat lamp or 150W which works most of the time.

baby chicks and weather must be balanced
At a week old, these baby chicks are growing tails and wings. They still like it warm with plenty of food and water available. This is a mixed bunch from eggs set in an incubator.

Setting Up

As the heat lamp won’t heat the entire chick house, there are several things I do ahead of the chick arrival day. One is to put down paper, enough layers to last ten to fourteen days, on the back half of the house.

Some sources discourage using paper. The print on newspaper can confuse baby chicks looking for food. Paper is slick making walking harder.

I still use paper and haven’t seen much of either problem. What I appreciate is the ease of cleaning, another important aspect of raising chicks. When the paper gets dirty (usually every day), I move the food and water containers out for refilling, roll up the top paper layer making sure the chicks move off of it as I roll and end up with clean paper to put the food and water containers back on.

Then I divide the house with a cardboard barrier. The back half of the house is plenty big enough for twenty chicks for two weeks, about the time it takes for them to mostly feather out.

Baby Chicks and Weather

The chick house has two windows and a door, all closed. The heat lamp is suspended from a roost over the back section and turned on. Chicks are turned loose in the section.

On warm days the chicks wander around the section. They eat, drink and sleep. they move under the light or out as they need to.

On hot days a window or both plus the door on really hot days are opened. The light is not turned off, but the heat leaves. The barrier can be moved over to give the chicks more room to escape the direct heat.

Cold days are another matter. Blankets are draped over the roost. This is safe as the lamp is below the roost. They can even be placed to surround the section.

Balancing these conditions wasn’t too hard for years. Things have changed. Now conditions can change from one day to another or even from day to night. Occasionally conditions change during the day.

Baby chicks and weather may be challenging now. Still, those fresh pullet eggs next winter are worth the time and trouble.

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Summer Birds Return

Last night, as I came in from milking, I heard him. The lone whip-o-will remaining in our valley has returned. His call reminds me that the summer birds return this month banishing winter for now.

Watching the bird feeder, the titmice, juncos and sparrows are gone. They’ve been replaced by purple finches and goldfinches. The hummingbirds are back. The season has changed.

new summer birds return Canada geese
I was standing in the barn doorway waiting for some goats to finish eating when I first saw these birds off in the pasture. They had long necks like turkeys, but didn’t stand like turkeys. Binoculars showed the pair to be Canada geese. A week or so later, only the gander was still walking around in the pasture.

New Birds

For the first time a pair of Canada geese have decided to visit with us. The pastures are lush and green for them to enjoy grazing. The creek is flowing well.

Evidently the pair found our place to their liking. The goose has disappeared leaving the gander parading around. The crows have discovered they are no longer welcome in his stretch of the creek.

In several more weeks the goose will probably be back with little goslings following behind. We still don’t know why the pair decided to stay when there is only the creek for water.

goldfinch summer bird returns
Later in the summer the goldfinches hang on the chicory stalks eating the seeds. That is the time to get some good pictures of these wary birds.

Flashes of Yellow

When summer birds return, finches are among them. The purple finches have purple on their heads and necks. The goldfinches are drab greens.

Now the male goldfinches are dressed in their summer finery. Walking out the door this morning to do chores, a small flock flew up out of the yard. All fled to the bushes except one. He stopped on the wire around the persimmon tree to strut his stuff. His golden feathers and black cap were striking.

Plenty of Food

Although many birds do keep coming by the bird feeder, most are off eating the many insects now flying and crawling around in the plants. If the cicadas emerge here, that food supply will increase dramatically.

The one item I wish was more popular are the ticks. They are in great abundance this year.

A fairly dry winter became a fairly wet spring just in time for the summer birds return. Now the rain needs to keep coming to water my garden.

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Disappearing Sun

Back in 2017 we were close to the total eclipse path. We drove over to watch the disappearing sun as the moon slid across it. The area got dark, mostly. We saw some shadows.

This year the magazines, the news, everything seemed to be talking about the eclipse. And we were again close to the path of totality.

To Go or Not To Go

The 2017 eclipse was interesting, but not really awesome. We saw many of the things the media listed. We spent a day driving and standing around.

This time the area of near totality went right over us, some 99% +. Wouldn’t this be good enough? We could stay home, get things done and see the eclipse too.

A friend was thinking along the same lines. Somehow, as we talked about it, we decided to drive down into the path of totality. After all, the area of a minute and a half was a mere 30 miles away.

Watching the Disappearing Sun

Bunker was close, but Ellington with over two minutes was only another half hour’s drive away. We headed south expecting huge crowds.

Wherever the crowds were, they weren’t in Ellington. Still, we headed out to a nearby Conservation Area where we were the only people around.

The edge of the sun was just disappearing as the truck pulled into a parking area. We piled out, put out some chairs and watched.

disappearing sun darkens road
The Mark Twain Conservation Area road kept getting darker and darker as the sun disappeared behind the moon.

Totality

I’m used to being out around sunset. The gathering darkness wasn’t like that at all. Instead it had that eerie look as when a big storm is coming, when the air darkens and clears, the shadows darken.

The moon continued to slip across the sun. The disappearing sun had an orange tint.

Then it got dark, really dark. A couple of stars came out. There was a bright spot at the bottom of the hidden sun we later found out was a solar flare. A pastel reddish orange glow ran around the horizon.

disappearing sun light effects
These patches of light got noticed when the first chip of sun reappeared after the total eclipse.

Afterwards

When a smidgeon of the sun peeked out, the world started lighting up. The trees cast these strange rippled shadows.

By the time the sun was half clear, day had reappeared. We packed up and headed home.

later shadow effect from reappearing sun
As more of the sun reappeared after the eclipse, the light patches got bigger, but kept their odd arc shape effect. The shadows were from tall pine and oak trees.

At Home

The goats and chickens were out all day. They didn’t seem at all upset about the eclipse.

Now we have these sun gazing glasses left over. Although these were for viewing the eclipse, they can be used to look at the sun. Maybe I will hold on to them for a time.

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Nubian Buck Bonanza

It’s supposed to be fifty fifty, the ratio of boys to girls. My Nubian does didn’t get the memo and gave me a Nubian buck bonanza this year.

When High Reaches Pamela had twin bucks, that was all right. Then High Reaches Valerie delivered two buck and a doe. Finally High Reaches Lydia and High Reaches Rose added a buck each. That made six bucks and a doe.

Nubian doe kid
Smallest of Nubian doe High Reaches Valerie’s triplets and the only doe out of seven kids, this bottle baby doe kid keeps up. Even so, a nap is nice until everyone moves on. then it’s time to stretch and run to catch up.

Six Bucks!

In the livestock world, girls rule. Hens lay eggs, not roosters. Cows have calves and a herd only needs one bull. Likewise for goats.

Extra stallions can be gelded and make good saddle mounts. Extra bull calves get fixed and become steers that end up as hamburger and steak. What about extra buck goats?

polled buck part of Nubian buck bonanza
Nubian doe High Reaches Rose is very proud and very attached to this little polled buck kid. She will even let the herd leave her behind to stay with him. He takes full advantage of this as he stops to explore any and every thing that looks interesting and totally ignores her calls to hurry up and join her.

Looking Back

When I started raising goats, there was no market for extra buck goats. Many goat owners destroyed their extra buck kids.

This seemed strange to me as the U.S. imported goat meat for Jewish and Muslim communities. Gradually domestic goat raisers invaded this market. The big barrier was the type of goat.

In the U.S. then most people raised dairy goats. Like with dairy cattle, these are not as good as meat animals. Once meat goats became popular, goat meat had a market.

What About My Nubian Buck Bonanza?

I have a small herd. My goats never go to shows. They don’t have any famous pedigrees. Although I have kept a wether (a fixed buck) and raised him for meat in the past, I no longer do.

Most of my extra bucks will be sold in the meat market. That makes me a bit sad, but I have few other choices.

Spotted Nubian buck kid part of Nubian buck bonanza
Nubian doe High Reaches Lydia is a casual mother assuming her spotted buck kid is busy amusing himself playing with the other kids. He finds this great until he gets hungry. Then Lydia better be around.

Other Choices

High Reaches Rose’s buck is polled, born without horns. This makes him special. Perhaps someone wants a lovely polled American Nubian polled buck.

High Reaches Lydia’s buck is now disbudded so his horns shouldn’t grow. He is black with lots of spots. Perhaps someone wants a showy spotted American Nuban buck.

And I was asked about a wether as a companion for a buck. My bottle baby buck will do nicely, although I am normally hesitant about being in the pet market as so many people know nothing about goats. Goats are not like dogs.

Perhaps some members of my Nubian buck bonanza will live long lives. I hope so.

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Growing Savoy Cabbage

Cabbage is not a big favorite for meals at my house. Brussels sprouts, broccoli and spinach are much preferred. So the Savoy cabbage remained a pretty picture in the seed catalog.

Regular cabbage is a fairly smooth ball of ribbed, green leaves. It likes colder weather and will take frost. Hot weather makes it turn bitter. I put in a few plants in the spring, but mostly put them in for a fall crop.

Temptation

The regular cabbage came as transplants appearing the first of April or thereabouts. There were four plants in a pack.

Savoy cabbage was not available as transplants. In fact, most people in my area have never heard of it.

Every year I thumbed past the cabbage seed offers and stopped to admire the crinkled leaves in this picture. This year I ordered a packet just because.

Seed Starting Headaches

Usually I only start seeds for tomatoes and peppers and similar summer crops. These go into pots about the middle of March.

Cabbage likes cold weather. It needs to be in the ground in March. That means starting the seeds in January.

January seedlings, like all seedlings, need light. A warm sunny porch will not be available. I bought a grow light.

Two trays of cabbage and leek seedlings meant one tray under in the morning for the day. The other tray went under in the evening for the night shift.

Savoy cabbage transplant
Perhaps thick mulch isn’t great in the spring as it keeps the ground cool, but it does help when the temperatures drop to twenty. It keep the weeds at bay. Cabbage worms can hide in it. Later on it will keep the ground cool so the Savoy cabbage can survive Ozark sun a little longer.

Garden Headaches

The Savoy cabbage made it into the garden in early March. Of course winter moved right back in. The blankets came out for killing frost nights.

Now the cabbage moths have arrived. I’ve been busy doing other big projects and neglected to get these little transplants under mesh. Now I’m playing catch up once again.

At least, now that spring is officially here, winter visits are shorter and not as bad. The mesh is over the plants. Maybe I will get a few heads of Savoy cabbage from my dozen plants.

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Creating the Carduan Characters

The Carduan Chronicles is a nature study masquerading as science fiction, at least it is supposed to be. That leaves me creating the Carduan characters as science fiction to fit into real nature as the novel is set in an Ozark ravine and old, abandoned pasture with a creek.

However, the Carduan characters are pure imagination. I’m trying to create them as plausible beings from another planet. It’s a lot harder than I expected it to be.

First Consideration

Although an Ozark ravine can be fairly large, it isn’t large enough for a big space ship to land and remain unnoticed for long. That means the ship must be fairly small.

If the ship is small, the Carduans must be small as well. How big are they?

I went walking up several ravines in my area looking at what was there with a view of landing a ship there. Ravines flood so the landing spot must be up off the floor of the ravine.

The ravines have bluff rocks along them. The ship can land on one of these.

I ended up with a ship eighteen inches wide and high and thirty inches long. That left the Carduan characters at four inches tall.

Carduans

To arrive at what the Carduan characters look like, I had to decide on what their home planet Arkosa was like. My conjecture was a hot, dry planet bombarded by ultraviolet radiation. It became this way when a previous civilization destroyed their ozone layer. This destroyed that civilization and allowed these Arkosans to evolve.

Withstanding UV radiation requires several adaptations. One is a third eyelid to shield the eye from intense light. They can see UV light. Another adaptation is skin color. Blue pigments convert UV into harmless wavelengths.

Small size limits hand size, especially digits like fingers. The Carduans have three digits giving them a number system based on six, not ten.

Their background is somewhat like that of a praying mantis making them upright and agile. They are also strong, quick and aggressive in defense. It gives them a strongly matriarchal society that is in the process of changing as males are now long lived like the females, but still smaller.

Perhaps I am now ready to sketch what I think a Carduan looks like. And that makes writing The Carduan Chronicles easier.

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Pursuing Those Wild Birds

We have a bird feeder with many birds visiting daily in the backyard. I take pictures of them. However, some birds don’t visit. I am pursuing those wild birds to get pictures.

Since I don’t use a blind, there are challenges. My only asset is the zoom on the camera which I can’t always hold steady at high magnification.

Northern Cardinal perches in a peach tree
An old peach tree grows near our bird feeder. The birds use it as a place to sit and wait their turn at the feeder. It makes a good place to get pictures of many of the birds that visit the feeder.

Crows

From fall to early spring the crows march around the pastures. They announce their presence loudly. Strutting around they dare me to take the camera out.

Sometimes I can keep the old cow barn between me and the crows long enough to get half way across the pasture. Usually I am lucky to get to the fence before the crows fly off.

Wild Turkeys

Crows may be wary. Wild turkeys are even more so. One year a group of toms spent the fall and winter foraging grass seed in the pastures. These got used to me and I took lots of pictures of them.

The other ploy is to wander out to pasture with the goats. The turkeys know the goats and don’t pay them much attention. I managed to get within 70 feet of two one day before they realized I wasn’t a goat.

pursuing those wild birds took me down the creek to see this Great Blue Heron
This Great Blue Heron was fishing near the little bridge across a creek when I startled it. This was the beginning of a pursuit down the creek bank with my camera. spotting the heron on the branch of a fallen tree was pure luck as it blended into the vegetation. I took a couple of pictures and left so the heron could calm down.

Great Blue Herons

The creek attracts great blue herons. At different times one will be out near a deep pool hoping to snag a few minnows or unwary crayfish.

These birds blend in with the plants along the creek. They spot me and fly off long before I see them, let alone have the camera up.

So I had one take off from near the bridge when I started the tractor. It didn’t fly far so I turned off the tractor and got my camera. Pursuing those wild birds takes skills I do not possess, especially tramping through dry leaves.

To my surprise I did manage to spot this heron twice and get some pictures. Mission accomplished, I turned around and walked back to the tractor to get to work and leaving the heron to get on with stalking breakfast.

Pursuing those wild birds is a good excuse to sneak out along the creek or through the pastures. Sometimes I find extra things along the way.

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Container Gardening

The Ozarks has good soil well mixed with gravel. As my place is in a creek bottom, the gravel is a fifty fifty mix. That makes container gardening attractive.

Regular Garden

There are lots of things I grow that won’t work well in containers. Okra is one of them. One year I had an okra plant thirteen feet tall!

Pumpkins, summer and monster squash work better in the regular garden beds too. As do the tomatoes as there are so many of them.

Container gardening requires containers
Cattle lick tubs make great containers for gardening. They are heavy plastic, sturdy. The one thing to remember is that, once they are filled with gravel and soil, they are very heavy.

Easy Containers

My local feed store sells cattle lick tubs. These are sturdy plastic affairs that usually withstand cattle attacks.

The feed store buys back the empty tubs giving the ranchers someplace to go with them. Gardeners and others can buy the empties. And I have.

A few half inch holes in the bottom work for drainage. However, I am now putting the holes on the sides about an inch and a half up so I can set the tubs on the ground.

Challenges

Next year my container gardening will be easy, easier anyway. This year I have twenty-five empty containers to fill.

First, I put in a layer of larger gravel. This goes up an inch or so over the holes. This is a lot of gravel.

For the moment I am cleaning up the yard, chicken yard and barn lot. This did need doing, but was so easy to let slide. Now I need the gravel.

Second comes the dirt. These are big tubs needing close to a cubic yard of dirt. This is in short supply unless I order a load of unknown top soil with unknown ingredients in it.

I do have some dirt in tractor tires once used as raised beds, but now filled with weeds. A fifty fifty mix with compost will fill most, if not all of the containers. It just takes time and effort.

Tomato seedlings
One tomato plant can be grown in a cattle lick container. However, four pepper plants do well.

Container Gardening Dreams

What will I plant in these containers once they are ready? Perhaps carrots, lettuce, leeks, green onions and peppers will fill most of them. Onion sets are in some set up in previous years. They do well in them.

One thing is for sure. It will be interesting to see how well my container gardening experiment works out.