Category: Latest From High Reaches

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Latest From High Reaches

My Cucurbit Year

Somehow my garden is having a cucurbit year. I don’t think I planned it this way. It just happened.

I like growing and eating squash, melons, pumpkins and an occasional cucumber. My goats love the squash and pumpkins too. The chickens prefer melons.

Beginning Squash Plans

butternut squash for my cucurbit year
This year I planted the butternut squash so it would grow up over the shade house cattle panel arch. It worked fairly well. I do have to check every day for new shoots trying to spread out across the ground. The squash are not too big for the vines to support them hanging. Some do get caught on the wire and have to be moved off.

Summer squash is a popular item. So I planned a bed for my favorite zephyrs. Three hills with three plants per hill. I plan ahead for losses due to squash bugs and borers.

These are supposed to be semibush. Not this year. This year robust vines five and six feet long wander out across garden paths and other garden beds.

Winter butternut squash was slated to cover half of the shade house. It didn’t listen. These vines took up their half and we are having an ongoing battle over the shade house interior plus the lima bean section and a couple of garden paths.

The usual monster squash, a goat favorite, went into a large 30 foot square bed by itself. Vines now fill this bed, climb up the six foot fences around the bed and try to invade the yard. Leaves tower four feet over the ground.

monster squash for my cucurbit year
This is still an unknown squash variety. The vines are tremendous, spreading out sixty feet, if they can. The leaves are over a foot across. Mature squash can be over 12 pounds. The goats love this squash. It keeps for months once its shelled.

Unplanned Cucurbits

My long beans didn’t come up for some reason this year. In a lapse of sense I put in three pie pumpkin seeds. These are happily taking over the front corner of the garden.

Another winter squash, Yuxi, went in when the winter melon seeds didn’t germinate. These monster vines are flowing up along one garden fence and trying to invade the tomatoes next door.

Although planned, the royal watermelon has in past years been very small. Compared to the nearby monster squash, it is still small. But the vines are running amok across a front section by the water barrels.

Cucurbit Year Invasion

At least a third of my garden is now buried under cucurbit vines. This wouldn’t be so much of a problem if the leaves weren’t so big.

Although I have only an inkling of how many monster squash are hiding under those leaves, judging from the butternut crop, this cucurbit year in the garden means we will be eating a lot of squash this winter as well as this summer.

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New Septic Tank

When A-1 Septic came out, the man found out our ancient metal tank had rusted almost through. Luckily our vehicle normally parked in the garage hadn’t fallen through. We needed a new septic tank.

A previous owner of our house built a garage over the old one. This is not a good arrangement so the new one would be put in the front yard.

My goats were not impressed when the backhoe, the Bobcat, the big trucks and several men arrived at milking time. They got milked anyway.

500 gallon septic tank is big
The new septic tank isn’t that heavy. It does more than fill up a regular pickup bed. The rib design is to add strength to the tank sides.

Setting Up For the New Septic Tank

In the meantime the backhoe had dug a big hole. The new septic tank holds 500 gallons of waste and is four feet long, three feet wide and three feet deep. It needed to be a foot underground.

The old tank was crushed. A thick layer of gravel cushioned the new pipe going across to the old pipe and out of the garage. More gravel went on top of the new pipe.

Once the tank was in place and the pipes connected, a new problem arose. In order for the new septic tank to settle correctly, it needs to be at least half full of water. We have no hose.

new septic tank in hole
A backhoe lowers the new septic tank into the hole it dug for it. New pipe is needed to hook the tank up to the sewer system. Being plastic, the tank doesn’t stay settled down in the hole very well so it needs to be half filled or more with water. Then the dirt is piled back on top.

Problem?

We do have rain barrels. The rain barrels have tadpoles in them. I grabbed my fish net and started moving tadpoles out to only one barrel.

A small pump moved the water into the new septic tank. We ended up with one barrel of water to hold my plants over until rain could fill the now empty barrels back up.

Now the pile of dirt started going places. Some went back on top of the new septic tank. Some went into the garage to fill in that hole. The rest is sitting in front of my vegetable garden to fill containers and raised beds once the rocks are removed and compost is mixed in.

Surprisingly, this whole operation only took a couple of hours. It’s a nice feeling to have this potential disaster averted.

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Dealing With Septic Tanks

In the city everyone hooks up to the sewer system. No such system exists in the country, so most people use septic tanks.

Decades ago these tanks were made of concrete or thick metal. Polypropalene ones and concrete ones are available now.

Kinds of Waste Water

Two grades of waste water flow out of the house. One, the grey water, is from sinks and the bathtub. This water has mostly water, dirt and soap in it.

The second comes from the toilet. This has urine and waste in it.

Many old houses like mine have two sewer systems. One takes out the grey water. The other takes the sewer water to the septic tank.

A-1 Septic helps dealing with septic tanks
When a septic tank gets full, a service like A-1 Septic in Salem, MO, sends out a truck to pump the solids out.

Taking Care of Septic Tanks

Since septic tanks let solid matter in and keep it there, the less that goes in, the longer it takes to fill it up. Water flows through the tank and out to a leach field.

One way to cut down on the solids going in is to not flush paper down. Instead this paper is burned or put out with the trash.

According to Daniel Black, owner of A-1 Septic, the tank should be pumped out every three to five years. This keeps it from packing so solid it is hard to empty.

The solids are taken out to be sprayed out on hay fields as fertilizer. It breaks down quickly to grow grass well. A field isn’t cut for over a month after spraying so the waste is washed by rain and broken down by bacteria and the sun.

Old Septic Tanks

I’ve learned a lot about this lately because my tank needed to be pumped out. It had seemed just fine for three decades and was easy to ignore.

The crew came out. First, they had to find the tank. They have a little camera on a long line that goes up the pipes to the septic tank exit. This can be found by a device like a homing device.

Second, the dirt is taken off of the top of the tank. The smart way is to have a clean out pipe, but mine didn’t have one. This is not unusual for old houses.

Metal tanks have a big defect. The metal rusts. My tank had almost rusted away.

Now I need a new septic tank.

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Necessary Rain

City people might look at rain as a nuisance. Country people don’t usually. This necessary rain waters gardens, grows pastures and woods and brings up mushrooms.

The lack of and the abundance of rain are the mainstays of rural conversation. Here in my part of the Ozarks both conditions have been topics this summer.

cover for "My Ozark Home" by Karen GoatKeeper
Floods and rain are some of the images and haiku topics found in this retrospective of our first 25 years living in the Ozarks.

Local Focus

News is reporting on both ends of the rain spectrum lately. New England is flooding. The Southwest is dry and being cooked.

These reports are disturbing. Even the reports of similar problems in Europe and Asia are concerning.

However, my focus is here. I rarely go even thirty miles from home. This is my world. I do sympathize as such weather, to a degree, has come here. But the reports are for far away places I will never visit. I live here.

More than necessary rain
This is from a flood in 2015 here in the Ozarks. It took off most of the planks from our bridge. They got caught down the creek where we found them and hauled them back. The creek was a foot over the bridge, but dropped rapidly after the rain slowed and stopped.

Heat and Drought

Last summer saw temperatures over a hundred here along with dry weather. Hay fields burned up, including mine. Hay prices soared, if I could find any.

My goats survived on mulch status hay and cold pastures over the winter. The garden lasted into early winter under plastic with well water and mulch.

cover for "Exploring the Ozark Hills" by Karen GoatKeeper
Storms are part of life in the Ozarks and are the subject of some essays and photographs in “Exploring the Ozark Hills”.

Cool and Rainy

This summer has stayed cool, rarely seeing even ninety degrees. A couple of days flirted with the hundred degree mark during a dry spell.

Now clouds cover the sky for days. They don’t drop a lot of rain, but enough for make the pastures lush.

Hay is still a problem and the prices are still high. First it got too dry and burned the fields. Now the necessary rain falls and it’s too cool and wet to make hay.

Hopes, Dreams and Reality cover
In this new novel the main character Mindy must survive a major flood and put her life together afterwards.

How Does This Matter?

In my world, this matters a lot. This is where I live, where my goats live, where my garden is.

For the people living in other places, enduring weather so much worse than I am seeing, it doesn’t matter. What matters is their local weather because that is where they live.

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Summer Squash Time

Gardening is rewarding, sometimes too rewarding. Summer squash is one of the prolific rewards.

There are many varieties to choose from. My preference is Zephyr.

Planning for Summer Squash

One garden bed is designated for planting these big, demanding plants. I dig down at least a spade’s length and dump in a pile of manure. The soil is put back on top to form the hill. Three fit in one bed.

Mulch hay is packed around the hills six inches or more deep. This will keep moisture in the soil and keep it cooler as the Ozark summer sun is hot. It does provide a place for squash bugs to hide.

Zephyr summer squash
Zephyr summer squash has distinctive coloring. The squash seems to stay tender to a bigger size than many summer squash types.

Planting

Summer squash is very frost sensitive. It is also fast growing. I stick three seeds in each hill.

The advice is to pull two of the three sprouts. I ignore this. I know squash bugs and borers will move in and can decimate a plant overnight. Leaving all three in each hill is insurance some will survive.

Growing

The fun part of growing my plants is watching them get started. They put out their first leaves. Their little roots are reaching down through the hill.

Those roots find the compost. Overnight the plants double in size and keep growing. The leaves are bigger than dinner plates. Flowers open.

squash bug eggs
A main enemy of summer squash is the squash bug. This is a cluster of squash bug eggs. The eggs are often on the under side of leaves, but can be on stems or on top of leaves. They should be destroyed.

Bug Wars

My big plants make the bug wars easier. I can get down on the ground and look up to see under most of the leaves. Squash bug eggs are collected and dumped into the tadpole rain barrels to drown. Bugs are squashed.

A watering can is another weapon. These bugs panic when they get wet. I water the much and stems so I can dispose of the fleeing bugs. I know I will eventually lose, but this delays the inevitable.

squash bugs
The newly hatched nymphs are green and barely an eighth of an inch long. They soon turn gray and grow quickly to this one close to adult size. The adult has the triangle on the back and overlapping wings of a true bug. The predatory wheel bugs look similar, but are good to have around. Squash bugs can destroy a squash plant overnight.

Harvesting

Summer squash must be checked and cut every day. Everyone’s plants produce about the same time. There is a glut of summer squash.

There are lots of recipes using squash available. I don’t do much cooking in the summertime and rarely do any desserts.

What do I do with this bounty? I sell some. We eat some. The goats eat some. I cook up some and puree it, freeze the puree and have great soup stock for next winter.

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Finding Culver’s Root

Finding Culver’s Root was a challenge. This wasn’t because the plant was hidden away somewhere or growing in some special place.

The plant was growing right there along the road. It was even in the same general location where I had seen it several years ago.

Memory versus Reality

I remembered Culver’s Root as being tall and robust. The flower column was several inches tall lined with white flowers. It caught the eye.

The guide book “Missouri Wildflowers” reports the plant can be six feet tall. Maybe my memory wasn’t really at fault.

This year the Culver’s Root plants are much smaller and thinner. Perhaps the recent dry weather and late spring frosts affected them.

Waiting

Finding Culver’s Root was only the first step. The whorled leaves and flower stalk marked these few plants as the ones I sought.

However, the flowers were still buds. That means checking the plants every couple of days until the flowers open.

Culver's Root flowers
Sometimes the flower spike on Culver’s Root stands straight up. The plants I found had interesting curves in theirs.

Photographer’s Problem

The Culver’s Root plants were beside the road. They were also near the top of a hill and over the edge. This is a steep hill dropping down into the creek bed.

Although I know the drop is only 30 feet or so, it looks much farther to me. I don’t want to slip on the gravel and go over. Heights bother me.

The Solution

The flowers started opening. As is true of many such flower stalks, the lower flowers open first. As these fade, the ones above them open until the top flowers open.

I sat down on the edge of the road. The plants were just within reach. I pulled a couple over, steadied them and took some pictures.

Now that finding Culver’s Root is off my list, I think I’ll tackle the native cactus. A friend spotted a plant so the waiting for it to bloom begins.

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Thirsty Plants

Summer has arrived in the Ozarks. Along with summer have come tiny rains and hot temperatures. That adds up to thirsty plants.

Wild plants along the roads stand with drooping, wilting leaves. There isn’t much help for them. That is the terrible thing about even a small drought: watching day by day as everything dries up and turns brown.

In the Garden

Some gardeners let their gardens dry up. Their plants must survive just like the wild ones as the gardeners pray for rain that may, if the garden is under the right cloud, fall in time.

I prefer to water and mulch. My garden represents a lot of planning and work. The plants are finally starting to produce vegetables for the table.

Getting Water

The only water sources near my garden are a dug well with a hand pump, the rain barrels and the creek. There is no faucet and hose. Instead, there are two watering cans.

Thirsty plants need plenty of water. Each of 60 tomato plants requires a full can. The pepper plants are smaller and take a little less. The squash plants need full cans and more. It adds up to about 80 cans of water and hours of time.

A better solution is pumping water up from the creek. This is an adventure.

eggplant experiment
Eggplant is a plant I rarely grow as my garden seems to be flea beetle central. These two plants have been under mosquito netting until they began blooming. Maybe they are big and healthy enough to survive now.

Creek Water and Fire Hose

A few years ago, the old water hose wore out. The replacement hose is a discharge hose, better described as a small fire hose. It is designed to move as much water as possible in the least amount of time.

There is no way to water my thirsty plants this way without getting wet, very wet. That is not a problem in the hot weather

The biggest problem is reducing the water flow enough to not uproot the plants while trying to water them. Mulch helps.

butternut squash vines are thirsty plants
My garden never has enough room in it. This year the butternut squash are growing up over the shade house. It does save space and shades the interior, but the vines can’t put down extra roots. If any of the squash get too big, they need supporting. And the vines try their best to escape and spread all over. There are three plants on each side. All take a gallon of water a day once they are twice this size. At least the squash bug eggs are easy to spot on the leaves and vines up on the cattle panel.

Waiting For Rain

Twice a week now I argue with the hose. My thirsty plants look good. I’m picking squash and watching tomatoes hoping they will turn red sometime soon.

My garden survives because I can water it. My pastures were ready to cut for hay. The balers haven’t gotten here. In another week, there will be no hay, only straw.

The clouds drift by. Maybe my pastures will be under the right cloud soon.

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Raising African Violets

Houseplants, especially finicky ones like African violets are not a good match for me. They tend to die quickly of either neglect or overwatering.

The other problem for my houseplants is my ancient house with its dark rooms and damp drafts. It gets cold in the winter and hot in the summer.

Accumulation of Houseplants

Even though houseplants did so poorly for me, I kept trying. For a time, this was due to teaching as I wanted ferns for my classes. Two survived for years in my classroom. The native Christmas fern was returned to the hills when I left teaching. The other still tries to survive here.

A philodendron vine managed to survive a spring frost. I had just put the plants out for the summer and I covered the garden and forgot them.

My other houseplant is impressive. It is a Norfolk Island Pine now close to seven feet tall. Its pot is on wheels, but I can no longer manage to put it out for the summer.

African violets in bloom
African violets seem to have disappeared as being old fashioned. Perhaps they seem too tame as they are just piles of deep green, velvety leaves. Then the plants put up mounds of flowers over a couple of weeks. The orginal color is blue, but many others are available, if you look for them. They are easy to start using leaves.

Enter the African Violets

For a couple of years, I wrote columns for a local ad paper. I was just learning to write professionally. For subject matter, I interviewed local people and wrote about their hobbies and businesses.

One woman raised African violets. Her house was full of them, blue and pink. They were lovely.

These plants are easy to start from leaves. This woman would start several and sell them at her church bazaar.

When I left, two little plants went with me. I was positive they were doomed.

Surprise

At home I set these doomed plants on a shelf in a north facing window. They loved it. They grew big and bloomed. I started some new ones.

Now my north window sports lovely blue and pink flowers. They have moved into the kitchen west facing window as well and are putting on quite a show this summer.

African violets aren’t seen so much now. Succulents are the big houseplant item now. Perhaps the finicky reputation violets have is part of the reason. It’s a shame as, if you look for them, African violets come in many colors and do very well, if you have a window sill they like.

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A Country Year

Leonard Hall was a farmer. I am a homesteader. Yet his book “A Country Year” reminded me so many times why I chose and stayed in this life.

The difference between a farmer and a homesteader rests mostly on two things. One is the size of the operation. The other is profit. A farmer wants profit from his endeavors. A homesteader appreciates return on time and money, but it isn’t the main motivation.

Organizing Time

A year has twelve months. “A Country Year” goes month by month, but starts in March as that is when spring begins to creep into the Ozarks. The chores, tasks and more discussed are done from a time now passed and still present in some ways. Mostly the machinery and attitudes have changed.

The book is set in the late 1950s. So many things were different then. I was surprised the Ozarks had a five year drought as those I’m familiar with lasted only for the summer or, at most, a year.

Hall raised beef cattle, Hereford. Black Angus are all the rage now. His advice is good: putting out good pasture, good hay, not overgrazing and keeping track of the cattle apply for any livestock operation.

Oops.

A Country Year mentions planting multiflora roses
Multiflora roses are lovely in bloom. The flowers are white or pinkish white and have little scent. They normally have many thorns and the plants get large with canes growing ten feet up into trees or meshing with other rose plants. These flowers produce small hips and lots of them so the plants spread readily both by seed and from canes touching the ground and rooting.

Back then multiflora roses, the ‘living fence’ were being promoted. Sericea lespedeza was the pasture legume to grow. Both are considered alien invasives now. However, their widespread presence makes them permanent residents.

Multiflora roses spread quickly. They produce many small hips (seed pods) not as well liked as those of the native roses. These rose canes can grow up into trees and kill saplings.

Sericea lespedeza isn’t well liked by cattle. It seeds prolifically and can take over large areas. Roadsides, hillsides, good soil, poor soil make no difference to it. Goats and sheep relish it both fresh and as hay.

Why Homestead?

Along side the tales of history, people, hunting, fall butchering and monthly tasks, is a running commentary on the native plants and animals. Hall believed in conservation and practiced it. Over the years on his farm Possum Trot, the land healed from years of misuse. It became productive and brought back the native plants and animals as well as providing him a living.

Hall hints at then states in “A Country Year” why he loves living rural. For the author as for me, the biggest reason for living this life with all its work, problems, joys and disappointments is just that. There is time to look out at the hills or down a pasture and admire the beauty, the quiet (lack of city noise) and think my own thoughts.

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Nubian Goat Kids For Sale

Goat kids grow up so fast. One day they are so little and cute. Three months later they are big and I have Nubian goat kids for sale.

Much as I hate to part with these kids, they must find new homes. Keeping up with the work involved with the goats is getting too hard, so I made the difficult decision to not keep any kids and let my herd gradually die off.

All of my adult Nubians are registered as American Nubians with the American Dairy Goat Association. These kids can be registered as American Nubians.

My buck, the sire of all of these kids, is High Reaches Silk’s Augustus.

Nubian buck kid for sale
For a moment Nubian buck Lucky Boy stood showing off his good looks. He is usually playing chase with Favorite Girl.

Lucky Boy

When barely a month old this buck got lost out on the hills, was out through a six inch storm and found his way home again. In that he was very lucky.

Now this three month old (born March 3, 2023), frosted black, disbudded and friendly fellow needs his luck to hold and find him a good home. He does love the does which is a problem as he can soon disrupt my breeding plans.

Lucky Boy’s Mother is High Reaches Natasha. She is frosted gray, calm, friendly, an easy and good milker.

Nubian goat kids for sale includes Nubian buck born March 1
Little Nubian bucks become a problem in the herd by about four months old. This good looking buck is starting to think he should be in charge.

Brown Boy

Juliette’s buck kid has perfected the classic Nubian buck pose. His sleek brown fur glistens in the sunlight. His frosted ears and nose have a little white smile between them.

This buck is disbudded and was born March 1, 2023. His mother, High Reaches Juliette, is an old doe retiring after this year so he is her last kid. She was a spoiled little house goat when first born and was the model for the “Capri Capers” cover.

Lovely Nubian doe for sale
People notice the long ears. I see the smooth, glistening coat in golden fawn brown offset by the black dorsal stripe, those long legs, and wish I could keep what should become an excellent milking Nubian doe.

Fawn Brown Girl

High Reaches Spring’s beautiful doe has good milking background. She is disbudded.

At almost four months old, this doe would draw attention at a goat show with her looks and bearing. She was born February 28, 2023. Her mother is a very good milker.

Polled Nubian doe kid is for sale
Favorite Girl loves to play especially when it involves jumping and climbing. It’s hard to get a good picture of her as she never seems to stop and pose.

Favorite Doe

All right, I’m not supposed to pick favorites. However, this doe adopted me when she was born on March 13, 2023 and demands attention, being jealous of any other goat getting what should be her petting and scratches.

High Reaches Drucilla, Favorite Girl’s mother, has been one of my best milkers. This doe is her last kid as she will retire this year.

This doe is special for more than being friendly. She is polled, born without horns.

Reaching Me

I do check my emails through this site a couple of times a week. And the Contact Page is working as the various spams I get prove.

These Nubian goat kids for sale are also listed on Craig’s List for the lake of the Ozarks area with additional email and phone information.