Earlier this year I surveyed my newsletter members for their top questions. Here’s one about how to identify plants found in the outdoors.
Top Questions
It’s more of a comment than a question, but I’m creating this post in response to …
Category: Departures
-
Product Review: STABILicers Ice Cleats make Slippery Slopes a Cinch!
When it gets icy here, just walking down the back steps is a feat, but making my rounds to feed the critters is the whole circus. Ice cleats to the rescue.
Biding time to try out the ice cleats
So …
-
Keeping up the Juggling Act
It’s the holiday season, so it stands to reason that lots of folks are juggling lots of things in their lives these days.
Juggling and Not Too Successfully
I’ve been dropping a few balls lately. Right now the ones on …
-
Get in Shape with Nature- Starting out the Day Hot & Sweaty
This morning kicked off my first effort at returning to a daily walk/jog routine. It’s time to get in shape after 6 months of trying to take it easy.
Get in Shape
I can’t *really* jog yet. My knee is …
-
Homestead: Getting the Chainsaw Stuck … and Unstuck
Today was an outdoor work day, at least until the storm blew in. Feeding critters, excluding chickens, and getting the chainsaw stuck, and unstuck.
Feeding Critters
I did the usual thing first – fed the critters. It was a foggy …
-
Mailbox and Back in Under an Hour
Yesterday I brought my camera with me when I went to the mailbox. If I had walked, I know it would have taken more than an hour because I would have seen so many more opportunities to stop and take …
-
Top Questions from Readers: Healing Herbs
Healing Herbs: the first of the Top Questions and Topics of Interest from Readers
Healing herbs and using the wild plants for medicine was one of the most often mentioned topics in the recent survey results.
In case you’re just …
-
Installing a Culvert Retaining Wall was Today’s Homestead Project
Today I built a culvert retaining wall for the culvert on the shop driveway to keep it from washing out around the sides. I was grateful for the overcast and dreary day so I could do this work without getting …
-
No Water
This morning I turned on the faucet to put some water on my toothbrush.
Nothing but a few drops came out. Then, nothing. No water.
No Water
My thoughts immediately led to the question in my mind, which was “Where …
-
Homestead Work
We’ve been busy doing a lot of outdoor homestead work since we came home from our gold panning trip to Colorado. That’s why there’s been no recent posts from me.
The weather has been atrociously hot and I’m just too …
-
Avoiding Burnout: Fun Days at Wild Ozark
Avoiding Burnout
Anyone who has ever tried to build a homesteading life will know it’s a tremendous amount of work. So we also work at avoiding burnout.
The list of things on the “to do” list is so long, our …
-
Busy Burning Coffee Days at Wild Ozark
My efforts at multitasking yesterday ended with flames, billowing smoke and the awful scent of burnt coffee beans. Surprisingly, I did not stop to get a picture of this event to document it for this post. At first there weren’t …
-
Photos of Plants – Medicinal & Useful plants down the Wild Ozark Driveway
I’m still mostly stuck in the house because of my knee (dislocated it a little over a week ago) but I took the four-wheeler and camera down the driveway to get a few photos of plants unfurling or coming into …
-
Update from Wild Ozark
Lots of things going on – or rather, NOT going on lately.
If you’re a subscriber to my monthly newsletter, you’ve probably already seen the update that I won’t be doing the farmer’s market this year. I forgot to …
-
Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides) Unfurling
The blue cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides) is awake early this spring. I found some the other day, in three different stages of unfurl.
The one completely unfurled is in a pot in the nursery area, the other two are in the …
-
How to move a round bale without a hay spike by using the front-end loader instead.
I’ve been using a chain with the tractor and front end loader to move round bales to the horses. We don’t have a hay spike or fork attachment.
This how-to assumes you have a tractor with a front end loader …
-
Coyotes at Midnight
I had trouble getting to sleep last night. Then there were coyotes at midnight, just as the drift of dreams was beginning to take hold. It went on for so long I had time to turn on the audio recorder …
-
Repairing Our Wild Ozark Spring Water Line
Today I repaired our Wild Ozark spring water line
Since I’ve learned how to do this myself, I figured I’d do it while Mr. Wild Ozark was at work. Later this summer we have plans to change out the entire …
-
A Muck Boot and Pj Kind of Day
I didn’t feel like getting out of bed this morning. It was cold in the room when I woke and I just felt lazy. But the hens clucked louder as the minutes ticked past.
I knew the dogs and horses …
-
A problem in our gravity feed spring water system
What is a gravity feed water system?
We are fortunate to have our very own spring fed water source that runs all year long. It is a spring that pumps out enough water, without fail, to serve our household with …
-
Kings River Falls – Photos from our hike
On Sunday I went hiking with my two oldest children and their children, one of my daughter’s friends and her children, and my parents to the Kings River Falls. This trail is a little north and east of Fallsville, AR …
-
Warm Egg on a Cold Day
There is something quite satisfying about finding a warm egg in the henhouse on a blustery 15*F morning.
I tried something new to help me wake up a little earlier this morning. It wasn’t until 5 a.m. when the strange …
-
Departures
Not all of my art reflects the Ozarks. Some of it is purely from the imagination, and some are images of things nowhere nearby.
When I first began this site, I thought I might only post the art related to …
-
Exercising in Nature – or – Why it takes me an hour to walk to the mailbox and back
Exercising in nature is as easy as taking a walk to check the mail. It helps if you have a long driveway.
One of my resolutions for the new year and the rest of my life is to get into …
-
Did you know Osage Oranges evolved with wooly mammoths?
Osage
Maclura pomifera, also known as Osage Orange, Bois d’Arc, Hedge-apple, or Horse-apple, the osage tree is native to our area. Even so, there aren’t very many of them in our particular neck of the woods.
…
A bedraggled osage tree.
