Welcome to my blog about Nature, Art with Ozark pigments, Rural Real Estate, & my Hermit Homesteading Life. Oh, and sometimes I write about my philosophical observations.
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Disappearing for a while
Just a notice to anyone who might wonder why there’s been no posts for a while… I’d been really busy finishing up some projects (10 Common Plants and American Ginseng & Companions). Now that those are done I’m taking a …
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Death from Above – Wasp vs Mantis
There are lots of videos at YouTube about wasp vs mantis, but they always show the mantis winning. Today I saw a wasp carrying the head of a praying mantis. I saw one yesterday, too. I’ve found lots of info …
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A Homesteading Hermit Self-Reliant Writer’s To-Do List
I’m a self-reliant writer for the most part. I’m also a homesteader and close to being a hermit (hermitress) these days. It would take a lot more money than I make at it to delegate any of the tasks, homesteaderly …
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Spider Stick
Anyone who has ever ridden, or rather, *driven* a four-wheeler on a tree-lined path will know exactly why this four-wheeler is sporting a lovely branch of wilted leaves. It’s a “spider stick”. And it’s the person in front, if you’re …
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My First Sheet of Handmade Paper
So, with all the rain here, and now with the truck being broken which means until the road mud dries up some I can’t go out anywhere, I’m doing some of the other things on my creative bucket list. I …
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A Review Round Robin
*** Sorry, but this event has ended *** Join me in a “Review Round Robin” I’ll send you 10 Common Plants in paperback format, and none of this costs anything for you, not even postage (but you don’t get to …
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Do Your Dogs Sing with the Chickens?
We have singing dogs. Every morning at sunrise when the rooster crows and the hens wake, and during the day when the chickens get all a-cluck over an egg laying, the dogs break into song with them. Does anyone else …
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Rattlesnakes and Dogs don’t Mix – Snakebit dog
They’re not aggressive. Really. This one just wanted to be left alone. It’s the second one I’d encountered that week, and both were relatively calm. Badger even stepped on the first one and didn’t notice until after doing it. The …
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The Slow Descent of an Ozark Mountain Landslide
I’ve been observing and recording our slowly descending Ozark landslide. Leaning trees and driveway encroachment, photographed day by day. Since the flood last Monday I haven’t done a whole lot of cleanup. The main reason for that is the landslide.…
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Egg-napping Marans
I have two black marans setting eggs. Each hen was in a separate box, sitting on her own clutch of eggs. There are other boxes for the other hens to lay eggs in, too. I haven’t been finding eggs in …
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The Impermanence of Things
We’ve had a lot of rain in the last days here in the Ozark Highlands. 7 inches in a few hours Monday night. That’s too much rain for our little creeks and hollers. Lots of folks have lost homes, cattle, …
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Rattlesnake at the Gate
Gnats have made it nearly impossible for me to stand being outside at my potting bench for very long. Yesterday I did the little bit of work I needed to do at it while trying not to breathe so the …
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Unripe Fruit
I have a hard time believing I have no pictures – at all – of ripe elderberry fruit. After digging through file after unfruitful file, I thought it might be faster to just go get a new photo. Not quite.…
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Link correction for previous post
Something didn’t work right and the previous post went out with the wrong link. Here’s the right one: https://www.wildozark.com/10-common-plants/…
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What’s Blooming at the end of May?
Wild Ozark plants blooming at the end of May I took a little walkabout yesterday to photograph some of the flowers that are setting berries, blooming, or getting ready to bloom right now. Yesterday’s post highlighted the orchid I’d been waiting …
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Talk about Delayed Gratification! (Twayblade Orchid)
I’ve been waiting a whole year to see this flower. When I first found the plant last summer there was only the two leaves. Without seeing a flower, it’s hard to positively identify a plant, unless that plant has something …
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Water Over the Bridge-Videos
When you can hear the roar of the wet-weather waterfall from the house, you know the water’s up. If you can see the waterfall from the front porch, it’s a fair bet the creek is way over the bridge. When …
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Rainy Days are Writing “Bounty Hunter” Days
It’s been raining off and on here since last night. It seems like it’s been raining every day since I can’t remember when. I’m tired of it and will be glad when the ground is dry and the creeks are …
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A Woodland Habitat – Dragons among the Nettles and Cohosh
There’s a particular woodland habitat at the far corner of our property that I love. The variety of plants that grow there is amazing. It’s the perfect place for American ginseng, but those plants have nearly been extirpated by diggers …
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Dragons Hatching, Clematis Blooming, and Feeding Horses in the Rain
Dragons Hatching! Last fall I collected seeds from a large Green Dragon. I put the berries directly into pots and kept them overwinter in the ginseng nursery. The other morning I noticed they were hatching – er, sprouting! The …
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Unwelcome Guest – Snake in the Hen-house
Apparently there’s a snake in the hen-house. Looks like the hens had some stealthy company yesterday. The unwelcome guest left a bit of evidence behind for me to find this morning. I searched under all of the nexts and behind …
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What’s that plant good for?
“What’s that plant good for?” A curious thing I’m noticing by selling plants at the market is that people almost always have the same question, phrased in various ways. It’s often the first thing they ask, in general about any …
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A Ginseng Sanctuary at the Compton Gardens in Bentonville
Wild Ozark is honored and excited to be embarking on a long-term project in conjunction with Compton Gardens in Bentonville, Arkansas. This American Ginseng Sanctuary project is made possible, in part, by a grant from the United Plant Savers. This …
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Sleuthing the Bellwort. Sessilifolia or Perfoliata?
Sessilifolia or Perfoliata? Three species of bellwort are found in Arkansas: Uvularia grandiflora, U. sessilifolia, and U. perfoliata. The one I see most often around here is the grandiflora, or Large-flowered bellwort as it’s commonly called. Bellwort in the Ginseng …
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An Entourage of Green Ambassadors
Show and Tell I took my little assembly of show and tell items, and a small entourage consisting of three Green Ambassadors on the road yesterday. We, or at least *I*, had been invited to speak to the Olli Group…