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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Plants with Strange Names
Devil’s Walking Stick. Strawberry Wahoo. Green Dragon. Jack-in-the-Pulpit. Fire-Pokers… All plants with strange names. Sometimes my friends and family think I make these names up. I remember coming home one day after running errands in town. I always drive …
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Random Nature Connection – Old Things and A Force to Be Reckoned
Is Nature a force to be reckoned with and hopefully conquered? This post is a prompt to think about our relationship with nature. Join us! I won’t have an essay today, just a few thoughts about this photo and the …
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It’s A Good Day to Plant Seeds in Winter
Yesterday I took a break from figuring taxes (yes, I’m still working on taxes) and went outside to enjoy the warm-ish winter’s day and plant seeds. On the seed list today: American ginseng Echinacea purpurea Echinacea tennesseensis Comfrey (officinale) Poppies…
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Life in the Dead of Winter
I enjoy seeing signs of life in the dead of winter. This week hasn’t been the typical dead of winter. Today was a beautiful day, sunny and nearly 70*F, and I became tired of figuring taxes. Time to go outside …
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The Nature of Still Water
We’re holding our breath here this morning at Wild Ozark, waiting to see what happens when the lines on the mountain thaw. See, we’d insulated all the lines under the house and figured, hey, it shouldn’t freeze now under there …
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Random Nature Connection – Abundance in Nature
Vaccinium arboreum Abundance in Nature The other day as we were out scouting for new springs on the mountain, (springs new to us, not springs new in existence and another form of the abundance in nature out here), I looked …
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Torture of Taxes, Podcasts and Frozen Water
Today I’ve been undergoing the torture of taxes, podcasts and frozen water . I’m doing taxes for the business, repairing broken podcast audio files, compiling good nature blog links, and making the chickens happy today. Compiling the good nature blog…
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Ginseng, strawberries, and Google+ listings
Handy wild strawberry/ginseng comparison graphic Yesterday I posted a handy image for those of you trying to tell the difference between wild strawberry and first year ginseng. I keep forgetting that when I post a new page to this website, …
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Blustery Day in the Ozarks!
It’s so cold and blustery outside I had to suit up just to dig around in the freezer for some chili ingredients! Can’t see it in the pictures, but the wind is gusty and the snow is blowing. It’s frigid …
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Tending our Wild Ozark Water
Springs at Wild Ozark I’ve written before about how we are dependent on our wild Ozark water. This is a post from last year around this time of year and it’s one of my favorites. This activity of inspecting …
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Random Nature Connection – Do Animals Plan Ahead?
2nd Friday after Winter Solstice This essay on whether animals plan ahead is the second of my weekly #RandomNatureConnection posts. Read more about this meme here and consider joining us if you love nature, philosophical debate, and blog about it.…
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Fiction influenced by Nature
At first glance it might be hard to imagine how my fiction could be influenced by nature. There are three things that make it so. Maybe there’s more than three, but these are the ones that stand out for me.…
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Random Nature Connection – Ozark Spring Water
Dripping Faucet Nature’s Water Water is such an integral part of nature, but we don’t often recognize it as such when it comes from a faucet. All water originates from nature, even water from the tap in a city.…
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An Ode to Nature
I don’t often get in the mood to write poetry, but this time of year it sometimes happens. Not sure what it is, perhaps the approach of mid-winter, perhaps the shifted angles of light.…
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First Thoughts
What is the first thought that enters your mind on waking? Are you savoring vestiges of pleasant dreams, or do you wake up already planning the day…or is there a sense of ‘oh no, not again” ? Sometimes the first …
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Frosty Hills
Frosty hills are pretty and the Ozark hills are sporting white capes this morning! See the distant mountain with the white hoar frost? The 4-wheeler was also decorated. A light coat of ice had the key and brake lock stiff …
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My Results from the Humanmetrics Jung Typology Test™
The Humanmetrics Jung Typology Test™ was a fun, free little online test, sort of like the Myers-Briggs test to determine personality types: https://www.humanmetrics.com/index.htm#intro. After you’re done and when you click on the “Career Choices” info button, it gives some …
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Broomsedge, not Fescue
An Author’s Corrections: It’s Broomsedge, not Fescue When I wrote No Qualms I described the shadeling as having hair that resembled fescue. That’s because I’d always thought the grass I had in mind was fescue. Recently I learned that it …
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Hunt Food, Gather Firewood
This year we’ve been proactive about a stocked freezer and our supply of firewood. Last year and the years since we’ve moved up here, we’ve always had a steady supply of venison, but we seem to always need firewood at …
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Photos of a misty day in the Ozarks
For you from Wild Ozark™ 🙂 Grab a cuppa & enjoy! A Misty Day in the Ozarks One of my favorite kinds of trees, the beech, keeps leaves long after the others have disrobed and gone into winter’s sleep. Almost …
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How Far Removed – Predator and Prey
Out here we have a healthy balance between predator and prey. Squirrels crowd the treetops, mice are at home in sheds and even in our house if we aren’t diligent. Snakes lurk everywhere. Predator and Prey Coyotes are plentiful. The …
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The Ent Trees of Wild Ozark
Special Trees Two special trees grace the dirt road where I live. There are more trees like this here and there on our own acreage, tree-beings, or trees that appear and do more than trees appear to normally do. Of …
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Where do Writers get Ideas? My Ideas Come from the Gaps
Where do Writers get Ideas? People often ask me where I get ideas for my stories. I’d never really paid attention to it much, because I’ve always had a fairly active imagination and it comes naturally to think of the …
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Winter is Here in the Ozarks
First it was the frost flowers. They showed up last week during our first really cold spell. Then yesterday as we were on our way home from grocery shopping the first sleet began. Soon after the plinking sounds of tiny …