Blog

  • 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, …

  • 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 …

  • 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 …

  • Random Nature Connection – Do Animals Plan Ahead?

    2nd Friday after Winter Solstice

    This essay on whether animals plan ahead is the second of my Random Nature Connection posts. Read more about this meme here and consider joining me if you love nature, philosophical debate, and blog about …

  • Random Nature Connection – Ozark Spring Water

    Our house runs on gravity fed Ozark spring water. This was a new experience to us when we moved here in 2005 from an urban town in south Louisiana. We had so much to learn about what it means to …

  • An Ode to Nature

    ode to nature - a poem by madison woods about 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.…

  • Cover and Sample Page

    Here’s the cover and sample page for “Forest Companions”, the last book in the “Into the Ginseng Wood” series. Should be at Amazon by the weekend! If you want to catch up on the others, heres a link to the …

  • 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 …

  • Frosty Hills

    photo of frosty Ozark 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 …

  • 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 …

  • 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 …

  • 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 …

  • Photos of a misty day in the Ozarks

    beech tree at wild ozark

    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 …

  • 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.

    snake eating squirrel

    Predator and Prey

    Coyotes are plentiful. The …

  • 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 …

  • 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 …

  • Winter is Here in the Ozarks

    First it was the frost flowers. They showed up last week during our first really cold spell.
     frost flower frost flower
    Then yesterday as we were on our way home from grocery shopping the first sleet began. Soon after the plinking sounds of tiny …

  • Welcome to the all-new Wild Ozark™ website!

    logo

    Today’s my birthday and it’s the coldest one I can ever remember having! Temps have barely gotten above freezing today and snow clouds are building overhead.

    I’ve been working hard since I got up this morning to bring this new …

  • Frost Flowers

    frost flowers

    The first time I saw frost flowers here in northwest Arkansas, about nine years ago now, I thought they were trash collected at the base of weeds on the roadsides.

    And then I saw a photo at Cloudland and the …