Stinging nettle color plate from a book published in Germany in 1885. Shows the plant and details of leaves, stem, seeds and stinging hairs. Upcoming post: a critter that eats this stuff.

Ouch: Stinging Nettle

When I bought Owl Acres 20-some years ago, the place had been significantly overgrown. Although it had been regularly mowed, around the buildings where the tractor couldn’t get to, the weeds grew thick and happy. My initial efforts at learning about those weeds ended abruptly when I grabbed a stalk of stinging nettle. That stuff […]

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A fist-sized bunch of the papery cones of Common Hops ripens in the road ditch in front of Owl Acres

IPA Anyone? Common Hops

Clancy, our nine-month-old golden retriever, loves to pick things up and bring them to me, or pick them up and eat them, depending on what he has. So the other day when he came bearing a rattly branch of something-or-other, I took it away, identified it as the hops branch we’d brought home from a […]

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Rump-on view of a Cedar Waxwing displaying all the colorful markings of this beautiful songbird. Slate-grey back with tailfeathers tipped in bright yellow. Red tips of secondary flight feathers peek out from folded wings. Soft yellow green breast, salmon-brown head and feather crest, and a rakish, black bandit-mask with thin white outline.

Berries Please: Cedar Waxwing

On a cool morning in early October, Dave and I stopped to enjoy the soundscape on our morning walk. The crickets had center stage, but several birds weighed in as well. One high-pitched clear whistle followed by a high-pitched trill that sounded almost like a cricket came from what my Merlin Bird ID app told […]

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Karen is dwarfed by a forest giant ragweed, towering overhead in the ditch across from Owl Acres.

Ambrosia, really?: Ragweed

When I was growing up, we took our vacations in August. And we usually went north. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Canada, Michigan. Dad would load up the car top carriers with tents, sleeping bags and camping gear. Then he’d load up Mom and all seven of us kids into the station wagon and off we’d go. The […]

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