Karen Keninger, Author at Heartland Safari

A group of Woolly Mammoths with long, curving tusks, treks across a snow-covered landscape. Glaciers in Iowa stopped in and near the Pleistocene habitat of these elephant-like animals.

Beneath My Feet Part 4: Layers of Ice

Updated January 23, 2023

It’s winter, so it’s not very hard to imagine ice and snow on Owl Acres. But it is hard to imagine thousands of feet of it, compressed into a gigantic glacier that stretches from here back north to the north pole. That’s what Owl Acres looked like though some 2.3 million years ago when the […]

History

Grey branches of a Siberian Elm, covered with brilliant white hoarfrost, against a pure blue winter sky

Winter Words

Updated January 19, 2023

On a January night, the air is still. The overnight temps hold in the teens and twenties, and the humidity is close to 100%. The conditions are perfect for one of Owl Acres’ beautiful winter creations–hoar frost. The word “hoar” is archaic but means “grayish white; gray or gray-haired.” It’s like wisps of fog frozen […]

Weather

An asteroid slams into tropical, shallow seas of the sulfur-rich Yucatan Peninsula in what is today southeast Mexico, precipitating the latest of the Five Mass Extinctions

Beneath My Feet Part 3: Layers of Life

Updated January 16, 2023

Back in the far ancient past, around 2 billion years ago, a supercontinent called Rodinia is thought to have formed. It started breaking up around 780 million years ago, but the core of it stayed together and in time became the Laurentian Craton. This mass of rock would eventually form the foundation of the continent […]

History

Sailing into the Wind

Updated January 12, 2023

We put a new mix of seed in the bird feeder this week. It has more corn and peanuts in it than the last batch. This morning seeds are scattered on the ground beneath the feeder. Here’s a chipmunk stuffing his cheek pouches with it. He runs away toward his burrow, then comes back empty-cheeked […]

Birds

Animation of Pangea supercontinent breaking up into continental masses that move about the Earth's surface

Beneath My Feet Part 2: Layers of Time

Updated January 9, 2023

Owl Acres stands on a specific if tiny place on the earth’s surface. It can be measured in longitude, latitude and altitude coordinates and thus pinpointed precisely. With the help of satellites, my phone can give me those exact coordinates, and they would be unique to this very spot on the entire globe. But Owl […]

History

1919 magazine advertisement from Woman’s Home Companion for Yeast Foam and Magic Yeast for making bread. Features a small boy in a sailor’s pinafore, delighted with his slice of homemade bread.

Cheers!

Updated January 5, 2023

As we survey the life on Owl Acres, we have been thinking about the big things. We owe a lot, though, to those tiny one-celled organisms that are everywhere. Yeast for instance. Yeast cells are so small that you need a microscope to see them. And yet, each individual cell is a living, active member […]

Fungus

A blue and green ball is cut to show the layers of earth

Beneath My Feet Part 1: Layers of Earth

Updated January 2, 2023

When we were kids, playing in the mud, we used to dream about digging all the way to China. Wouldn’t that be fun? To escape through a tunnel into a completely different place? We didn’t realize, of course, that we’d end up in the Indian Ocean instead of among the Celestials. Our excavations never got […]

History

Bald eagle stands on a bare snag, wings and tail spread in iconic pose. Black body, white head and tail, yellow beak against a white sky

America’s Bird: The Bald Eagle

Updated December 29, 2022

A huge bird just flew in over Owl Acres. Its wings stretch to eight feet as it flies, and its dark brown body and wings contrast with its stark white head and tail. It lands in the big elm near the driveway. Clearly, it is a living representative of America’s symbol of strength, courage, and […]

Birds

Black capped chickadee perches at bird feeder in winter

Winter Strategies: Black-Capped Chickadee

Updated December 26, 2022

The weather is harsh today. Snow covers the ground. Wind is expected around 30mph from the northwest, driving temps below zero where they’ll stay for several days. The trees in the woods to the north and west of the house moan and creak as they sway bare branches in the wind. The wind chimes on […]

Birds

Red brown Fox Squirrel with bushy tail sits in the snow, with a walnut in its mouth

Scurry: Eastern Fox Squirrel

Updated December 22, 2022

Dave, the resident lab, and I are out for the usual reason in the yard behind the house. Dave is totally focused on a nearby tree, and I know why. A fox squirrel is sitting in its branches chattering away, scolding us for entering its world. It’s very noisy, and Dave stands, on point, entranced. […]

Mammals