Karen Keninger, Author at Heartland Safari

Mourning dove the way Iowans usually see them, sitting on an overhead wire, out by the road. Gray-tawny bird with slender, slightly curved beak.

Sad and Soothing: Mourning Doves

Updated July 20, 2023

I’m sitting in my study with the windows open, listening to my favorite bird singing his love song. This bird is probably the first bird I ever was able to identify by sound because of its signature song—a low coo followed by a high note and two or three low coos. I found his song […]

Birds

A spade has turned a scoop of dirt next to a cornfield

Soil Part 1: Dirt

Updated July 17, 2023

It’s easy to look around at all the life on Owl Acres—the trees, the birds, the rabbits and moles, the deer, the grass, the flowers, and everything else–and think “wow, what abundance, what mystery, what wonders.” It’s a little more challenging for me to remember that there’s an entire universe on a different scale right […]

Soil

Lamb’s Quarters by the house, after mowing and growing and mowing and growing all season .

Greens, Anyone? Lamb’s Quarters

Updated November 23, 2025

There’s a space on Owl Acres shaped like a piece of pie between the garage and the study. Years ago I planted it in a wildly disorganized garden. It had day lilies, iris, tall individual lilies, yellow coneflowers, black-eyed susans, purple coneflowers, some hostas and anything anybody gave me to plant. This garden has been […]

Plants

Light green, bulbous insect with tiny head, black eyes, and rakish, black-tipped antennae swept back over its head, sits on a green leaf surface. Soybean Aphid

Homeric Life Story: Soybean Aphids

Updated July 10, 2023

One morning in mid-July, I was having coffee on the screened-in deck, enjoying the beautiful summer day when a loud single-engine airplane swooped over my house. It sounded way too close for comfort. It zoomed around the soybean fields that surround Owl Acres, coming and going, making several passes over the fields before flying away. […]

Insects and Spiders

A rural mailbox surrounded by flower stalks topped with lacy umbels of tiny, white flowers. Queen Anne's Lace.

Queen or Killer: Queen Anne’s Lace

Updated July 6, 2023

One summer day, I took some letters down to the mailbox to be mailed. The mailbox sits on the edge of the ditch on the far side of the road. Around it grasses and weeds had grown up thick and healthy. I put the flag up to alert the rural mail carrier that there was […]

Plants

A stout green insect with veined, crystalline wings and wide-set, compound eyes, rests on a twig. Scissors Grinder Cicada

Racket or Rebirth: Cicadas

Updated July 3, 2023

Supper on the deck is one of the summer pleasures these days. We sit as the sun goes down and watch the hummingbirds tank up for the night. We listen to the world of noisemakers from sleepy birds to wind in the trees. Because it’s July, the boom and crackle of distant fireworks accent the […]

Insects and Spiders

Clusters of 6-10 Black Raspberries spaced along the cane, amid dense, green foliage on the face of the fencerow thicket

Summer Sunshine: Berries

Updated June 29, 2023

When I first bought Owl Acres, raspberries and blackberries were growing in wild, unfettered profusion. They dominated the fence rows, covered over the old storm cellar, and edged the woods with brambles that reminded me of Sleeping Beauty’s bramble-covered castle. I thought I’d try harvesting some of the raspberries at the edge of the woods, […]

Plants

Stop motion photo of a flying lightning bug. Elytra (modified forewings) carried high and forward to clear space for the hindwings to work. Insect is aligned 45 degrees from vertical. Black compound eyes forward and light organ at tip of abdomen.

Fireflies or Lightning bugs

Updated June 26, 2023

The lightning bugs are out, lending their own special magic to a June evening. We used to chase them and catch them in a jar when we were kids. We wondered how they could light up like that, and hoped to watch them do it in the jar. I’m afraid our little captives didn’t fare […]

Insects and Spiders

A hapless June bug swims in a blue wading pool, just before the dog eats it.

Clumsy Fliers: June Bugs

Updated June 22, 2023

Years ago I found myself at a gas station just over the Missouri line. It was around 2:00 in the morning, and we needed gas. The driveway of the gas station was literally covered with a writhing mass of June bugs. When we opened the car door, the bugs started coming in, and my dog […]

Insects and Spiders

A tan snake with repeating brown-black blotches moves across a gravel surface, heading for cover.

Friend, not foe: Western Fox Snake

Updated June 19, 2023

Snakes have been maligned for literally thousands of years. If we’re talking about the venomous kinds, they deserve it. But of the 28 species of snake found in Iowa, only four are venomous—timber rattlesnakes, eastern massasauga, prairie rattlesnakes, and copperheads. The other day Bryan saw this fellow in the grass near the shop. It’s a […]

Reptiles