Karen Keninger, Author at Heartland Safari

Snow-white, trumpet-shaped, 5-petaled blossom of Hedge Bindweed shines forth from atop a tangle of foliage. In this case, the invasive has climbed up a hemp plant, aka “Iowa Ditchweed,” to get the view from on high.

Pretty Flowers, Noxious Invaders: Bindweed

Updated September 30, 2024

The weather these September days has been glorious. The air is dry, the temps in the 70s, the sun shining happily. Perfect weather for a bike ride on one of our favorite trails. Along the way we stopped a few times to inspect some of the foliage growing along the trail. Amid the various shades […]

Plants

Dozens of aphids, all head down, stud the stem of a Jerusalem Artichoke in the prairie garden. A lone black ant patrols the herd.

Miniature Farmers: Ants and Aphids

Updated September 23, 2024

Raising cattle for milk and beef has been an important part of the activities on Owl Acres for over 150 years. Another kind of animal husbandry has been going on here for millions of years. We noticed it recently when we were inspecting a Jerusalem artichoke plant in our prairie garden. Ants were tending a […]

Insects and Spiders

Life and death and life in the garden. Orange, black-spotted ladybird beetle hunts blue-green aphids on a leaf stem

Mice of the Insect World: Aphids

Updated September 16, 2024

Aphids. They’re crawling all over the leaves of my Jerusalem artichokes. They’re tiny, only about a sixteenth to an eighth inch long. They are soft-bodied, and they are shaped rather like a pear. They’re usually green, although specific species may be other colors such as yellow, black or orange. Aphids have their own family, Aphididae […]

Insects and Spiders

Karen holds a green sprig in front of her red shirt. The two intensely blue petals of today's Asiatic Dayflower peek out from the terminal bud. Yesterday's flower has set its seed capsule at the next node down.

Ephemeral Beauty: Asiatic Dayflower

Updated September 10, 2024

We’ve had plenty of rain this year, so while we were gone on vacation, the plants around the house continued to grow. One of them, the Asiatic dayflower, has been particularly busy. The plants have sprawled across the ground and climbed over their neighbors. Bryan pulled bales of it out. It’s another of the many […]

Plants

Green, angular, grasshopper-like insect looks directly at the camera, allowing us to see the dark spot deep in its clear, compound eye. Fork-tailed Bush Katydid shares the summer space on Owl Acres with one of its cousins, Common Meadow Katydid.

Late Summer Symphony: Fork-Tailed Bush Katydid

Updated September 2, 2024

I love this time of year. The world is thrumming with life. The crickets and grasshoppers, the cicadas and tree crickets all taking their turns to sing. The symphony will go on until that first hard frost when it shuts down all at once. But today is not that day. The weather is beautiful; the […]

Insects and Spiders

Gorgeous head shot of a small snake that usually gets little notice. Eastern Garter Snake has alternating yellow and dark green to black stripes that run the length of its body. Its head is small and oval shaped, with large round eyes

Common Garter Snake

Updated August 26, 2024

We don’t see many snakes on Owl Acres, but occasionally one gets flushed from the grass, or unfortunately done in by the mower. This happened recently, much to Bryan’s chagrin. Our snakes are an active and integral part of the ecosystem, and since the snakes on Owl Acres are not harmful to humans, we hate […]

Reptiles

A clump of frilly, purple flowers advertises for pollinators in a prairie stand. Wild bergamot produces a head that supports dozens of individual, complete flowers the size of the petals of other flowers, like a daisy.

Fireworks in the Garden: Wild Bergamot

Updated August 19, 2024

About three years ago, we decided to plant a prairie garden. Bryan designed it as an elongated S. The goal was to make it easy to mow alongside it and also to make it easy to reach into the middle of it without stepping on the plants. We followed the prescribed process of tilling up […]

Plants

A solitary Jonathan Apple Tree keeps vigil at the summit of a green Iowa valley. An exceptionally prolific tree, it produces so much fruit that branches break under its weight. The tree actually stands a few feet onto adjacent property, but we claim it.

Ideal Fruit: Jonathan Apple Tree

Updated August 12, 2024

There’s an old Jonathan apple tree (Malus domestica) at the edge of Owl Acres. Last year it was so heavily loaded with fruit that a couple of its branches broke under the weight. This year it has fewer apples but they’re bigger. And, alas, a lot of them are wormy. The big, sweet apples that […]

Trees

Songbird sits on a sunflower bud. Indigo Bunting has a solid, deep blue color

Learning to Sing: Indigo Bunting

Updated August 4, 2024

A male indigo bunting (Passerina cyanea) arrived on Owl Acres in early May after a long nocturnal trek from the Caribbean. He decided to stay and began singing his song to attract a mate. I’ve thought that a bird’s song was something hard-wired into his brain, and therefore all indigo buntings should sound the same. […]

Birds

Common Housefly at rest against a bright background. Large compound eyes, and the animal’s major distinguishing characteristic: it has only two wings.

Marvel of Engineering: House Fly

Updated July 29, 2024

I really hate flies. More than ants. More even than mosquitoes. A single fly buzzing around my face is enough to drive me crazy. And everything we ever hear about flies is how dirty they are, how they carry diseases, live in manure piles, leave fly specks on the walls, and generally create havoc, disease […]

Insects and Spiders