Discovering the world around me.
For the past two years, mosquitoes have been practically absent from the landscape on Owl Acres. The years were dry, verging on drought. This year, we’ve had a fair amount of rain. It’s caused flooding, as well as filling up ponds and streams and ditches. It’s a perfect year for the dreaded mosquito. Mosquitoes are […]
Continue reading Vexation: MosquitoesWe fenced the yard for the dogs last summer and that necessarily created some new disturbed soil. This soil welcomed the seeds of a couple of native plants, and they’re growing happily against the fence. One is white avens, and another is blackseed plantain. They’re not new to Owl Acres, but they have claimed a […]
Continue reading Contrasts: White Avens and Blackseed Plantain
Why did the snapping turtle cross the road? To find a good place to lay her eggs. Why did somebody deliberately run over her? Good question. Snapping turtles (Chelydra serpentina) aren’t usually out and about on the road past Owl Acres. They’d rather stay near the creek. The females have one imperative this time of […]
Continue reading Survival: Snapping Turtle
Lichens—they’re everywhere. I recently traveled to the temperate rainforest of the Oregon coast and was intrigued with the profusion of lichens that grace this area. But you don’t need a rainforest to support lichens. Some 478 species of lichens live in Iowa, lots of them on Owl Acres. Lichens are often mistaken for moss, but […]
Continue reading Productive Partnerships: Lichens
There’s a large branch from a walnut tree hanging down from thirty feet high in the tree on Owl Acres. The other end is resting on the ground, bracing it from falling completely. It will take a professional tree service to finish disconnecting it from the tree and drop it to the ground. It is […]
Continue reading A Matter of Chance: Tornadoes
A gray catbird added his song to the chorus on Owl Acres on May 5 of this year. He sat high in a tree in the “catbird seat” and called to all and sundry that he was here and ready to start courting. His repertoire of songs includes the mewing sound that gets him his […]
Continue reading Sitting Pretty: Gray Catbird
There’s a little square cut out of the sidewalk near the front porch that was intended to hold flowers. It’s had tomatoes, herbs and other things in it, and just now it is full of Aunt Lucy. I’ve never heard of Aunt Lucy until my garden app (Picture This) identified it as such. Aunt Lucy […]
Continue reading Brown Thumb Gardening: Aunt Lucy and Bedstraw
Last year in early May, a Baltimore oriole landed on the car in the driveway. He had just come back from the south and was looking for a place to call his own. He started singing to his reflection in the car window. His reflection didn’t sing back. He tried pecking at it, but something […]
Continue reading Lordly Livery: Baltimore Oriole
One of my very favorite signs of spring is the chorus of spring peepers coming from the ditches along the road in front of Owl Acres. When the weather gets warm enough, and we’ve had some rain, they start their choruses, calling to prospective mates. When the dogs and I go for a walk, we […]
Continue reading Frog Magic—Spring Peepers
One of the earliest plants we see in the spring is known as garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata). It is a member of the mustard family. It gets its name because all parts of the plant taste like garlic. Deer won’t eat it, and other native herbivores such as rabbits, geese, opossums and native insects don’t […]
Continue reading Invader’s Arsenal: Garlic Mustard