Heartland Safari

Green field of corn and distant valley against a bright morning sky, viewed from the open doorway of the hay mow of the author’s 1915 timber frame barn. A couple of bales of hay lie in the foreground.

Magnificent Monoculture: Corn

Updated August 28, 2023

The air is full of that sweet, fresh scent of ripening corn. You can almost hear it growing. It’s been a staple on and around Owl Acres for 170 years. Today the fields across the fence are lush, with ten-foot-tall stalks in neat rows. Broad green leaves ripple in the breeze, sending waves undulating across […]

The unkempt woods on Owl Acres. The house is faintly visible in the morning haze.

Soil Part 6: Mycorrhizal Fungi

Updated August 24, 2023

Wherever I walk on Owl Acres, there’s a living web under my feet holding it all together. That web is created by a particular type of fungus called mycorrhizal fungi. Sometimes they pop up various varieties of mushrooms like the beloved morels, but generally they are busy doing other things. Mycorrhizal fungi consist of a […]

A small, brown cricket with bold stripes, long antennae and two “horns” (cerci) at the rear of its abdomen, sits on a blade of grass. A Brown Trig in the author’s yard. Not certain ithis one is a Say’s Trig (Karen is not an entomologist), but there’s a bunch of them. 2 or 3 jump away at every footfall.

High Summer Singer: Winged Bush Cricket

Updated August 21, 2023

Stepping out in the afternoon of a hot summer day, I am surrounded by the songs of the insects. They’ve taken over from the birds to create that distinctive and to me beloved soundscape of high summer. As I listen, I wonder—what is that high-pitched, almost at the edge of my hearing, trill that overlays […]

Insects and Spiders

Close up photo of a brown, segmented critter with elliptical, flattened dome-shaped armor. Wood louse, pill bug or roly poly, pick up a piece of wood that’s been in the dirt for a while and there she’ll be, with a bunch of her closest friends and relations.

Soil Part 5: Macrofauna

Updated August 17, 2023

Macrofauna are the larger critters living in the soil on Owl Acres. We are familiar with most of them. Millipedes, centipedes, true spiders, ants, earthworms, certain beetles, harvestmen ( AKA Daddy Longlegs) wood lice, termites, slugs, and snails. Along with these soil lifers, larvae and nymphs of many insects live and grow in the soil […]

Soil

A large tree trunk goes away vertically and spreads into a green canopy high overhead. A portion of the author’s barn red house is visible nearby. Boxelder has stood on this old farmstead for more than 50 years.

River Maple or Boxelder Tree

Updated August 14, 2023

Half of Owl Acres is given over to a forest reserve for tax purposes, but more importantly, woods for habitat purposes. The woods run along the west and north sides of the property and make a good windbreak as well. There are several types of trees in the woods, including quite a number of boxelders. […]

Trees

Tiny arachnid with 8 legs. Front legs are tipped with heavy claws like those of a crab or a scorpion. Little guy lacks a stinger.

Soil Part 4: Mesofauna

Updated August 10, 2023

Continuing with the plan to divide the animals that live in the soil by size, we come to the meso or middle-sized fauna. Whereas the microfauna we met—protists, nematodes, water bears and rotifers—live in water in the soil, the mesofauna we’ll look at live in air-filled pores in the soil. Now we’re starting into the […]

Soil

Karen is dwarfed by a tall field thistle, which was allowed to grow in the prairie garden this year because the flowers are gorgeous and it’s a heavy nectar producer.

Ouch!: Thistles

Updated August 8, 2023

Throughout the winter, we kept the bird feeder full of seed. We had a seed mix for the larger birds and another for the finch feeder. The finch mix was said to be niger thistle seed. So when thistly plants promising yellow flowers popped up at the base of the bird feeder, our first guess […]

Plants

Fat, worm-like tardigrade with 8 stubby legs, imaged with an electron microscope.

Soil Part 3: Microfauna

Updated August 3, 2023

On a human scale, we think of the size of creatures populating the earth as ranging from gnats to whales. The ecosystem in the soil has a comparable scale, with creatures ranging from the tiniest virus to large digging mammals. Scientists divide them into groups depending on their size—micro (tiny), meso (middle-sized), or macro, the […]

Soil

Slender green insect with triangular head and heavy forelegs stands head down on the side of a red farm building. Praying mantis sub adult nymph, wings are not yet present.

A Siren Call: Praying Mantis

Updated July 31, 2023

She sits on a leaf near the ground and flexes her abdomen, exposing her pheromone glands. A football field away, he catches her siren call and flies to meet her. He is cautious, approaching from the front, wiggling his abdomen, showing off his prowess. They come together, and while he’s lost in ecstasy, she may, […]

Insects and Spiders

Photo through a microscope of Trebouxia, a single-celled green alga. Circles filled with green chlorophyll, floating in a blue field. Found everywhere, trebouxia is a major photo synthesizer in the soil, in water and as a symbiont with fungus in lichens.

Soil Part 2: Microorganisms

Updated July 27, 2023

In my last biology class, many years ago, I learned that there were two kingdoms of living things—plants and animals. Oh how wrong that thinking was. Life is so much richer than just plants and animals. Today scientists divide living things into three domains—archaea, bacteria, and eucarya–and then things get complicated. Eucarya (multicelled organisms) divide […]

Soil