by Marion Patterson | Jul 21, 2022 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Nature
Nearly everyone remembers a brief, often scary time. Usually, it comes within months of high school graduation. It’s time to leave the familiarity of home and venture out on new endeavors. Change is often exciting but it requires venturing out into the unknown – often alone.
Rich remembers moving from New Jersey to a state he’d never been to, Idaho, to start college. Within days he was sworn into the Army as a student soldier. Lots of change.
Marion ventured forth in the same year but not quite so far. Her launching took her to Plymouth State University a ways north of her home.
Wildlife babies face many of the same huge life changes and uncertainties that we did, but they do it at a much younger age. When we walk along early summer trails, we often see baby cottontail bunnies. Some are no bigger than our hands, but they are on their own in a world full of bunny hazards. They must learn how to find food, water, and shelter while all sorts of predators try to make them food.
In June we watched several broods of house wrens fledge from boxes we put up near our kitchen window and in the garden. Earlier we’d seen mom and dad bring in sticks to make a nest. Then we didn’t see them often for a couple of weeks as they incubated their tiny reddish eggs.
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Wrens lay several small, reddish eggs.
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Wrens peek out of the box.
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Wren adults are busy feeding the young.
On a miraculous day, those eggs become hungry but helpless babies. Mom and dad worked endlessly catching and delivering juicy caterpillars and adult insects to feed the youngsters a high-protein diet. They grow quickly, and a couple of weeks after hatching we see beaks poking out the birdhouse entrance.
It must be scary venturing forth, but mom and dad encourage them to fledge. Out they go. But life is not easy. They need to learn how to fly, where to find food, and how to be safe. Parents help for a while but soon they are on their own while mom and dad make a new nest and raise a second brood.
Launching…. fledging……is a tough transition time for people, bunnies, birds, and just about any other young animal.
by Marion Patterson | Jun 2, 2022 | Chickens, Garden/Yard, Geology/Weather, Hoover's Hatchery, Preparedness, Reflections/Profiles, Travel/Columns
Coming up to a year from the last post on the features we wrote for the Cedar Rapids Gazette, here is an updated list for the second half of 2021 and the first half (almost) of 2022. These features are in addition to our regular work with Hoover’s Hatchery blogs and FB Live and our own blogs for Winding Pathways.
May 8, 2022. Splish Splash! Whitewater Kayaking in Iowa. (No link to date)
April 22, 2022. Finding America On Roadways East.
April 13, 2022. Muscle Over motor When Boating.
March 21, 2022. Rockhounding.
January 30, 2022. Backpacking Bonus. (8B of GZ. No link to date) Available Green Gazette.
January 24, 2022. Distinctive Religious Structures.
January 16, 2022. Hiking Wild Areas. (no link to date) Available Green Gazette.
December, 2021. Country Schools. (no link to date) Available Green Gazette
November 15, 2021. Making a (Mini) Pitch for Soccer.
October 6, 2021. A visit with Midwest’s Pioneering Authors.
September 8, 2021. Taking a Slow Boat to Cassville.
September 6, 2021. Camping in Iowa’s Trout Country & Decorah’s Celebrities.
August 4, 2021. Parking While Headed East. And Solar Panels at Peoples.
by Marion Patterson | May 12, 2022 | Birds, Garden/Yard, Nature, Trees
The distant view and the feel are “Hot August Days.” The near view and sounds are mid-May. With this hot weather, the trees have popped, the fruit trees are in full bloom, and the early garden plants emerging after the cooler and damp weather. We may break a century-old heat record today.
Two days ago we had the woodstove running. Now the air conditioner!
Notice the haze in the distance and the sun rising in the east – still six weeks from the Summer Solstice. Humidity levels are high. Winds are calmer after the front blew in.
The trees show emerging leaves and catkins. Insects work the fruit trees and low-growing spring flowers.
Birds are everywhere singing, courting, mating, and building nests. Amazing transformation in two days.
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Deeply cut leaves of the false rue anemone.
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going at $8.00 per gallon at wineries, picking blooms from safe places is good income.
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the oak popped out in one day with the heat.
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birds forage in emerging buds.
by Marion Patterson | Dec 16, 2021 | Labyrinths, Reflections/Profiles, Wonderment
Where Did the 2020 Labyrinth Blog Go?
I’m curious what happened to the 2020 labyrinths blog! While I mainly walked the Phoenix Harmony Labyrinth in our yard, I know I walked other labyrinths. Edith Starr Chase’s lovely one at Wickiup Hill on a magical Winter Solstice evening. The comforting labyrinth at New Bo District. And, early in the season, the Westminster Presbyterian Church of Waterloo, IA, labyrinth. Well, it will show up. Meanwhile, here is a look back anyway.
I’ll just share again.
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Teri blesses the labyrinth
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Westminster Presbyterian Church in Waterloo, IA, has a lovely inlaid labyrinth.
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Emie smudges the Phoenix Harmony Labyrinth December 31, 2020.
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The last time I took a pix of the Three Guardian Firs before Derecho 2020
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Each year we burn the labyrinth.
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While bare, the ash prepares the soil for next year’s blooms.
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Child at Center of Wickiup Hill Labyrinth
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Walking the labyrinth with the solar lights in autumn is magical.
Now on to 2021!
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March – A lovely labyrinth tucked into a corner of the seminary
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Looking back.
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April in Anchorage – Sometimes walking the path is enough.
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March – This unusual labyrinth incorporated a tree in the middle.
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March – Maintenance is always important with labyrinths.
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September – A favorite labyrinth to visit.
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May – Several people joined to take in the emerging plants.
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July – Part of the Johnson County, Iowa, conservation commission, this labyirnth invites contemplation.
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Fall – A child explores the labyrinth.
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October – We explored ways to interact with the labyrinth.
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The weekly finger labyrinth walks sponsored by Veriditas attract people from six continents.
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November – The labyrinth is playful.
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Edith Starr Chase sponsors lovely labyrinth walks.
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October – I walked in the fall without snow.
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November – P. Admires his work as the solar lights glow softly.
by Marion Patterson | Aug 26, 2021 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Flowers/Grasses, Garden/Yard, Labyrinths
In early July we sat on our front porch watching delightfully splashes of color dance in the breeze. A restoration triumph stood stoutly in the wind-blooming compass plant.
Restoring prairies takes patience. We began ten years ago by converting a former mowed lawn into a prairie. For the next few years, our emerging prairie looked rough. A weed patch mostly, but as the years rolled by the “weeds” also called Mother Nature’s stitches, retreated as prairie plants matured and outcompeted them. Coreopsis, coneflowers, monarda, and vervain began adding color to ever more vigorous big and little bluestem, switch, and Indian Grasses.
Then, this year, compass plants that had been flowerless for years, shot spikes six feet into the air. In mid-July, the plant is in full bloom.
Difference Between Domestic and Native Plants
When you plant beans, tomatoes, or squash and many domestic flowers and the fruits of labor are rewarded that same year with fresh vegetables and colorful petals. Not so with native plants. Prairie takes patience. Some native pioneers come on in a year or two but many wait and wait and wait. Sometimes it can take upwards of 15 years for stately compass plants to bloom, so ours may be racehorses to show color in just a decade. More point skyward along with coneflowers, purple prairie coneflower, and rattlesnake master along the roadside in front of our yard.
We have tour prairies at Winding Pathways. Into our oldest Marion has crafted a prairie labyrinth, giving walkers an opportunity to follow a contemplative path surrounded by blooming, dancing flowers and tall grasses.
The “middle-aged” prairie out in the back is a haven for birds, adds color, and is a buffer from the ruined-looking woods where young trees are starting to show amidst the broken derecho tree trunks.
In 2019 and following the August 10th, 2020, Derecho we scattered prairie/open woodland seeds to encourage diverse plants on the east-facing slope.
Our youngest prairie, planted in the spring of 2020, remains in infancy. A mass of black-eyed Susans shines brightly, and many other small bloomless plants show promise to color up as the years go by. We look forward to their future.
We welcome anyone to visit, walk the labyrinth, and enjoy our prairie and the butterflies that skip from flower to flower within it.
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Sun rising over the prairie.
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Pioneer plants like the Black Eyed Susans encourage people as they plant prairies.
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The demure, white spikes of Culver’s Root attract pollinators.
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Morning sunlight.
