by Winding Pathways | Feb 19, 2026 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Energy Efficiency
When traveling we often deliberately seek a place with a dark sky. Why?
Well, we love the beauty of stars, planets, and our own moon. Enjoying the night sky also helps us track the seasons and maintain our skills of allowing our eyes to adjust to the dark so we see well. Being outdoors is more than a daytime pleasure.
Quiet of Pre-Dawn Walks…
Frequently, in the pre-dawn hours, both winter and summer, Marion walks the horseshoe loop or labyrinth in our front yard. Rich easily navigates the yard with dark trained eyes.
…And Evening Calm
In the evenings, we venture out on our back deck after dark to look up. On clear nights the brightest stars are clearly visible but when we look north, we see a huge smudge of light from the town of Marion. To the south is a bigger smudge of Cedar Rapids’ artificial lights. Combined they mask all but the brightest stars. So, when we travel, we seek dark quiet places.
Light Pollutuion & Utility Bills
Light pollution comes from zillions of lights in signs, streetlights, front yards and back porches. Together they mask the sky’s majesty. The sad part is that much of this lighting serves no purpose other than driving up the utility bill. Many people live their entire life without seeing the Milky Way or other amazing nighttime treasures.
Useless Light Pollution
An example of useless light pollution is a bright blue advertising sign we see about a half mile north of our house. It advertises a dialysis center, but the sign points at 110 acres of woods and only a few houses, including ours. We doubt the owls and deer seek dialysis, so all the sign does is dampen the night sky and increase the company’s electric bill.
Intrusive lighting
Progressive Cities
Progressive cities recognize the beauty of the night sky and work with residents to reduce light pollution. A few years ago, we visited Fort Davis, Texas, and were thrilled at the beauty we saw overhead. Town lighting is muted and few residents keep lights on after dark. While there we also attended a fun star party at the nearby McDonald Observatory. In Iowa our favorite dark sky location is Whiterock Conservancy, but the sky is also gorgeous at Yellow River State Forest. We find dark sky locations on the website darksky.org. The website also shows ways to reduce excess outdoor lighting.
Dark Sky camping. Courtesy Whiterock Conservancy.
Does Artificial Lighting Deter Crime?
Justifications for flooding the landscape with light all night usually center on crime and personal safety. Does artificial light really help?
The Internet is filled with studies from many places around the world on night time lighting’s impact on crime and safety. Results vary, but there seems agreement on at least two points: Night lighting is expensive and its effectiveness at reducing burglaries and assaults is marginal. Here’s is Rich’s experience:
Training in Dark Sky
Army training years ago helped me understand night safety. My sergeant’s words remain vivid in my mind. “If someone out there is trying to kill you, get out of the light and into the darkest place you can find and be still. If you are in a pool of light and the bad guy is in the dark, he can see you and you can’t see him.”
Years later Rich was director of the Indian Creek Nature Center near Cedar Rapids. One year the building suffered several break ins and he asked the Cedar Rapids police for advice. A wise officer gave excellent helped. “The standard rule is to flood the place with light, but I don’t agree. If the building’s completely dark a burglar would need to hold a flashlight in his teeth while trying to pry open a door or window. So, keep it dark,” he said. It worked. Burglars seemed less attracted to the dark building.
Return of the Sextent
The branches of the US military now train soldiers in celestial navigation for a variety of reasons
AFGU
Sunrise with planets, moon, stars visible
The Astronomical Society of the Pacific conducts training for citizens, espciecally educators through its Astronomy From the Ground Up. While working in the public schools, Marion trained through AFGU and became a Dark Sky Ranger at the program in Bryce Canyon. “It was an engaging, practical program and I am still in touch with some of the participants,” she noted.
When to Most Burglaries Happen?
Most home burglaries happen between 10 am and 3 pm for the simple reason that most residents are at work or school then. Lighting isn’t a factor. Ways to discourage burglars include:
- Make it look like someone’s home. Keep a car visible in the driveway to discourage a criminal. A timer that turns an interior light on and off in the evening and at different times may also reduce burglary odds. But, again, most happen during the day.
- A loud aggressive dog might help keep a bad guy (or girl) away.
- Security cameras may help.
- Sturdy locked doors make a break in a physical challenge.
Does Outdoor Lighting Enhance Safety?
The answer is, maybe. By safety we don’t mean assaults. We mean helping a person walk outdoors without tripping and being able to safely navigate to a destination. There are two easy ways to provide outdoor light that’s not on continuously during dark hours.
- Sensor activated lights are readily available and easy to install. They have an adjustable timer, providing light duration ranging from a few seconds to many minutes. Some don’t need special wiring. An internal battery is charged by a solar electric collector. These provide temporary light without boosting the electric bill.
- A good flashlight or headlamp work fine. Modern flashlights normally have an LED bulb that produces plenty of light while drawing little electricity from the battery. Some units are rechargeable.
More to Value of Dark Sky
Dark Sky International reminds us that light pollution disrupts wildlife, our own circadian rhythms, contributes to climate warming, and wastes money.
We want everyone who visits our Winding Pathways website to go outside and enjoy the beauty of the dark sky. What a shame that it’s muted by light pollution. Change often happens with just one person, so we encourage everyone to do their part and keep unnecessary lights turned off.
by Winding Pathways | Feb 12, 2026 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Chickens, Garden/Yard
Winding Pathways introduces you to Buffy Fluffy (™). Here, and continued blogs, she will tell you her amazing journey to the coop in the backyard of Winding Pathways.
Her Story
Her story
We’ve known Buffy Fluffy (™) since she came to us as a tiny chick in a box sent by Hoover’s Hatchery in April 2024. Since then, her comical nature has given us many a laugh as she teaches us about her amazing intelligence and perspective from her perch by the window in her coop. Now, we’ll let her tell you, her story.
Hi, I’m Buffy Fluffy (™). I’ve lived in the coop behind the Patterson’s house with 14 other flockmates since early 2024. After breakfast I go outside to get my daily exercise and explore the world. Then, I spend much of the day on my comfortable perch observing the world from my window. I know what’s going on out there and have a chicken’s perspective that I’ll share with you as time goes on. These are thoughts from my perch.
My Ancestors’ Journey
Every once in a while, Rich or Marion or our neighbors come into my coop to gather eggs and give us fresh food and water. Sometimes they talk with me and fill in my history. This is what they told me about my ancestors.
Jungle Fowl to Domesticated Chickens
Thousands of years ago in faraway Southeast Asia my great, great…….and many more times great, great grandparents lived as wild birds in the humid woods there. We were called Jungle Fowl. Some of my ancestors found people and moved in with them. Soon chickens and people had developed a successful partnership. People ate our eggs and once in a while, gulp, ate one of my ancestors, but they protected us from animals that would eat us and made sure we always had plenty of food and water. They also changed us from wild Jungle Fowl to chickens. Eventually my ancestors were big and had gorgeous fluffy feathers.
From Vietnam to England
Many years ago, an English sailing ship docked at Cochin China. That’s the southern part of modern-day Vietnam where we were living. They bought a few of my ancestors and put them in a cage on the ship. Boy, I heard it was a long difficult voyage to England, but we had a real surprise when we landed. The captain gave some of us to the Queen! She loved us! Because we were buff colored and from Cochin China, she called us Buff Cochins. The name stuck.
I’m not any old chicken. I’m a Buff Cochin.
Voyage to the Americas
After a while Buff Cochins took another sea voyage across the Atlantic to the United States. People there loved us, too. We were popular immigrants – Vietnamese Americans. Soon, chicken hatcheries, like Hoover’s Hatchery in Iowa, started hatching and shipping Buff Cochins and many other chicken breeds to people all over the country. The Pattersons ordered me and my flockmates. That’s how I got to Winding Pathways in Iowa.
To be continued.
by Winding Pathways | Feb 5, 2026 | Garden/Yard, Nature, Trees
A backyard black oak tree recently taught us about healing. Both of us have had surgeries during the past year, and an assortment of scratches and cuts over the decades. Recovery from surgeries seemed slow. We were impatient.
Discovery Yields An Idea
One day, when loading a pile of split cordwood into our wheelbarrow and wheeling it to the woodstove, a hunk of oak caught our attention. Weeks earlier, we’d missed something when we cut, split and stacked the wood from this venerable but storm- damaged tree.
The piece of wood was remarkably different from other chunks that were mostly triangular in cross section. This piece was flat and about the size and shape of a book. One surface had normal looking bark while the other side showed marks of a saw that, years before, had been used to prune off a large branch. The tree had grown over (healed) its wound. But we wondered how long did it take?
Curiosity
Rich took out the sander and smoothed off an end. Counting the annual rings he learned how long the healing process took. Answer: About a dozen years for the tree to grow back over the cut…..the healing process. The tree patiently worked, year after year, to gradually expand living wood over the cut.
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We created candle holders from the injured tree.
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Varied colors on the wood.
Nature Heals
Healing is slow
We’re watching another tree heal. A young red maple in our front yard took the full force of a 140 mile an hour wind during an August 2020 derecho. The storm blew the tree’s top almost parallel to the ground. Fortunately, it didn’t break, but the force popped a section of bark off its trunk. Now, five growing seasons later it’s nearly healed over. Patience.
Perspective on Healing
Healing takes time.
Those trees gave us a perspective on patience and healing. While hauling wood Rich scraped some skin off his wrist. Gradually new skin replaced the scab over a few weeks. That’s a lightning fast heal. Earlier in the year Marion had back surgery and Rich had cataract surgery. Both of us were eager to heal quickly, but our bodies mimicked our oak tree. Healing takes time. Patience and self-care are important elements of healing. Skin heals relatively quickly. Muscles take longer, and nerve healing is a pokey process – about an inch a month after an initial recovery period.
Impatience is likely a natural human reaction to healing, and being impatient slows down the healing process. The tree taught us that health can be regained. It just may take a while.
Crafting Beauty
The piece of wood we found was too important to toss into the woodstove. Rather, we polished the inside and drilled two holes on the bark side, to hold candles.
Now, when we get impatient with the slow pace of our own healing, we light candles and remember the tree’s patience.
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Crafting something beautiful from a wound.
Healing Happens
We send our thoughts to anyone who’s recovering from surgery or a wound. Take heart. Healing may seem endless but the human body is as remarkable as a tree’s bark. Healing happens.
by Winding Pathways | Jan 29, 2026 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Amphibians/Reptiles, Birds, Garden/Yard, Mammals, Nature
Meet Our Geriatric Downy
Red cap on male Downy.
We often see a geriatric Downy woodpecker at Winding Pathways. He’s at least five and a half years old. More likely six or seven.
How do we know? Well, back in the spring of 2021 Dr. Neil Bernstein brought a class of college students to our backyard, strung a nearly invisible mist net and soon started catching and banding birds. One was a male downy woodpecker. Neil gently attached a tiny aluminum band to the bird’s right leg and released him.
Spotting the Band
For several years we watched the bird eat suet from a feeder near our back deck. When the light’s just right and the bird’s right leg is visible, we can see the band. Our last sighting was in late 2025. So, he’s been banded four and a half years, and was likely at least a year old when banded.
Could it be a younger woodpecker banded by Neil or someone else miles from our yard? “Not likely. Downy woodpeckers are homebodies. He probably has lived right here in your yard continuously since he was banded,” Neil recently told us.
We haven’t been able to restretch a mist net and recapture the bird. If we could read the tiny numbers on the band we could confirm whether or not that it’s the same bird. It likely is.
Wildlife Longevity
Most wild animals live a shockingly short life. It wouldn’t be a good idea to sell a life insurance policy on nearly any wild animal. They die young. Wild turkeys live a few years. A cottontail rabbit is not likely to live to its first birthday. The same for most songbirds and mammals. A whitetail deer could live for eight or ten years but few reach their second or third birthday. Usually, wild animals succumb to a predator, die in a storm or are hit by a car. Many birds meet unfortunate deaths when they crash into windows or overhead wires.
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Thick cover protects rabbits from predators.
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Hungry deer.
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Hardy birds that live about six years.
Reproduction is Important
Since few animals survive long enough to reproduce, their species continues because those that do make it to reproductive age have many babies. That’s especially true with fish. A largemouth bass or bluegill, for example, could live for upwards of ten years. They lay thousands or even tens of thousands of eggs, but nearly all die soon. Of the lucky few that emerge as young fish many are gobbled up by bigger ones. Only a few reach old age.
Longevity Champions
Turtles are longlived animals.
Reptiles may be the longevity champions, with turtles and tortoises sometimes living for decades, or even a century. A box turtle might live 35 years in the wild and much longer in captivity. But these long-lived animals lay few eggs and their babies mostly die when young. If they make it to young adulthood, they stand good odds to enjoy a long life.
Back To Our Downy Woodpecker
Our downy woodpecker has lived a charmed life. He’s not been snatched by a Cooper’s hawk, frozen in a blizzard, or died by an accident or sickness. The oldest known Downy lived for 11 years and 11 months. Most are lucky to live two years. Maybe ours will set a longevity record.
Helping Wildlife
His life may have been helped by having plenty of dead trees near our yard, the result of a massive windstorm five years ago. These old trees are filled with cavities that offer safe places to hide, escape storms, and raise a brood. Our Downy comes for regular helpings of suet at our feeder. That may help him.
We use the word “he” because male Downys have a blotch of red on the back of the head, making it easy to determine gender. Many Downy woodpeckers come to our feeder. We always look carefully to see if it’s our banded male.
by Winding Pathways | Jan 22, 2026 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Garden/Yard, Garden/Yard
Winter squash is just plain wondrous. One snowy December evening we dined on butternut squash as blowing snow swished by outside our window. Eating squash we had grown during last summer’s’ balmy days lets us extend our home-grown food for a full year. We’ll eat last summer’s winter squash until we plant lettuce in early April!
Three Sisters and Us
Native Americans had it right. In the early days of agriculture, they developed the “three sisters” crops of beans, squash, and corn. They’re now grown around the globe for their high-powered nutrition, great taste and ease of growing and storing.
In some ways we’re like Native American gardeners of years past. They had no modern way to can or freeze food so developed crops with long storage lives. Our garden yields an abundance of food but we don’t can or freeze any vegetables. Rather, we enjoy the easy keepers after frost closes down the garden. Our favorite is winter squash. We pick them just after the vines die in the very late summer and store them in a closet that stays cool but doesn’t freeze.
A Squash Primer
Botanists classify squash and pumpkins in the genus Cucurbita with a wide diversity of squashes falling into three separate species. Jack-o-lantern pumpkins and most common squashes are in the species pepo. Some giant pumpkins and Hubbard squash are in the maxima species while butternuts are in the mochata species.
Gardeners make it easy by just calling squash either winter or summer.
Summer Squash
Sumemr produce.
Zucchini and crookneck are two common summer squashes. Best picked when small, they add to a delicious summer meal when lightly steamed or chunked up and added to salad. They don’t last long in storage so must be enjoyed fresh. This site explains a wide variety of summer squash.
Winter Squash
Decorative squash.
Dozens of varieties of winter squash and pumpkins are a delight to the eye and pallet. All have a hard skin that enables them to keep for months in storage. Some winter squashes only last for a couple of months while others can be stored for a full year. They range in size from tiny acorn squashes to giant Hubbards. Pumpkins are actually squash. They keep for months under the right storage conditions.
Our Favorite Winter Squashes
Butternut: These are readily available in grocery stores and are easy to grow. They are, perhaps, the most versatile squash for the table. Butternuts make delicious soup but often we roast them. Add a little butter and they are delicious-especially on a frigid January evening. The recipe link above requires more work than we do, and it is tasty.
Acorn: These tasty squashes are amazingly prolific. Because they are so small, one squash is just right for the two of us for one meal. We cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds and microwave them.
Pie pumpkin: Yup these are squashes. Many pumpkins were bred to be jack-o-lanterns and are big to huge. They delight children. Big pumpkins are edible but the flesh is usually thin, stringy, and watery. We prefer eating diminutive sugar pie pumpkins that only weigh a couple of pounds. Often stores sell small pumpkins as pie pumpkins, but this can be misleading. All small pumpkins are not the pie type. True pie pumpkins feel heavy for their size and have thick flesh that’s not stringy, making it easy to convert to pie. We look for those that are squatty. The web has good information from cooking sites on the differences.
Big Squash: Many delicious squashes are huge and far too big for a family to eat in a day or two. When we lived in Idaho grocery stores would cut them up so customers could buy just a chunk. Probably our favorite big squash is the Blue Hubbard. Sometimes we’ll cook an entire big squash, put the cooked meat in a storage container and freeze it for later meals. Chunks of raw squash can be put in a plastic bag and kept in the refrigerator for a couple of days.
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Nutritious squash.
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Squash and peppers from garden.
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Pile of squash.
Scrounging Squash
Squash are easy to grow but there’s an even better way to get a winter’s supply free for the asking. Businesses and families often make Halloween displays of various squash, pumpkins, gourds, bales of straw and corn shucks. They’re happy to give them away right after Halloween. In the fall of 2025, our bank gave us many big pumpkins and two huge jarrahdale squash. One was all we could eat. The other we gave to a food pantry. Developed in Australia this squash makes delicious pumpkin pies……lots of pies per big squash.
Deer Love Squash
Nutritious
Last fall businesses gave us more pumpkins and squash than we could ever use. We smashed and tossed them into our composter until we noticed local wild turkeys eating the seeds and deer visiting to eat the flesh. Cows love squash, and now we know deer also do. So, now we just smash pumpkins on the back lawn and hungry deer clean them up.
Cooking and Eating Squash
Squash and pumpkin seeds are rarely eaten but make a delicious and health packed snack. Squash meat is one of the most versatile of foods and can be prepared in dozens of ways. We bake, boil, or steam it, but for variety check out recipes abundant on the Internet.
