The Joy of A Quiet Yard

by | Aug 21, 2025 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Birds, Garden/Yard, Nature, Reflections/Profiles

We savor our quiet yard moments.

One of our favorite nature writers, Joseph Wood Krutch, remarked that anything people do creates noise. It seems that the clanks and roars of life are increasing since he wrote those words years ago. Quiet is a rare pleasure. Unfortunately, noise doesn’t respect property lines. It does trespass into yards and homes. It’s hard to avoid.

Life Before the Industrial Revolution

Imagine life before the Industrial Revolution. No cars, factories or trains and no power tools. A 1700 era ship could glide by with only the rustling of the breeze in its sails.

Prior to machines the loudest noise to assault the ears was a crack of thunder.

We cringe as motorcycles roar past our home and shake our heads when we hear booming music from neighboring cars as we wait for a traffic light to change. Some people adore noise. We don’t. Audiologists warn that noise exposure can lead to hearing loss, stress, high blood pressure, sleep disruption and lowered productivity.

We believe it. Rich was exposed to extreme noise in army training, followed by years running vacuum cleaners as a custodian and chain saws in the forestry industry. It eventually caught up with him with diminished ability to hear sound, especially high pitched ones. Tinnitus is his constant companion.

Because we treasure our ability to hear well, we’ve learned how to best enjoy quiet moments,  create quiet places, reduce noise we produce, and use technology to enhance hearing.

A Week’s Quietest Hours

At Winding Pathways and almost everywhere else the  week’s quietest hours happen early Sunday morning. Roaring motorcycles of the night before are parked, factories are in passive mode, and fewer trains chug along. On many Sunday mornings we’re up early to sip coffee on the porch and enjoy the gentle sounds of nature unmarred by human activity. These moments are  delicious.

Creating Quiet Yard Places

Nature offers ways to lessen the din. The quietest parts of our yard are surrounded by vegetation. Leaves muffle noise. So does topography. Our home and yard are on an ancient sand dune. The north side of our property is the backside of the old dune. It blocks some of the din coming from a highway to the north, shielding about half our property from road noise. Our house, itself, reduces decibels. The side opposite the road is often quieter than the other side.

Our tall prairie plants, shrubs, and trees also muffle noise.  A river birch tree in Marion’s labyrinth is close to the road. Its branches drape down over a bench surrounded by tall prairie plants. Vegetation offers intimate privacy and  slightly muffled noise.

Using Technology to Reduce Noise and Hear Better

We’ve gone electric. Over the years we’ve replaced gas powered mowers, trimmers, chain saws and snowblowers with those fueled by batteries. The decibels they emit are a fraction of their gas counterparts but still make some noise. So do our vacuum cleaners. To protect our hearing we store sound dampening ear muffs near these tools and wear them when using them.

Dr. Jennifer Reekers

Fitting hearing aids is a process and building a relationship

Hearing Aids.  Wow, they are expensive but miraculous. Hearing loss is a stealthy gradual condition. When Rich first bought aids he was amazed to hear the gentle sounds of walking in dry leaves, the creaking of the floor, birdsong, and better understanding of other’s speaking, music, and the television.

Audiologists usually provide a free hearing test. Rich’s advice – get a test and follow up with a pair of hearing aids if needed. The website of the American Academy of Audiology at members.audiology.org can help anyone locate a nearby professional who can help improve hearing.

Quiet Communities

Cities can do much to encourage quiet in their communities. Everyone benefits. Consider advocating with your local Council, law enforcement, and parks departments for developing a more quiet community.

Some people love noise but for most people it’s an annoyance. A quiet yard is a gem to create and enjoy.

 

What is Chicken of the Woods?

by | Aug 14, 2025 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Nature

We were astonished to discover a chicken of the woods close to our home at Winding Pathways. We have about a dozen laying hens in our backyard coop, but what we found wasn’t an escaped chicken.

Fungus

It was an amazing fungus. We’d not seen one before and think our woodsy chicken resulted from a series of weather events. Five years ago, derecho winds of 140 miles an hour knocked down or broke off most of our trees. Following were a series of dry years.  That changed in late June 2025 when several bands of heavy rains soaked our area and high humidity filled the air for weeks. The combination of plentiful dead wood, moisture, and a spore landing in the right place created our woodland treasure.

Edible

A Chicken of the Woods is a large edible fungus that loves moisture and feeds on dead wood, especially wood from hardwood trees. The two chickens we found presumably are feeding on the roots of a derecho-killed cherry tree. The fungus is well named. Take a look at the photo and notice the scale-like appearance of the plant and its bands of color. It reminds us of the lacy coloration and markings of our Delaware chickens, one of our favorite breeds.

The fungus Chicken of the Woods (or Wood as found in some resources) is a large fungus sometimes called a shelf fungus. Many species grow worldwide.

Mushroom enthusiasts consider them, along with morels, one of the tastiest of fungi……….so will we eat ours?

Caution

Well, no. We’ve taught classes on foraging and encourage people to eat only wild plants that are easy to identify and hard to mistake for toxic counterparts. We always caution anyone planning to eat something for the first time to follow these guidelines:

  • Positively identify the plant from at least three sources. These could include a paper field guide, a credible Internet website, or a real-life human expert.
  • Eat only a small portion the first time. A particular plant may be perfectly edible for most people, but a few people may be allergic to it. Assuming there’s no negative reaction and the plant is positively identified, one can consider adding it to a diet of delicious wild foods.

We are certain that our mushroom is edible, but we remain somewhat skeptical. Not quite sure.

So, for now, our Chicken of the Woods will stay down in our woods feasting on the wood of an unfortunate cherry tree.

A Daily Walk Reveals Serendipitous Treasures

Nature’s always changing. Each day brings new and delightful surprises.  We have created pathways through our small woodland and prairies and traverse them at least every other day. We usually spot something new and fascinating on every walk.

The Year of Crabgrass

by | Aug 7, 2025 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Flowers/Grasses, Garden/Yard

This must be the year of crabgrass! It seems to be everywhere, growing at lightning speed. But actually, every year is a crabgrass year.

After months of drought, July 2025 brought welcome and abundant rain to Iowa, along with heat and humidity. It’s not the type weather that we like but many plants disagree. They thrive in the muggy heat. Crabgrass in our vegetable gardens and flower beds is growing faster than we can rip it from the earth and toss it into our chicken run.

What’s in a name?

Fingers of Digitaria, crabgrass, spread on woodchips.

A fast grower

Botanists give it the name Digitaria for its many fast-spreading leaves that seem to shoot out from the center in a fingerlike radius. There are several species, but the one most common in our yard and beyond is hairy or large crabgrass, Digitaria sanguinalis.  

Where Did Crabgrass Come From?

It wasn’t always on the North American continent. The plant had been eaten by grazing farm animals in Europe for centuries. In early Europe, people harvested crabgrass seeds and used them as grain. It must have taken an enormous amount of patience and time to pick the tiny seeds, but it beat not eating at all! It was natural for immigrants to bring crabgrass with them when they came to North America.

Value of crabgrass

Crabgrass remains an important livestock forage feed, especially in early to mid-summer when it is green and tender. We pull it from our garden and toss it over the fence into the chicken run. Our hens love snacking on it.

Crabgrass is an annual. Each plant can produce upwards of 150,000 seeds in late summer. Some will sprout in next summer’s gardens and lawns. The plant is most successful growing in bare soil.

Pioneer Plant

Many people hate crabgrass, but is it all that bad? It’s a pioneer plant that establishes quickly to fill in bare spots in lawns. It’s a problem when it lives around tomato plants and between rows of beans. We don’t mind it in our lawn, as we simply buzz it off when mowing. Our lawn is blotchy due to the diversity of ground-hugging plants that live there. We never spray or water our lawns. That encourages plants that stay green despite poor soil and odd weather.

Keeping Crabgrass Out of a Lawn

Clover Lawn

Rich, deep clover lawns are charming and healthy.

We avoid herbicides and don’t mind if our lawn is blotchy due to its diversity of plant species. Crabgrass fills in bare spots and is challenged by healthy, thick, established vegetation. Anyone wanting to exclude it from a lawn should work to keep other plants healthy and continuous. We annually sprinkle white Dutch clover seed on bare patches. The plant’s dainty white mini snowball-shaped flowers attract pollinating insects as the plant enriches the soil. Usually, clover grows earlier in the year than crabgrass, so it reduces bare spots where the weedy grass needs to colonize.

Note: White Dutch clover is also an exotic nonnative plant, but it’s valuable because it puts nitrogen back in the soil. No need for sprays. 

 For more crabgrass information, check extension.umn.edu/weeds/crabgrass.

Our diverse lawn attracts butterflies, bumblebees, and cottontail rabbits. They are a joy to watch. If we used pesticides to produce a monoculture bluegrass lawn, we’d not be able to enjoy these wildlife visitors. Our lawn would be sterile, kids could not safely play on it, and we would be contributing to water pollution. In Iowa, the quality has degraded for decades.

Crabgrass is here. It’s not going away. We enjoy this fast-growing grass for its benefits while grudgingly tearing it from our garden soil.

 

Surrounded By Wrens

by | Jul 31, 2025 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Birds, Nature

Every summer, we are surrounded by wrens. When we sit on our back deck, the loud call of the Carolina Wren serenades us. It’s a tiny bird that stays back in the woods and vines. It’s hard to spot. It’s surprising how such a smidgen of a bird can sing at high volume.

Different Wrens

Most of our wrens are more common House Wrens. Where Carolina Wrens stay away from our deck, House Wrens love living and nesting close to us. They’re easy to see and observe. Serious birders aren’t crazy about them because they sometimes take over the nests or destroy eggs of other native species, but we like them.

Our wrens winter down south toward the Gulf of Mexico. We look forward to their arrival in mid-April, just when our winter juncos head north. It’s like the changing of the guard. The switch happens again each fall when wrens leave as juncos arrive in October.

Early each April, we set up several wren houses near our house. They’re easy to make from scrap wood. An entrance hole of 7/8ths or 1 inch lets tiny wrens in while barring larger House Sparrows.

Industrious Birds

When wrens first arrive, we hear their near-constant chatter coming from the woods, but by early May, they’ve moved close to the house and start housekeeping. The male brings sticks into the nest box. Sometimes his stick is too long to fit into the small hole, but eventually he figures it out and pokes it through from the end. The female lines the nest with feathers and whatever soft items she can find. Soon she’ll sit on three or four reddish spotted eggs that hatch in about two weeks. Then we enjoy seeing a constant stream of wren parents bringing tasty and nutritious bugs to their nest to feed the kids.

Within two weeks, they fledge. We clean the old nest out of the box, and often a wren couple nests in mid-summer.

Diet

Wren box hangs near the garden.

Nearby foraging

Our wrens forage for insects mostly at the edge of the woods and in our prairies. Unlike mowed lawns, these areas have plenty of insects. The industrious birds also forage for insects in our garden. We never need chemical pesticides thanks to our friendly wrens.

House Wrens also forage on pollinators, but somehow all our fruit trees and vegetables get pollinated.

To learn more about nearly any bird species, visit the Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology’s website, All About Birds. The site contains photos, recorded sounds, and videos of hundreds of birds.

Few animals are as animated, ambitious, and noisy as House Wrens.  We enjoy them for about half of every year.

 

White Mulberry – Trickster Tree

by | Jul 24, 2025 | Foraging, Garden/Yard, Nature, Pests, Trees

The white mulberry is a trickster tree. We match wits with it often at Winding Pathways.
“All Around the Mulberry Bush” may be a kid’s jingle but the tree is an ecological pest with some positive traits.

Our front hedge is an example. It’s a dense growth of privet. Few plants can live in its shade but the mulberry has a trick that lets it thrive. The mature tree craves sunshine to grow to its full height of 75 feet. We wouldn’t think they’d stand a chance growing under our shady hedge. But it has a trick.

White Mulberry Trick

Birds poop out mulberry seeds when they roost in our hedge. These readily sprout, and the tiny tree sends up a skinny stem that quickly grows through the thick, shady hedge branches to emerge into the sunshine above them. We don’t want a mulberry there so we need to frequently clip down their tall leggy stems.

Another White Mulberry Trick

It’s a trickster in another way. Although called the white mulberry, Morus alba, it can have ripe white berries but more often they’re red to purple. Don’t let the color fool you.   And that’s not all. Most trees have leaves of just one shape. Not the white mulberry. It has three common leaf shapes. See the photo. An individual tree can have all its leaves one shape, two shapes, or a mix of the three.

While many people join birds in eating the sweet fruits, it’s an invasive species that seems to take root wherever there’s a bit of bare soil. Then it grows like crazy. Cut it down and the stump sprouts that can grow a couple of feet in a flash.

Range of the White Mulberry

White mulberry trees grow throughout temperate North America and on other continents. Silkworms feast on their leaves, and probably white mulberry trees were introduced around the world to create a silkworm industry. The tree liked living in America but silkworms didn’t. They died out and a hoped-for silk industry never took root here.

Telling Apart the White Mulberry Cousin

Closely related is the native red mulberry, Morus ruba. It’s hard to find and may be declining due to hybridization with the exotic invader. Here’s how to tell them apart:

White Mulberry:  Relatively small leaves. The top surface of the leaf is smooth and often shiny. It grows fast in the sun. Common.

Red Mulberry: It’s more of an understory tree. The fruit is red. The leaves are big – three to seven inches long with a sandpapery textured top surface and somewhat hairy bottom. Uncommon.

Although Red mulberry is native to Iowa we’ve not found any here. All mulberry trees seem to be the white species or hybrids.

Mulberry Tree Benefits

Firewood:  We love burning mulberry wood. It’s an attractive yellowish wood that burns with a pleasant aroma as it gives off lots of heat. For example, a cord of mulberry contains 25.8 million BTUs of energy. In comparison, white oak has 25.7.

Food:  Kids love the sweetness of mulberries. The berries normally ripen in June. Birds also flock to ripening mulberry fruit. They love them so much that they’ll eat mulberries before nearby ripening cherries. So, having a fruiting mulberry can increase a cherry tree’s yield. Mulberries can be eaten fresh and made into pies. We love adding some to our breakfast oatmeal. The fruit’s robust color makes an attractive natural die in drinks. Because mulberry fruit is sweet and rather bland it is excellent when blended with rhubarb or tart cherries.

Native Red Mulberries Are in Trouble

The native red mulberry tree is in danger. It’s uncommon and apparently declining, possibly because it so readily hybridizes with white mulberry. Red mulberries tend to live in small groves in forested, bottomland areas. Look for their large sandpapery feeling leaves. Finding one is a treasure.

White mulberry trees are tricky, but they are plentiful, prolific, and useful. We have a few growing at Winding Pathways. As long as they stay out of our hedge, we like them.