Kendal’s Appeal as a Senior Residence

by | Jul 18, 2024 | Garden/Yard

This blog was first published in the Cedar Rapids Gazette, on June 30, 2024

As Dad and Mom entered their 90s they increasingly struggled maintaining the safety and cleanliness of the home they’d lived in for 60 years. Despite our urging they resisted moving to a senior residence.  Although emotionally and physically draining we eventually had to move them to a senior residence.  Mom died a year later and Dad enjoyed six pleasant years until his death last year.

Sterile yard.

This yard offers little to wildlife.

Dad quickly made friends at the facility.  The food was excellent, and the staff and fellow residents were helpful and caring.  Although it met his basic needs Dad often expressed frustration that the senior residence lacked things he valued. The grounds were immaculately tended. Nary a blade of grass was out of place. It was a wildlife and native plant desert that frustrated a man who loved animals and natural diversity. Sidewalks bordered the manicured lawns but none traversed natural vegetation. Recycling was minimal and abundant waste was dumpstered.  As a career teacher, Dad loved interacting with children. They were absent at his new home.

We turn 75 this year.  As much as we love our home and yard we recognize that calendar pages advance and someday we may need to live where life is easier and, hopefully, pleasant. So, we’re researching.

Sterile Environments Lack Interest

Flyers advertising Corridor senior residences come to our mailbox, television, and computer.  We’ve driven by some and toured a few.  All seem well managed and fill basic needs, but few address important values Dad found lacking at his last home. And that we value.

The grounds of most senior residences are manicured and manipulated. Pristine. Even occasional ponds are lined with white rocks that communicate sterility.  Where are the cattails?  We crave grounds alive with wildlife and native plants, all accessible by rails winding past thickets and ponds.

Seeing photos of older people playing cornhole at their senior residence communicates boredom to us.  Like Dad, we don’t just desire, but require, access to natural beauty. We know interacting with nature adds enjoyment and meaning to life…..as does recycling, composting, and gardening.  We’ve yet to find a place in the Corridor that offers us a lifestyle we find attractive.

Catching Our Eye

An ad in SMITHSONIAN Magazine caught our eye.  It featured lifestyles offered by facilities managed by the nonprofit Kendal, including one in Oberlin, Ohio.   A June trip brought us nearby, so we stopped in.

As we entered the grounds and drove to their office we felt “at home.”  Clover lawns proved they shun herbicides. Eight ponds sustained lilies and cattails as birds zoomed in front of our car, and trails penetrated natural areas. It was like a senior residence set in a nature center.

Kendal at Oberlin, Ohio

Marketing Manager, Terry Kovach, confirmed that Kendal prioritizes recycling, composting, energy efficiency, and children.  “Our in-house daycare and preschool help us recruit staff who have young children. And, these amenities also enable older residents to interact with kids. It helps everyone,” said Kovach. “Residents swim with their grand friends and help them learn to cook through the cooking club. Volunteering to help kids would have brought joy to Mom and Dad but was impossible where they lived.

Additionally, wide trails lead to the cozy town of Oberlin, Ohio, with quaint stores, eateries, and coffee shops. Oberlin College and Conservatory is well-known for music and diverse studies. Residents at Kendal take in their programs.  The College is also taking strides to convert to geothermal and reduce its carbon footprint. We toured town, enjoyed a coffee shop and browsed some stores before leaving.

After only an hour at Kendal, we felt comfortable. The nonprofit company has similar senior residences in several eastern states and is building two in California. Perhaps they’ll come to Iowa. Or, maybe there is a similar existing senior residence in the Corridor we’ve yet to discover.

Lots to Consider

We’re not yet ready to send a deposit to any senior residence, but when we do it will be a place where we feel at home in a place that shares our values.

 

White Clover

by | Jul 4, 2024 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Bugs, Garden/Yard, Garden/Yard, Nature

Round blooms of white clover.

Mowers pass over low-growing clovers.

We recently discovered an amusing irony created by one of the most common lawn plants – white clover.

Sometimes called Dutch Clover, this low-growing plant graces unsprayed lawns in temperate regions across the globe. Normally, we discourage nonnative plants at Winding Pathways, but clover is an exception.

Although native to Eurasia, it’s not invasive. This important forage legume is likely the most widespread in the world. Diminutive clover is so low growing our mower passes right over its dainty flowers. Our friendly cottontail bunnies may seem to be eating grass, but actually, they’re feasting on clover. So are beneficial insects. As its flowers add beauty to the lawn and feed animals, clover’s roots pump nitrogen into the soil, helping other plants grow.

The irony

AI detected our Internet search for clover information. We began getting computer ads from landscaping companies encouraging us to hire them to kill our clover “and other weeds” in our lawn. No way!

Many people spend good money to poison beneficial lawn plants. They expose themselves, their pets, and anyone who walks on the lawn to toxic substances.

Maintaining a Healthy Bed of White Clover

White clover tends to gradually decline over the years. We’ve noticed this at Winding Pathways. To give it a boost we buy white clover seeds and sprinkle them on the lawn during cool months, especially on bare spots. Seed can be purchased online and in stores where hunters shop. These stores sell seeds beneficial to wildlife, and hunters often plant them to boost food for deer and wild turkeys.

Rewards

We have healthy lawns, rich with nitrogen. And, on summer mornings and evenings, we sit in our front porch’s rocking chairs watching bumble bees and bunnies foraging on our blooming white clovers. Thanks, clover.

No-till Gardening – An Easy Way to Soil Health

by | Apr 18, 2024 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Garden/Yard, Garden/Yard

Spring Ritual

After this weird winter, most of us in North America are simply ready for spring and want to get outside. Some folks take initiative and start garden and flower seeds indoors then transfer them outside when the weather moderates.

Are you ready to work the land? Try something new: No-till Gardening.

Man turning soil with garden fork.

A rite of spring.

For generations, an April ritual all across the northern hemisphere is pulling the spading fork out of storage and firing up the rototiller. For generations, gardeners have learned from mentors, books, and videos that tilling is essential to create an abundant harvest of tomatoes, peas, beans, carrots, and so many other delicious garden vegetables.

Over decades and diligent research, we have learned that tilling is often just extra work that might harm the soil! Try no-till gardening.

Science Writer Shares Information

We recently heard science writer, author, and land steward Connie Mutel speak about how Iowa’s amazingly productive topsoil is being degraded by annual plowing and otherwise disturbing the soil. Mechanically mixing soil bares the soil to the air, where it oxygenates, leaching carbon into the atmosphere. When winds blow or rains fall, bare soil erodes. Waterways become contaminated and silt washes downstream eventually to the Mississippi Delta resulting in damage to commercial fisheries and wildlife there. According to Mutel, half of Iowa’s once 16-inch veneer of topsoil has been lost by tillage. For much more information check out her books available at the University of Iowa [email protected].

Reduce Runoff and Work

Most people aren’t farmers but many of us have backyard gardens. An annual activity is tilling. For years we followed conventional wisdom and used our trusty spading fork to turn over the soil each spring. Not so much anymore.

Last year encouraged by Drew Erickson, Farm Manager,  of the Rodale Institute’s Midwest Organic Center, we left about half the garden untilled. “Tilling disrupts the organisms that make soil healthy and productive. “Try no-till gardening. Just plant your seeds in untilled soil,” he advised.

Last spring we tilled half the garden, smoothed out the soil, and planted our seeds.

We didn’t till the other half and just planted the seeds directly into the soil. A few months later we harvested at least as many vegetables from the no-tilled areas as the tilled……and we’d avoided the pitchfork work.

This year we’ll only till about a quarter of our garden. Into the rest we’ll plant our seeds and spread a layer of compost directly on the soil surface after the sprouts emerge.

We’re counting on bountiful harvests of many vegetables.

Join the Project

Give it a try. Put onion and potato sets, tomato plants, and bean seeds directly into the untilled garden soil. Let us know the results.

Learn More

Rodale Midwest is holding a free field day to show the value of minimum tillage and cover crops. It’s geared for farmers but gardeners are welcome. To register for the July 9, 2024, workshop go to the Rodale Institute Midwest Organic Center.

Have fun in the garden and enjoy a season of delicious vegetables.

Invasive Duo – Chinese Lanternfly and Tree of Heaven

by | Mar 21, 2024 | Garden/Yard, Garden/Yard, Trees

Bright! Beautiful! Ominous!

As we walked across a New Jersey parking lot last summer an amazingly colorful, and new-to-us, insect fluttered in front of us. It had a gorgeous creamy white and bright red body covered with black spots.

Identifying it was easy and ominous. It was a Spotted Lanternfly. First found in Pennsylvania in 2014 it likely came to the United States from its native China as a hitchhiker in a crate or box.

It may be a pretty bug but its presence is ominous. It feeds on at least 172 different plant species and is spreading rapidly westward from its start close to the Atlantic Ocean.

Feeding off Another Invasive

What’s somewhat ironic about the lanternfly is the insect’s affinity for another Chinese invasive, the Tree of Heaven or Ailanthus. Although the inch-long insect will eat many different plants it prefers this highly aggressive and fast-growing tree.

Important Contact Information

The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship is on the lookout for the Spotted Lanternfly. They ask anyone spotting one in Iowa to report it by calling:

l (515)725-1470 or logging onto their website at IowaAgriculture.gov.

How To Reduce the Invasion

A key to reducing this insect’s abundance may be reducing Ailanthus tree numbers. This invasive tree thrives in urban and rural areas, often forming large groves. It displaces native trees, has little commercial value, and now harbors an introduced insect pest.

Winding Pathways encourages anyone with an Ailanthus in their yard to remove it, convert it to firewood if you can, and replace it with a native tree species.  Remember, report any Spotted Lanternflies you spot.

Setting Our Yard on Fire!

by | Nov 30, 2023 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Garden/Yard

On  Fire?

Many readers know we burn our yard. What? Are we nuts? Fire kills. Fire destroys. Well, it can but it also cleanses and heals.
It’s one way to manage natural growth on properties. So, on a balmy early November day, we set our yard on fire! Flames towered over the yard as intense heat pushed outward.

We usually burn smallish prairies we’ve planted in both our front and back yards. Years ago, we usually burned in March but more recently we’ve shifted to November. Burning in fall seems to encourage wildflower blooms next summer.

Preparation is the Key

We’re unusual but not reckless. (A good read is at this address. www.prairienursery.com/media/pdf/burn-your-prairie-safely.pdf.) Before burning we did these things:

  • Mowed a wide firebreak around our proposed burn area. Closely clipped lawns are nearly as effective as a firebreak as pavement or bare soil.
  • Acquired a fire permit from Linn County Public Health.
  • Found friends and neighbors to help us manage the burn.
  • Ahead of time educated neighbors about the value of burning and then alerted them of our plan to burn in a certain time frame.
  • Had appropriate tools on hand before we burned. These included garden rakes, matches, and both a portable fire pump, called a “Smith Indian”, and a hose stretched to the burn site.

Important Last-Minute Steps

On the day of our proposed burn, we did what the Health Department requires and first checked the air pollution report. We are only allowed to burn when the air quality is good, so jump online to a local map that shows real-time air quality. If the air quality is good, we call the sheriff’s department before burning. This is so that if someone reports smoke or fire, they know not to send out firefighters.

A light breeze helps push the fire through standing dried-out prairie grass, but too much wind can be dangerous. Our permit allows us to burn only if the wind is 20 mph or less.

Consideration of Neighbors

Because busy 30th Street Drive is our south property border we burn only when a south wind will push smoke away from the road and neighbor’s homes. North of our property is a large woodland where no one lives and there’s plenty of space for the smoke to disperse.

Rewards After Burning

Burning takes planning and preparation but the actual burn is over in a flash. On November 5th we were all ready, called the sheriff, and lit the prairie just after 3 pm. Flames roared through the grass and stopped dead when they reached our mowed lawn. Less than an hour after striking the match our fire was completely out and we were munching on pizza.

Most homeowners can’t burn, but many can. It’s an interesting and natural way to manage property.  And, it’s fun.

Following The Frog Statue Through the Seasons

by | Aug 3, 2023 | Garden/Yard, Nature, Wonderment

At the foot of East Post Road SE, just by Indian Creek is the frog statue that dons varied outfits each season and for many events.  Take a look through the years. And visit our website for amphibian blogs.

The frog is serious about keeping healthy and helping after storms.

 

Further into the year:

Middle of the Year is graduation, summer fun, and the Fourth of July with a loyal “Vandal” from Idaho!

 

Always a civic Duty Calls.

We are “hopping” to add more photos as we walk by the ever-current and exciting Frog Statue. To learn about real frogs of Iowa visit the website link.