by Winding Pathways | Nov 20, 2025 | Garden/Yard, Mammals, Pests
One early November day we watched an enormous whitetail buck saunter across our yard. Seeing big bucks during their short mating season is common, but where do they hide the rest of the year?
Does and Young Always Around
It’s perplexing. We see does and fawns in all seasons in our yard and crossing roads as we drive around. Sometimes we wish they’d stay away. Marion sprays flowers with stinky deer repellent to reduce their hungry browsing and Rich builds fences around our vegetable garden and young trees.
Beauty
Fawns quickly grow to yearlings. Some are bucks and rub their antlers on trees.
Deer are beautiful animals. Despite the occasional damage they do we love seeing them and sharing some aspects of our yard with them. But where the bucks are is puzzling. Except for early November and early December, we never see them. They are huge and some have massive antlers. How can they hide?
Our Guess
Here’s our guess. For most of the year bucks are more nocturnal than does. We often find droppings in the morning and during the fall we see their rubs on small trees from unseen overnight visitors.
Bucks also have an amazing ability to hide in small patches of thick cover surrounded by roads, houses, and even factories. These places are common and often are scraps of undevelopable land or the back areas of city parks. Usually, people avoid these areas because walking in them is wet, buggy, or blocked by fallen trees. They’re perfect hiding spots for bucks.
How the Rut Works
On Halloween day a buck was hot on the “tail” of this doe and yearling.
Like most animals, but unlike humans, deer have a specific short mating season that biologists and hunters call the rut. It’s stimulated by decreasing daylight hours. Across the United States the main rut starts around Halloween and runs for a couple of weeks into November. During this time nearly all mature does become impregnated.
Young does born in the spring of a year generally don’t breed during the main rut. About a month later, in early December, there’s a secondary rut when young females breed. By the end of the year nearly all female deer are pregnant and will bring fawns into the world next May or June.
Caution Advised!
Buck with antlers
For most of the year bucks are shy, cautious and stay out of sight. During the rut they’re so focused on breeding that they abandon caution. So, beware when driving. They can be spotted at any time of the day or night. It’s always fun to see them, except when they cross a road in front of us in hot pursuit of a female.
Of all months, November is when most deer are hit by cars.
by Winding Pathways | 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.
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White Mulberry Trickster Tree
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Mitten, oval, “other shape”
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Good firewood.
by Winding Pathways | Jul 17, 2025 | Garden/Yard, Pests
An Invasive Species
Anaconda of the plant world
Oriental Bittersweet is the Anaconda snake of the plant world. Few plants are as destructive of native vegetation. It is awful.
Like many invasive species, Oriental Bittersweet was deliberately introduced to the United States in 1879 as an ornamental plant and for erosion control. It failed in both roles and is one of our most ecologically destructive plants.
How It Thrives
This sun-loving plant gets its dose of solar energy by twining up trees and spreading its branches over their crowns. Vines can be four inches thick near the ground as they wind around a tree. Anaconda snakes wrap around their prey to suffocate it. Oriental bittersweet circles a tree as it grows upward, effectively girdling it.
Cousin
The plant has a native cousin, the American Bittersweet, whose berries were once brought into wintery homes to encourage romance. It’s ecologically benign but has become much less common than the destructive import from across the Pacific Ocean.
How Winding Pathways Manages
Oriental bittersweet is an uninvited guest in our woods at Winding Pathways. We let it know it is unwelcome. Rich cruises our woods a couple of times each week, armed with clippers and lopping shears. He snips off even the tiniest bittersweet sprouts. We rarely use herbicides, but sometimes spray Oriental Bittersweet.
Here’s our advice for protecting native plants from this invasive species:
Woods With Established Big Vines
In woodlands where Oriental Bittersweet has been climbing trees for years, cut off the vines at ground level. For one-inch diameter or smaller vines, a sturdy pair of lopping shears works well. For bigger stems, a bow saw or even a small chainsaw makes the work easier. Treating the cut-off stem on the ground side with an herbicide will help prevent regrowth. Also, clip off baby vines just starting to climb.
Woods Just Getting Invaded
It’s easier to kill bittersweet in the early stages of a woodland invasion. Clip off the young vines. They quickly regrow, so repeated clippings are needed as the season progresses. Herbicides also work, but often it’s difficult to keep the spray off nearby desirable plants.
About a year ago, we bought a battery-operated clipper. It makes snipping off Oriental Bittersweet vines easier and faster than with muscle-powered tools and is also helpful in pruning fruit trees.
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Variety of tools
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Bittersweet vines start small.
Keep Oriental Bittersweet Out!
Oriental Bittersweet is one plant we don’t want around our home or in woodlands anywhere. We work hard to keep it from climbing our oaks, hickories, hackberries, and other trees, but we wish it had never been brought to North America in the first place.
by Winding Pathways | Jul 3, 2025 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Flowers/Grasses, Foraging, Garden/Yard, Pests
A Variation on “The Four Horsemen”
A quartet of deadly and toxic plants lurks along trails and riverbanks in Iowa and some across much of the world. They are Poison Hemlock, Poison Ivy, Flowering Spurge, and Wild Four O’clock.
Poison Hemlock
We’ll start with Poison Hemlock. Socrates wasn’t the only person killed by it. The Greeks once used to execute criminals.
Poison hemlock isn’t related to the majestic hemlock tree. Rather, it’s a biennial herbaceous plant. In its second year it quickly shoots up to tower upwards of eight feet tall. In Iowa it prefers living in dappled sunlight where the soil is moist. That describes the land bisected by public trails paralleling rivers and streams—places where people go to recreate.
It’s deadly poisonous, but only when ingested. Walking or cycling by it creates no problem at all. But it’s wise to know about this potentially deadly plant. All parts of it are toxic to people and animals when ingested. Even dried, wintery stems are poisonous.
By early June, the tall green plants with feathery leaves begin bearing white clusters of flowers. Their prettiness is deadly.
Poison hemlock could be confused with Queen Anne’s Lace that’s sometimes called wild carrot. Poison hemlock also often lives near wild parsnips. This plant is also toxic, in a different way. It can create a vicious rash in people who rub against it with bare skin and then are exposed to sunlight.
Where Poison Hemlock Originated
Poison Hemlock is native to Europe and is especially common around the Mediterranean Sea. It was introduced to the Americas, New Zealand, Australia, and Asia, so today, it is a toxic invasive species worldwide.
The Internet and YouTube are loaded with sites describing this plant. A good quick read comes from the National Park Service at nps.gov/articles/poison-hemlock.htm.
Other Troublesome Plants
Unfortunately, several other deadly and toxic plants often live in the same places as poison hemlock. Here are a few.
- Poison ivy often lines trails. It prefers living on the edge of woodlands where it gets some shade and sun. Unlike poison hemlock, poison ivy is a native plant that causes a contact reaction. That means if human skin brushes against it a nasty itchy rash can follow. And, if a pet wanders through the poison ivy and then comes inside where a human pats it, guess what? The irritating oils are transferred and the human gets a nasty rash. A friend of our discovered this earlier this year. Also, state parks are notorious for having poison ivy growing where people contact it – along unkempt trails and winding up trees in campgrounds even. Rabbits and deer eat it and birds eat and spread the seeds.
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Birds drop seeds when they perch on campground posts.
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Poison Ivy loves edges
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Keep your distance from this beguiling, colorful plant.
Pretty and irritating
Flowering spurge is also common along trails. Cut the plant and get some of its sap on skin and a nasty welt is likely to result.
Unattended areas attract undesirable plants.
Wild Four O’clock also loves trail edges and is reported to be toxic.
None of these plants cause problems unless they are eaten or contact the skin. They won’t cause a problem for anyone just walking by
Be careful. Keep your distance.
by Marion Patterson | Jun 26, 2025 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Garden/Yard, Mammals, Pests
What’s In A Name?
Nibbling on grasses
A big furry animal has made a tunnel under the deck and clear cut down the garden. Is the culprit a woodchuck or groundhog? The answer is simple. They’re two names for the same animal.
The window by Marion’s computer desk overlooks our deck. On a spring morning, she was startled to look out and be face to face with a big woodchuck just outside the glass.
He soon ambled off. A few days later, we were enjoying basking in the sun in our outdoor nook. It’s next to a front lawn that we seeded with white clover last year. Out of the corner of our eye, we caught movement. It was the woodchuck, likely on his way to enjoy a clover lunch. When he spotted us, he quickly exited.
What is a Woodchuck?
Several species of marmots live across the northern hemisphere. Visitors to western national parks often see the Yellow-Bellied Marmot in higher elevations, but the one most Americans spot is the amazingly abundant woodchuck.
Woodchucks live in both suburban and rural areas from the Atlantic Ocean westward to Nebraska and Kansas and north to Hudson’s Bay and even Alaska.
Woodchucks are great tunnelers.
They are an amazing adaptable vegetarian. Among North American rodents only beavers are bigger. A huge male “chuck” can weigh up to 15 pounds. As rodents they have impressive incisor teeth and powerful legs perfect for digging burrows under decks or inside or near old sheds and brush piles.
True hibernators, male woodchucks emerge from their burrows in March here in Iowa. Females wait a few weeks and usually end their winter slumber in April. They’ll soon have three to five pups. As soon as the babies’ eyes open, mom will bring them outside where they learn to dine on a wide range of vegetation. They love garden vegetables. Perhaps nothing is as tasty as beans, lettuce, or Swiss chard.
Tree Climbers?
Most people realize woodchucks are excellent diggers, but few recognize they are squirrels adept at climbing trees. On hot summer afternoons, they love resting on a shady and breezy tree branch.
Reducing Woodchuck Damage
Although they’re big and active during the day, woodchucks are wary and usually vanish when they spot a person. They can’t hide the huge mound of dirt by their burrow, and a clear-cut bean patch also may mark their presence.
How do you reduce woodchuck damage? Since they can burrow, run, and climb, it’s challenging keeping them out of a yard or garden.
These Actions Can Help
Rich placing wires to prevent woodchucks from digging under the porch.
Fencing: A stout fence around a garden or deck can make access challenging. The fence needs to be dug into the ground. Placing a mesh of stout fencing on the ground under a deck will reduce the odds that a chuck will burrow there, but it has to be done before the animal starts making its home.
Dog: An alert dog will chase chucks away.
Altering the yard: Removing brush piles where chucks like to burrow will encourage them to create a home elsewhere.
Trapping: Woodchucks are usually easy to catch in a box-type live trap. Set the trap near the burrow and bait it with bits of apple or other fruit. It helps to cover the trap with a tarp or some brush, as they feel more secure underneath something.
There’s a problem
What do you do with a healthy but very unhappy chuck caught in a box trap? Keep fingers out of the trap! Call the town animal control officer(s) and ask for their suggestions on what to do with it. We don’t advocate taking it on a long drive and releasing it in the country. It seems unethical to “give” the animal to someone who lives near the release area. Preventing damage is always best, but sometimes euthanizing a problem chuck is the best solution.
Woodchucks are amazing animals. We enjoy seeing them as long as they stay out of the garden!
by Marion Patterson | Aug 1, 2024 | Garden/Yard, Mammals, Pests
Young rabbits “play” to gain skills and show dominance.
Have you noticed the abundance of the cottontail rabbit this summer? While they can create mischief as in eating desired plants, they also are fun to watch.
Winding Pathway’s resident cottontail rabbits give us delightful evening entertainment. Shortly after sunset, a few appear like magic from out of our labyrinth’s tall prairie. As we sit on our porch they scamper about, chase each other, and nibble on the white clover poking out of our lawn.
Many people dislike cottontails for their habit of feasting on favored garden plants and gnawing on tree bark in the winter. Because we enjoy both rabbits and Swiss Chard, we keep them away from our vegetables and, thus, appreciate their antics.
Several cottontail species range across most of the United States, southern Canada, and South America. They’re well adapted to thrive in diverse environments. Ours is the Eastern Cottontail rabbit. This year they are especially abundant.
There are Rabbits and Then There are Rabbits
Side by side
Cottontails and common domestic pet rabbits may look similar but they are vastly different.
Pet Bunnies
Pet bunnies trace their ancestry to Europe and were domesticated thousands of years ago. They make fascinating and loveable pets and thrive in a safe roomy hutch eating commercial pellets. These are the rabbits that were released in Australia and caused enormous agricultural and ecological damage. They readily breed, are social, and join others to dig a series of burrows called warrens. Some readers may remember the award-winning novel, Watership Down, and the Netflix series about precocious rabbits.
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Children and adults enjoy bunnies.
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Rabbits are social.
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Friendly pets
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European rabbits adapt to people
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Show animals.
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Children with rabbits
Cottontail Rabbits
Cottontails, in contrast, are wild animals that rarely, if ever, become tame or make good pets. Like European rabbits they are social and like the company of other bunnies but not people. Cottontails don’t make burrows but sometimes enjoy ducking down an abandoned woodchuck hole. Cottontails live under dense vegetation, in culverts, and under outbuildings. They eat a wide range of wild plants but love snacking on vegetables. In winter they sometimes eat the bark off young trees. So, be sure to protect your young trees with wire mesh around the base.
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Time for an evening snack.
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bunny play
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Nibbling clover
Enjoying Both Cottontails and Vegetables
Years ago, we learned a trick that lets us enjoy our resident cottontails and abundance from the garden. European rabbits are high jumpers, but not cottontails. Instead, native bunnies are long jumpers who can’t jump high. Just a wimpy two-foot-tall chicken wire fence around the garden or a young tree keeps them away as long as they can’t get under it.
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Keep rabbits away from young trees.
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Cottontails cannot jump high.
Why So Many Cottontails This Year
For the past few years, Iowa has been in drought. It limited the new tender growth of clovers and other delectable plants that bunnies love. Sparse rain thinned thickets where they hide. This year’s been wet. Vegetation is tender and abundant yet we’ve not had big early thunderstorms. Why’s that important to a cottontail?
Before giving birth, a cottontail digs a shallow hole in the ground, often near the edge of a lawn. She lines it with fur and soon deposits three to eight tiny blind helpless babies. Mom mostly stays away but nurses them in the morning or evening by sitting over the burrow and letting her babies nurse. They grow amazingly fast and are out on their own when only about three weeks old. Mom soon gets ready for another litter.
Who Doesn’t Love a Cottontail Rabbit?
Predators love rabbits. They’re a favorite meal for dogs, cats, raptors, snakes, foxes, and coyotes. There are always rabbits because their survival strategy is to have many babies, even though only a small percent reach adulthood and reproduce.
Getting Rid of Cottontails
Well, why do it? They are inquisitive and beautiful animals that share yards with people.
An easy solution is to run chicken wire around desirable plants to keep them away. So, people can have their plants and rabbits, too.
Hooray for bunnies! They brighten our evenings as they scamper about our yard.
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Rabbits know to stay hidden
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Cottontails live in the labyrinth.
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Nibbling clover
