How Long Do Wild Animals Live?

by | Jan 29, 2026 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Amphibians/Reptiles, Birds, Garden/Yard, Mammals, Nature

Meet Our Geriatric Downy

Red tufts of feathers on top distingush a male Downy from a female Downy woodpecker.

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.

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

Shiny shell and red colorings of a painted turtle.

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.

 

Winter Squash

by | 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

Yellow summer squash, red tomatoes, green cucumber.

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

Various decorative squash in a pile.

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.

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

Deer eating a pumpkin in snowy yard.

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.

Seed Swaps

by | Jan 15, 2026 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Garden/Yard, Garden/Yard

SEED SWAPS A FUN WINTER GARDENING EXPERIENCE.

Man looks at container of heritage seeds.

Heritage seeds.

January 31, 2026, is SEED SWAP DAY. It’s on our planner, and we are headed for a fun weekend in Decorah, Iowa, to take in the swap.

According to the Seed Saver’s Exchange seed swaps have been happening for at least 10,000 years. These are simply times for gardeners and farmers to gather and swap their favorite seeds. We attended last year. Check out this link to learn how to organize a seed swap in your area.

Quality Seeds

We buy many of our vegetable seeds from Iowa based Seed Savers Exchange located near Decorah, Iowa. Seed Savers Lillian Goldman Visitor Center is open daily, except certain holidays, from March through October. It houses a gift shop with quality gardening tools, books and assorted themed products. Their website and catalog offer a wealth of gardening information and welcome visitors to their Heritage Farm. Trails, trout fishing, and views of the Driftless region’s valleys always delight us. The grounds are open for free use year-round. Hiking trails wind through or near pastures, meadows, forests, orchards and garden plots. Trout anglers are invited to wet a line in the stream that nurtures Iowa native brook trout.

Seed Exchange

Colorful beans in a bowl.

“I Love Seeds!”

The Seed Savers Exchange also holds a seed swap every year. It’s a good way to meet other gardeners and return home with free seeds. The produce from our last summer’s garden was fabulous! Two in particular we loved. Acorn squash, from heritage seeds, were abundant and TASTY. Crisp kale lasted into the fall. The seeds came from last year’s exchange.

Seed Savers swap in Decorah posts how to organize your own exchange in your area. Join the winter exchanges around the country.

 

Nests Appear Like Magic

by | Dec 18, 2025 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Mammals

When autumn’s spectacularly colored leaves drift by our windows they signal the end of a season. That’s also the beginning of a new season – when nests appear like magic.

A few years ago we sat on the front deck as leaves tumbled off a nearby maple. “What’s that big shape up there?” Marion asked. We looked closer through binoculars spotting a bald faced hornet nest.

Hidden From View

During the growing season we didn’t know the colony of these big hornets were nearby, because  their growing paper pulp-like nest was deeply tucked among leaves. By the time we spotted it the nest had been abandoned. We watched as the weather gradually shredded it overwinter.

Winding Pathways is filled with wildlife, big and small, and many species nest close to the house, sometimes unseen during the warm months.

Birches and Bird Nests

On a warm late November day we pruned a river birch tree near the labyrinth, looked up, and spotted an abandoned robin’s nest built on a horizontal branch. Crafted of sticks, it was lined with dried mud and likely was a perfect home for a brood of  babies.

Crafty Crows & Cozy Squirrels

Dropping leaves also reveal bulky, loosely formed crow’s nests up high on trees. After brooding and fledging crows abandon the nests which, typically, quickly fall apart. Crows to generally return to the same area year after year.

The leafy nests of squirrels high in trees are called dreys. Although they prefer using tree cavities, when these are scarce they’ll make a drey.  Dreys are easy to spot after leaf fall. They’re usually at least 30 feet up and built in the fork of a branch. The ambitious animals  weave together sticks, leaves, and grass to make one and snuggle inside during cold windy winter nights.

While walking through our yard and area trails we often spot other wintery nests.  Here are a few of our favorites:

House Wren:  All summer we’re serenaded by singing wrens, and we love watching them bring delicious caterpillars into their nests to feed babies. They are cavity nesters and claim the wooden boxes we put out for them.  Each fall we open each wren house and remove the nest of woven sticks inside.

 

Baltimore Oriole: Orioles visit us in the spring but prefer nesting along nearby Indian Creek. Their nests often hang down from the branches of tall trees and are sometimes built way above trails, lawns or water.

Goldfinches: Goldfinches love tall grasslands, and build their nest in tall wildflower stems or dense shrubs surrounded by prairie plants. They nest in mid-to late summer andline their nest with soft plant down, like milkweed fluff.

Wild Turkeys: Unlike many birds turkeys don’t work hard to build their nest. They  just make a slight depression in the ground and line it with dry leaves.  A few years ago our neighbor was doing yard work when a female turkey rushed out from under a bush right next to the home’s foundation. He was startled!  Whether back in the forest or in suburbia female turkeys usually make their nest under a shrub and next to a log or foundation. Usually there will be a clearing nearby, and to a mother turkey a lawn is a good substitute for a natural grassy clearing.

Turkey vultures: While not exactly back yard birds, turkey vultures are denizens of summer thermals. We see them soaring in the country and over towns.  A basswood tree just east of our property has been the home of nesting turkey vultures since before we settled here in 2010. The Derecho of 2020 took out many trees and broke some off the basswood. But, mostly it survived partly because it is more holes than tree!

Foxes, coyotes, and woodchucks all have favored places to tuck in. Not nests but cozy homes. Deer bed down on warmer south slopes.  Various insects create nests. The photo gallery shows some examples.

Fall’s a great time to go on a nest hunt seeking a variety of structures built by birds, mammals and even insects. Sometimes they can be a challenge to identify, but a great source is nestwatch.org.  It will help discover what birds made nests tucked in trees, in tall grasses, on the ground, and even under house eaves.

 

Do Solar Arrays Save Money?

by | Dec 4, 2025 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Energy Efficiency

We’ll soon celebrate the 10th anniversary of our solar electric system. Did our decade-old solar arraays investment save money?
The short answer is YES!

Here’s the back story.

Our system is small with only nine panels on the barn’s roof. When we had it installed our intention wasn’t to produce all of our electricity. It was to tame the sting of high utility bills and produce as much electricity from the sun as possible.

Men on roof installing solar array.

Men installing panels.

Our system was built by the Enphase Company and installed by SiteGen, a part of Paulson Electric. At the time it cost us about $9,000. We received about half of that back on our federal and state income taxes, so our net cost was around $4500.

We are “net metered” with Alliant Energy. This means that electricity moves back and forth through our meter. When we produce more than we use, the excess goes out to provide electricity to other users. When we need more than we produce electricity comes in from the grid. At the end of the month, we pay Alliant the “net”.

When we travel and our electric use is low, we push power outward, but most of the time we use more than we produce. We get a monthly bill from Alliant but it’s always lower than if we didn’t have solar.

Was Our System a Good Investment?

Every month we get a report from our Enphase system through a phone app and an Alliant bill. Monthly production varies based on how much solar energy strikes our panels. Long clear summer days boost production, while clouds and short winter days reduce it.

Overall, we calculate our system averages about $60 worth of electricity a month. In a decade we’ve made about $7200 worth of electricity at a net investment cost of $4500. That’s a good return. Lacking tax credits, it would have taken us another few years to break even.

How Long Do Solar Panels Last?

Solar electric companies project the lifespan of panels at 25 years. So, for many years we will enjoy cost reductions on our electric bill. As electric rates rise the value of our investment in solar becomes ever more valuable.

The Indian Creek Nature Center installed solar on its Sunroom 23 years ago. Despite its age the system produced 3055 kilowatt hours of electricity in 2024, its year of best production. There is no sign of degradation in production due to age,” said John Myers, the Center’s executive director.

Here are things we’ve learned from our system:

  • Our only maintenance is to use a roof rake to remove snow. Panels make no noise and have survived severe storms intact.
  • Annual electric production is a bell curve with its peak during the summer’s longest days and the lowest during midwinter.
  • Shade has a major impact. Even one puffy cloud on a clear day causes production to briefly drop as its shadow crosses our panels.
  • A big oak tree on our property, immediately east of the panels, got first dibs on sunlight. The tree shaded the panels in the morning. After we removed the old declining tree in early 2025 our morning electricity production jumped upward.

Society Going Backwards

The Trump administration and your representatives eliminated tax credits in the latest budget. Next year, credits will no longer be available to help homeowners reduce their electric bills.

Goinig Forwards

Back to the main question: Is investing in solar energy worth it today? Yup.

The payback time is longer but newer panels are more efficient than our decade-old ones and they’ve dropped in price.
We’d do it again, even without the credits.

Want to install solar?

Local companies skilled in setting up systems are found nearly everywhere today. A quick Internet search should yield several companies close to home. For general information check energy.gov solar. We’ve been happy with our Enphase system. Information is at  enphase.com.

 

Chestnuts Roasting By An Open Fire

by | Nov 27, 2025 | Foraging, Nature, Trees

As Christmas approaches, nearly every American radio station will play the familiar “The Christmas Song” commonly called “Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire.”

The song was written by Robert Wells and Mel Tormé in 1945 and made famous by the Nat King Cole Trio. Released in 1946 it became a Christmas melody popular for nearly 80 years. A pdf in the Library of Congress has an intriguing story.

Cruel Irony.

Chestnut tree with loosened bark from fungus.

Chestnut blight wiped out Americn Chestnuts all over the East.

For thousands of years Native Americans harvested baskets full of chestnuts. So did Eur-Americans who swept across North America. Nutritious and abundant, chestnuts fed people and wildlife.  Many were, indeed, roasted by open fires and on woodstoves.

The American Chestnut was one of the abundant trees in the Eastern Hardwood Forest.

It was a perfect tree with gorgeous honey colored wood that was strong, lightweight, and easy to work. Chestnut’s abundant nuts fed wildlife and people. Settlers turned their hogs loose into the woods to fatten on them.

Then one of America’s greatest ecological tragedies happened when an imported fungus created a blight that killed nearly every single one of billions of trees. They disappeared from forests and the human diet……almost.

Disease Resistant Options

Rich bought a couple of pounds of edible chestnuts from Iowa’s Stringtown Market and roasted them on our woodstove for a gathering of friends to enjoy. How?

Well, across the world are Chinese, Japanese and European chestnuts. Chinese Chestnuts resist the blight and have been planted here and there. The nuts Rich roasted were either Chinese or a hybrid of a few types.

Personal Connection to American Chestnuts

Growing up in wooded New Jersey Rich remembers fallen trunks of blight killed American Chestnut trees and small trees growing from their roots. They die before maturing enough to produce nuts. Rich’s Dad, Henry Patterson, salvaged wood from fallen chestnuts and fashioned many objects from it. Marion’s father, Les Fellows, remembers gathering chestnuts when he was a child in New Hampshire. He crafted picture frames that we think are from American Chestnut wood. The pictures in the frames are of Hardwick, MA, where Marion lived first out of college. Chestnuts are part of our personal heritage.

Enjoy Edible Chestnuts

Although hard to find in the market edible chestnuts still make delicious fare. Many recipes can be found online. We like plucking them from their shells and eating them right after roasting. Here’s how Rich prepares them:

  • Cover the nuts with water and boil them for at least 15 minutes to soften the hulls and leach out tannin.
  • When they are cool enough to handle, use a stout sharp knife to make an “X” shaped cut on the top of each damp nut.
  • Place the nuts in a cast iron skillet and heat on the woodstove. Watch them carefully and stir occasionally. The idea is to drive off most of the water.

Putting them on a cookie sheet and baking them in an oven also works well.

Then they’re ready to peel and eat.

 

Beware

Edible chestnuts are unrelated to horse chestnuts or buckeyes but the nuts look similar.  Horse chestnuts are toxic. DON’T EAT THEM. Here’s how to tell them apart.

> Horse chestnuts have compound leaves with leaflets that radiate out like fingers on a human hand. Edible chestnuts have single elongated leaves, often with shallow pointed lobes.

> Nuts in tight husks that don’t have porcupine-like spines outside are characteristic of Horse chestnuts. You could call edible chestnut husks “vegetative porcupines.” Prickly!

> Horse chestnut nuts are entirely smooth, while edible chestnut nuts have a “nub” at their end. See the photo with the arrow pointing toward the nub.

Edible Chestnuts have a small nub at the end.

Note the nub.

The Future

Enjoying Edible Chestnuts, Growing Them, and Saving the American Chestnut

We mostly enjoy peeling and eating edible chestnuts as they are. And, they work perfectly in many recipes. A good recipe source is at foodandwine.com.
(search for edible chestnuts)

Many nurseries sell chestnut seedlings. Pure American chestnuts are most likely to thrive when planted outside their native range where the blight still lingers. Many hybrids sold by many nurseries resist the blight. It’s wise to plant them a ways from the house for these  reasons:

  • Blossoms just plain stink. And the trees produce hundreds of “porcupines”. Don’t step on one with bare feet!

For these two reasons, we will never know why Marion’s dad planted the edible chestnuts near the house in New Hampshire.

The American Chestnut Foundation

The American Chestnut Foundation, tacf.org, has worked for years seeking ways to restore this valuable tree. Its website has excellent photos and information.

We hope some day to spend an evening sitting by our woodstove snacking on genuine American Chestnuts while listening to Nat King Cole’s Christmas song. Until then we’ll roast the hybrid Chinese Chestnuts we buy.