by Winding Pathways | Jan 15, 2026 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Garden/Yard, Garden/Yard
SEED SWAPS A FUN WINTER GARDENING EXPERIENCE.
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.
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A gentle landscape.
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Trout fishing
Seed Exchange
“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.
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 | Oct 2, 2025 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Flowers/Grasses, Garden/Yard, Garden/Yard, Wonderment
Take a look around as you drive. Autumn eye candy delights and soothes us. From small yards to acreages to vistas Happy Yards abound. Following are some Happy Yards we’ve noticed this fall. We thank folks for creating visual pleasure, habitat for small creatures that share our earth, and enhancing the health of soil, water and air.
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The owner tends a vibrant front yard all season.
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Waystop.
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Progression of color and textures.
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Delightful textures and colors.
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Note and enjoy the autumn variety of flowers and vegetables.
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Mixture of plants, pots and structures to hold the plants.
To respect individaul homeowner privacy, we took photos that show only the beauty of the forbs and grasses. Businesses, we stated the names and we thank for their creative use of small spaces to enhance beauty and promote healthy environments.
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Brightening the downtowns.
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Businesses know how to attract positive attention.
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Fabulous color all season
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Tiny sections in front of a business add beauty.
Enjoy the eye candy as autumn progresses and may we look forward to more come next growing season.
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Color and shade.
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Adding beauty
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Simple eye candy.
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Large leaves and brilliant scarlet flowers
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Holding soil, cleaning the air and adding visual delight.
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Inviting in customers
Readers can connect with various businesses across the country that promote happy yards. A favorite is New Hampshire Garden Solutions that regularly post fabulous photos with narrative of rambles in Marion’s native state.
We’ve written a number of posts on wondrous yards that we invite readers to look at.
by Winding Pathways | Sep 18, 2025 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, 1080 Labyrinth Blog, Flowers/Grasses, Garden/Yard, Nature
Dancing in autumn’s breezes.
An autumn pleasure is sitting on our front porch watching Maxmillian Sunflowers – Summer’s Goodbye wave as they dance in September’s breeze.
Our yard is a seasonal progression of color from spring’s delightful dandelions that grace our mowed yards to Maxmillion’s final wave. In early summer our porch view is of pale purple coneflowers that gradually yield to common purple sunflowers. Then yellow coneflowers, purple prairie clover, compass plant and rattlesnake master make their appearance as white clover looks like sprinkles on the lawn. We can tell the month by what’s blooming.
Autumn’s Hello
Fall’s a time for both joy and sadness. As summer’s warmth diminishes we know we won’t see our flowery color for months, but three blooms give us late summer gladness.
First comes the goldenrod of many species. We spot their earliest blooms on the final days of July but they come into full glory in late August and September. Then they’re joined by asters of several species. Our favorites are tiny flowered heath asters and deep lavender New England asters. And the surprise pink petaled New England aster.
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Important pollen producer. NOT an allergenic.
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New England Asters and goldenrod blooming
Final Actor
The final actor to appear in the season’s progression of blooming color is the Maximilian Sunflower. Ours thrive in the south part of our labyrinth prairie and stretch higher than prairie grasses. Even a slight breeze entices their golden blooms to dance above the prairie as if to say, “thanks summer for your warmth and water.”
They are stalwart and resist early fall’s frosts and keep dancing. Their final bow of color coincides with a hard freeze.
About Maximillian Sunflowers
Maximilian sunflowers are true sunflowers with many relatives. They are a perennial native to the Great Plains and tallgrass prairie, but people have planted them all over the world. Tall and vigorous, they make a delightful backdrop to a prairie or flower garden.
Supporting Actors
Goldfinches show up in the yard when various sunflowers bloom and turn to seed.
As a final delight our resident goldfinches love dining on any nutritious sunflower seeds. They start with cupplant and move on to Maximillian Sunflowers.
We delight that the blooms are exactly the same yellow hue as late summer male goldfinch feathers.
Brightening Autumn’s Days
Dancing sunflowers are a delight. Perhaps it’s sad that they herald an approaching winter, but they brighten fall’s gorgeous weather and lure us to sit on our porch
by Winding Pathways | Aug 28, 2025 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Bugs, Garden/Yard, Garden/Yard, Nature
Early one humid summer morning we discovered lawn lace in the yard. Dozens of laces were scattered on the grass and mulch we’d put around trees. Dew drops on their tiny filaments sparkled in the early morning sunshine. What had we found? Who made them?
As kids we called them fairy rings and marveled at their delicate nature.
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Fairy rings.
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A delicate lacing on evergreen shrub.
Shelf Spiders
The hole reveals the entrance to the web.
They were crafted by industrious hungry spiders overnight. We call them shelf spider webs because they are positioned horizontally. Others call them funnel or tunnel spiders. Look closely to find a hole, usually toward the side, where the spider lurks.
The web isn’t sticky but has so many tiny filaments that a wandering insect often gets its feet tangled there, slowing it down. In a flash the fast-moving spider is out claiming its breakfast.
What Are They?
There are many species of shelf spiders found throughout the world in the genus Aselemidae. Some 111 species live north of Mexico. They pose no threat to people, but may pose a major threat to bugs, who often see the conspicuous webs but not their builders. The web’s architect and builder stay hidden. By late morning sunshine has usually evaporated the dew, making the webs hard to spot. They’re best enjoyed when the world is cool and fresh at dawn.
We usually think of shelf spiders as a September yard feature but in 2025 we began seeing them in July. We like them. Their dainty webs are as intriguing as they are beautiful. Perhaps more important, the presence of these spiders indicates that the lawn is healthy. It’s not been poisoned with insecticides. This allows harmless insects to thrive in the turf to feed the spiders.
Surrounded by Spiders
Many people consider spiders threatening, ugly, and undesirable animals. Come Halloween some even stretch fake webs in their porch to scare trick or treaters. A few spider species can inflict a painful and dangerous bite, but most species are tiny and hardly ever seen by people. They cause no problems and live in lawns, gardens, prairies and trees. They are beneficial.
Want to learn more? An interesting resource is spidermentor.com.
We enjoy watching brown creepers, nuthatches and warblers climbing tree trunks or flitting around branches. They’re often foraging for tiny protein-rich spiders. Even in the depths of winter dormant spiders provide food for hungry songbirds.
Be happy if some morning you spot lawn lace. Shelf spiders have been at work setting their intricate traps to catch a breakfast of tasty insects.
by Winding Pathways | 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?
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
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.
