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.
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 Winding Pathways | Jun 19, 2025 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Flowers/Grasses, Garden/Yard, Garden/Yard
Years ago, anyone attempting to create a diverse, native landscape in their yard sometimes experienced weed ordinance woes. Their local ‘weed commissioner” would order them to mow their “messy” yard.
Towns created ordinances to give them the authority to force landowners to remove what was perceived to be health or safety hazards. But, they were sometimes used to enforce conformity to the standard of neatly mowed, sprayed, monoculture lawns promoted by lawn product and care companies.
Cities do need the authority to deal with situations where landowners simply neglect their yards by not mowing, but they should not be able to use ordinances to enforce an aesthetic standard.
Changing Times – Responding to Declining Pollinator Populations
These days, homeowners everywhere recognize the importance of diversity. They are creating diverse landscapes of native plants even in tiny yards. Towns are responding by altering restrictive ordinances to allow the restoration of beautiful vegetation that supports beneficial wildlife, including pollinators.
Anyone who plans to diversify their yard in a way that makes it look different from their neighbors’ runs a risk of running afoul of their local town’s ordinance.
Guidelines To Reduce Neighbor or Municipal Friction.
- Research your town’s weed ordinance. Often, it’s printed on the town’s website.
- Develop a written plan and diagram of what the yard will become. It doesn’t need to be fancy or detailed.
- Cultivate and educate neighbors. Even towns that have old-fashioned ordinances rarely go out of their way to enforce them. Enforcement is triggered by complaints, usually from neighbors. Sharing a yard’s plan with neighbors before the change takes place may help them understand that what you are doing isn’t neglect.
- Start small. Maybe just replace a corner of a yard with prairie the first year and expand it gradually as the years go by.
- Make the yard look tended and not neglected. This can mean mowing pathways through tall grass, maintaining some lawns, and often being seen tending the yard tending the landscape.
- Avoid health or safety hazards. Avoid planting taller vegetation that will block a driver’s vision at intersections. Don’t allow allergens like poison ivy or ragweed to grow.
- Hiring a knowledgeable professional yard care company to plan and implement diversity.
Results
Restoring a gorgeous landscape of native vegetation is a delightful project that makes our world a bit healthier. Doing so is easier if it doesn’t irritate neighbors or invoke a stern town ordinance.
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Native and cultivated plants brighten a front yard.
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Families outside
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Converting a yard to more natural plants brings joy.
This first appeared on the Sustainable Landscape Solutions Website at sustainable landscape solutions.org. The company is based in Iowa City, Iowa, and helps landowners create wondrous yards.
by Winding Pathways | Mar 13, 2025 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Chickens, Garden/Yard
Soaring Prices Cause People to Question
Does keeping a backyard flock make sense?
Store eggs come from one breed of chickens.
While shopping at a nearby grocery store, we noticed eggs for sale at $6 with a purchase limit of two dozen. After returning home, we visited our backyard coop and collected eight eggs, which is a fairly typical daily production from our ten hens.
With egg prices soaring and availability uncertain, many people are considering building a coop, buying chicks, and producing eggs in the backyard.
Consider Carefully
Does a backyard flock make sense, or is investing in one a way to save money? Is it a good idea to keep chickens?
It depends. Ask first, what is your lifestyle? Do you like working around a yard and tending animals? Will you keep the coop and run clean? How much space do you have for a small flock? What other animals do you have? How often do you travel? What is your relationship with neighbors? Is keeping a small flock legal in your community?
Then, do your research.
We’ve tended small backyard flocks for nearly 50 years and have much experience managing chickens. Fortunately, many towns and cities changed their ordinances to allow suburban and urban flocks and thousands of families have begun keeping chickens. For those willing to do the daily work, they are well suited for suburbia.
Will A Backyard Flock Reduce the Grocery Bill?
Beautiful eggs
For many families chickens are a rewarding hobby with a side benefit of delicious food and garden fertilizer. But, do those hens produce eggs at a lower price than at the grocery?
Maybe.
What is Economy of Scale?
Huge commercial egg producing farms house millions of layers of genetic strains developed for maximum egg production. They buy feed at huge discounts.
Their economy of scale has, until recently, enabled grocery stores to sell eggs at amazingly low prices.
In contrast, there’s no economy of scale in caring for a small flock. Stores offer no discounts when buying a bag or two of layer feed. It costs us about $5 a dozen to produce eggs from our ten-hen flock. So, at today’s prices we’re probably saving a little money, but during normal times our backyard eggs are more expensive than store bought ones.
More Than Money
That’s only part of the picture. We can count on our hens to lay eggs every day. Recently our grocery store was out of eggs. Reliability is a benefit and there’s more.
Chicken enjoy varied diet
We take pride in producing as much of our food in our yard as possible. Both garden vegetables and backyard eggs are absolutely fresh, delicious, and reliable. And, we know our chickens are raised humanely. We like them. They are fun. Our chickens give us a laugh with their comic peculiarities. They are beautiful. They talk to each other and clearly communicate, recognize us and eagerly anticipate the treats we give them daily.
Our End Benefit
For us producing food is a satisfying activity that gives us both peace of mind and pleasure.
Should A Family Tend a Backyard Flock?
Caring for any living creature entails responsibility. Chickens, like a family dog or cat, need daily care that can be time-consuming. If a family enjoys animals and is willing to devote time and energy to their daily care, a backyard chicken flock may fit perfectly into their lifestyle and yield eggs. Caring for chickens can be an enjoyable family project, an educational adventure for children with fresh eggs as a bonus.
However, if a family sees a flock solely to save money at the grocery and doesn’t enjoy daily animal care, establishing a flock is a mistake.
There’s a lot to learn when establishing a chicken hobby. Excellent information is available on our own website Winding Pathways or the Hoover’s Hatchery website. Many physical books and online sources also help with learning.
Final thought: Remember, make it fun!
by Winding Pathways | Mar 6, 2025 | Chickens, Garden/Yard
What is a Marshmallow Scramble?*
- It’s an easy, entertaining way to get chicks to come home for the night.
Every afternoon, with great enthusiasm, our chickens do the marshmallow scramble. Until recently we didn’t know chickens love the sugary balls of puff, but neighbor, Joann Hoffman, a chicken aficionado demonstrated with her small flock. As her small flock of hens gathered around her in anticipation, she tossed out a few mini marshmallows. The tiny treats vanished in a flash!
Chickens love treats!
We bought a few bags of baby marshmallows on our next foray at the grocery store. That afternoon we tossed a handful to our chickens. Cocking their heads, they eyed them with suspicion. Stepping close, cocking their heads another way, stepping away with disdain, then stepping back in as curiosity overcame their caution. One finally sampled the strange tidbit. Then, scrambled for more. Other chickens scrambled for a taste of this exotic, new “food.”
Understand, please that the marshmallow scramble is a special treat. We make sure the hens and rooster have plenty of nutritious foods and treats especially in the winter.
Now, marshmallow time happens every afternoon when we want to lure the hens into the coop for the night. They’ve even learned the phrase, “marshmallow time.” When we shout those words the flock scurries into the coop. We toss in marshmallows and enjoy watching the wild marshmallow scramble. While they’re busy snapping them up we close the pop hole door, securing the coop from nocturnal predators.
Take a look at this mad chicken marshmallow scramble.
While putting the blog together we even learned some about the history of marshmallows. Kind of interesting.
