Welcome to Winding Pathways
Winding Pathways encourages you to create a wonderous yard, whether that yard is an expansive acreage, a suburban lot or a condominium balcony. Go outside and play!
Join our email list
Sign up for FREE Winding Pathways emails (approximately weekly).
Can You Radically Welcome Moles to Your Yard?
It’s that season again. Recently we spotted a symmetric dirt cone poking up in our lawn. Fortunately, it wasn’t an early-stage volcano about to erupt. Rather, a mole pushed dirt out of the way so it could continue tunneling. People hate moles for forming similar dirt...
What is an Easy, Delicious Food for Dinner?
For years we’ve added wild foraged plants to our diet. They’re free, available, often delicious, and give us the satisfaction of knowing that we can find food close to home. After years of foraging and trying many wild foods, we now place them into three categories:...
What Happened to Mallory Mallard and her ducklings?
Report from the Montessori School duck hatch: To review, the school saw a mallard sitting on an urban planter box. So, the staff and children made a project of watching the duck, noting its behavior, drawing pictures, and journaling about this experience. When the...
Late Night Noises Keeping You Up?
Starting about mid-May when days and evenings began to warm up we'd hear off tune, extended croaking in damp spots around the yard, high in the trees, tucked into the woodpile and even on the side of the house. A few days later, high-pitched off-key trills burst from...
New Oak Signals Hope
May’s first few weeks are the most delightful time to be outdoors. Warm days combine with the delicious scent of spring. It’s the peak time for birds that wintered far to the south to either settle in to nest or briefly rest and eat before winging further north....
What Do You Do About City Ducks?
In mid-April, we got a call from a concerned Montessori teacher. Her school is in downtown Cedar Rapids amid office buildings, restaurants, and taverns. Cars constantly buzz by. She’d spotted a hen mallard duck nesting in the school’s playground and asked what she...
Prairie Renaissance Part 8
Springtime on the Prairie This spring we anxiously await the emergence of prairie flowers in an area that had been traditional lawn. This is a periodic continuing blog about the process of converting the lawn to a prairie. We’ll have a couple more updates this season....
How Do You Get a $13.38 Electric Bill?
Many people dread the arrival of their monthly electric bill. Not us. We recently received a $13.38 monthly bill from Alliant Energy for electricity used in March. A day later Enphase Energy emailed us our March photovoltaic production. That's correct. Thirteen...
What Is YOUR Pogo Story?
Readers’ Adventures With Pogo Possum The Pogo Possum adventures really resonated with people. So, Winding Pathways is sharing some of these. SA enthusiastically wrote: I love that you named him Pogo. “We have met the enemy and he is us.” JH has a thoughtful...
Why Did We Test the Chevy Bolt?
During recent cold months, we’ve been day-tripping to many museums as we research our articles for the Cedar Rapids GAZETTE. On an early March morning electric car specialist, William Weiland, at Cedar Rapids McGrath Chevyland showed us how to drive a Bolt, a...
What Great Courses Do You Know?
Just before darkness, cold, and snow appeared last December we decided to try a new winter travel adventure. We purchased a “Great Course” called the Ancient Civilizations of North America that took us on a virtual trek across North America over a 10,000 year plus...
New Adventures with “Pogo” Possum
Winter Wanderers We've been having more adventures with possums. Marion spotted a new visitor to the bird feeder one late February afternoon. It was a smallish opossum. We called him “Pogo” after one of our favorite cartoon characters but didn’t realize we’d be...
How Did You Spend Pandemic Time Creatively?
Quilting and the Chesapeake Bay Guest Blogger, Sigrid Reynolds I have always loved the humble arts of unknown women who pieced quilts. My own attempts at the craft had resulted in exactly 10 squares in the 1980s when I had small children at home who took afternoon...
Why Is March Birdhouse Month?
March is a pivot month. It’s neither winter nor spring. Often called “mud season", March is maple syruping time, but it’s also birdhouse building month at Winding Pathways. As humans in northern climates wade through mud and long for spring, millions of birds far to...
How Catios Help Wildlife and Neighbor Relations
Millions of people love their cats. Some 36% of households keep an average of two cats. They are the second most popular companion animal in the United States, lagging only behind dogs. Some cats cause problems, especially when owners allow them to free-range the...
Why are Possums Out in the Winter?
Bright sun and warm breezes broke Iowa’s February subzero weather. Being outside unencumbered by thick gloves, boots, and coats felt great, and we even enjoyed a cup of coffee sitting outside on the sunny side of our home. We weren’t alone. A glance at the bird...