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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!

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Scarlet Tanagers

Scarlet Tanagers

We’re lucky. Scarlet tanagers nest near us. Winding Pathways abuts Faulkes Heritage Woods, a protected 110-acre forest of mostly monstrous oak trees. So, every May we’re delighted as this brilliant bird arrives and sets up home. Male scarlet tanagers appear at our...

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Goose Daycare

Goose Daycare

We like geese. Yes, they leave piles of poop on trails and urban grassy areas. And, that is a pain. We’re not fond of running the gauntlet of goose dirt on the sidewalk. Still, we like geese. They recently made us laugh with an antic we found hysterical. While driving...

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Toads in Spring

Toads in Spring

For many years Rich wrote a nature column for the Cedar Rapids GAZETTE about little known aspects of natural history common in suburbia. He was amazed when more people responded to a column on toads than anything else he had written. People like toads. Some readers...

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Prairie Renaissance continued

Prairie Renaissance continued

Planting Day Saturday, May 9th was our big day. We planted our newest prairie and we’ll tell you how after we explain the ground preparation we did before a single seed was dropped to the ground. We’ve established several prairies with no ground preparation by simply...

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Prairie Renaissance – A Review and Preview

Prairie Renaissance – A Review and Preview

What's to Love About a Prairie? We love prairie. Prairie is color. Flowers yellow, red, blue, and every hue in between shine through tall grasses. Prairie beckons flying flowers…...butterflies as well as birds, bunnies, and other interesting animals. Compared to a...

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Refresher On How to Be With COVID-19

Refresher On How to Be With COVID-19

With Kathleen Horan, president and CEO of AbbeHealth We are all now several months into coping with the novel coronavirus pandemic and subsequent COVID-19 disease. It’s felt like having to walk across a high wire above Niagara Falls with no safety equipment. That...

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Why is Sunshine Important?

Why is Sunshine Important?

Sunshine On Our Shoulders, Makes Us Happy! We love John Denver’s famous Sunshine song almost as much as we appreciate sunshine!  After a long gloomy winter, the sun finally appeared toward the end of March. We welcomed it into our home and went outside to soak it up....

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Do You Know These Two Free Wild Spring Greens?

Do You Know These Two Free Wild Spring Greens?

Our Yards Offer Nutrition Every spring we look forward to eating delicious, free, wild greens that grow in our yard and just about every place people live. Having an ability to identify, pick, prepare, and eat wild foods gives us some comfort in this age of...

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Why Do Birds Hit Windows?

Why Do Birds Hit Windows?

*Note: Our assessment of WindowAlert is based on our experiences both from purchasing the company's product and a complimentary set of decals to try. Last fall as Rich was walking along the outside of the Cedar Rapids Public Library and found a tiny dead warbler on...

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What Can You do When You are Stuck at Home?

What Can You do When You are Stuck at Home?

Stuck at home? A tiny microbe is sure changing the lives of people worldwide.   Unexpectedly, meetings and schools have closed and transportation is disrupted as uncertainty runs rampant. With every challenge comes an opportunity.   We’re sticking close to home at...

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Why Do You Come to Winding Pathways?

Why Do You Come to Winding Pathways?

Like millions of Americans who live in rural or semi-rural areas we don’t have access to a city sewer and rely on our septic tank to safely dispose of waste. We’re lucky at Winding Pathways. Our home is built on an ancient sand dune with steep topography.   It’s...

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