Category: Departures
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Ginseng Jelly – A Delicious Wild Ozark Luxury Product
Oh, my … GINSENG JELLY! I love medicinal herbs, especially those that grow right here at home, and most especially ginseng. This year’s ginseng jelly comes in two varieties: Ginseng Gold (4-oz, $25) Ginseng/Apple (8-oz, $25) Soft-set: thicker than syrup, thinner than jelly Both are delicious, but you’ll get more of the ginseng active ingredients…
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Acorn People are a Great a Way to Justify Collecting Things
I’ve been creating Acorn People as a way to justify my obsessive habit of collecting things I find while roaming around outside. Now I can pick up fossils, moss, lichens, leaves, twigs, and acorns and never feel a moment of uncertainty about my sanity. I’ve been calling them Acorn Folk. And they’re gorgeous little beings!…
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Pixies – Miniatures by Madison Woods
UPDATE 2023: I’m not making these little pixies anymore, but there is a new line of little people in the works. Meet Ada, the first of her kind. The Pixies from 2017: Pixies are the most elusive of the unseen creatures that live at Wild Ozark. They live around you, too. Most likely you’ve only…
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100-word Flash Fiction
Ever heard of 100-word flash fiction? I’m not sure how many of you were following this blog way back when I used to call it “Madison Woods” and used to write a lot more fiction. Well, writing anything remotely resembling a complete thought, let alone a story, is difficult with only 100 words. It’s great…
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Elderberry Flowers Oil Infusion
Elderberry flowers have a light, sweet fragrance and all manners of pollinators love them. Which Elderberry Flowers? The variety I’m using for this is Sambucus canadensis, which is the native elderberry in our area. Black elderberry (S. nigra) is the european comparative variety. Don’t use red elderberry if it grows in your area because that one…
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2017 Farmers Market Schedule
I decided to just update the schedule on my “appearances page“. Please check there for the latest dates. The link to get there is https://www.wildozark.com/appearances-workshops-herb-walks-presentations/ Schedule of farmers markets & events 5/26/17 – Friday I’ll be in Jasper, for a change of venue. I’ll have a couple of older ginseng plants (2 yr and 3 yr plants), ginseng…
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Wild Ozark’s Plant ID Challenge: May’s Mystery
This month’s Star Plant Guesser is Janet Webb, who correctly identified May’s Mystery plant as Poison Hemlock (Conium maculatum). Each month, around the middle of the month, I’ll post a plant ID challenge for readers to test their identification skills. Every day until someone correctly guesses the true name of the mystery plant, I’ll post…
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PawPaw Seedling Hiding in the Hickories
PawPaw seedlings look a lot like hickory seedlings. In the photo you can see who’s who, but without the labels it’s easy to mistake one for the other. One way to tell the difference is the leaf arrangement. When they’re both older, it’s much easier to see that the leaves are arranged differently on the…
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Black Cohosh or Doll’s Eyes? Companion Look A-Likes
Black Cohosh or Doll’s Eyes? Trying to differentiate between black cohosh and doll’s eyes before they come into bloom, has been frustrating. It’s very easy to tell once they begin the blooming process as the flower stems originate in different places and the flowers themselves are very different. Both of these woodland herbs grow in…
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Early Spring Plants of the Woodlands in Madison County Arkansas
I got a late start photographing the early spring plants this year (2017). They started without me and I’ve already missed some of them. These are some of the plants unfurling and blooming on April 1 in the woodland habitats here at Wild Ozark. Early Spring Plants This late afternoon shot of fern fiddleheads is…
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Sunrise Sounds at Wild Ozark
In the mornings, we don’t hear highway noise of people rushing to get to work on time. Our sunrise sounds belong to nature. Sunrise Sounds Remodeling We’ve been particularly busy lately here. Rob’s remodeling the bathroom. We thought it might be a weekend project, just a new coat of paint and put up some trim.…
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Compost Sifter
Rocks are everywhere here at Wild Ozark. Even when I rake leaves or clean out the chicken house I get rocks mixed in. A compost sifter would help when I’m trying to separate rocks and weeds out of the pile. Compost Sifter Concept to Reality I had an idea in mind of what I wanted…
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Starting Seeds and Straightening Tines
Yesterday I decided it was time to get busy starting seeds for our garden. Hauled the seed vault out and began the painful process of picking which of the very many seeds I have saved that I want to start first. Starting Seeds Means Choosing WHICH Seeds The pile quickly grew too large. And so…
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Ginseng Jams & Nature Art Cards on a Chilly Day
I’ll be in the Kingston square with the Wild Ozark booth on Saturday selling ginseng jams, nature art, and fairy gardens. Chilly Day For weeks it’s been warmer than usual and so I decided I’d set up the Wild Ozark booth on the Kingston square this weekend to take advantage of some of that nice…
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Watching for Witch Hazel Flowers
Witch Hazel Flowers Witch hazel flowers are an interesting sight to behold. The petals on the small flowers are thin and wild. The shrub blooms during the most unlikeliest time of the year. It is one of my favorite plants in the Ozarks. She is an untamed rebel, even if she or her hybridized cousins…
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Join me at the 8th Annual Agroforestry Symposium in Columbia, MO
January 26, 2017 We’ll be there representing Wild Ozark and I’ll be participating in the discussion panel for medicinal plant growers and entrepreneurs. Come out and meet us, talk about ginseng and the new habitat garden, or just say hello.
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Bringing Hay to Horses in Snow
After yesterday’s post where I reveled in the fact that we’d actually had a decent snowfall, we went out in the cold to bring hay to horses. The temperature was about 15*F with a windchill factor of I don’t know what, but I’m sure ridiculously cold. Rob takes the tractor and I go ahead of…
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Can’t see the Trees for the Forest, or rather, Snowflakes for the Snow
Yesterday we only had a little bit of snow and each little snowflake was easy to see and photograph. Now it is like not being able to see the trees for the forest. Can’t see the snowflakes for the snow. Snow Makes the Cold More Bearable … for a little while But I love it.…
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How to Identify Plants in the Wild, How to Search and Find Clues
Earlier this year I surveyed my newsletter members for their top questions. Here’s one about how to identify plants found in the outdoors. Top Questions It’s more of a comment than a question, but I’m creating this post in response to it. Although I’ve paraphrased some, I believe the underlying question would be “how to identify…
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Product Review: STABILicers Ice Cleats make Slippery Slopes a Cinch!
When it gets icy here, just walking down the back steps is a feat, but making my rounds to feed the critters is the whole circus. Ice cleats to the rescue. Biding time to try out the ice cleats So since it hasn’t gotten icy since they arrived in the mail, I haven’t had a…
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Keeping up the Juggling Act
A hilarious metaphor of my unsuccessful juggling act at the homestead and in my life as a writer trying to get things done.
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Get in Shape with Nature- Starting out the Day Hot & Sweaty
This morning I didn’t bring my camera so I wouldn’t be tempted to stop and take pictures. The point is to get sustained heart rate elevation. I didn’t almost step on any snakes or encounter any bears, so no excessive heart rate elevation occurred either.
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Homestead: Getting the Chainsaw Stuck … and Unstuck
Today was an outdoor work day, at least until the storm blew in. Feeding critters, excluding chickens, and getting the chainsaw stuck, and unstuck. Feeding Critters I did the usual thing first – fed the critters. It was a foggy morning, so I brought the camera with me. There are always good things to see…
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Mailbox and Back in Under an Hour
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in Art Journaling, Herbalism, Herbs, Musings, Nature, Nature Writing, Ozarks, Photography, Plants, SummerYesterday I brought my camera with me when I went to the mailbox. If I had walked, I know it would have taken more than an hour because I would have seen so many more opportunities to stop and take a picture. There’s Never a “Quick Trip” Anywhere Out Here My intention was to make…
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Top Questions from Readers: Healing Herbs
Healing Herbs: the first of the Top Questions and Topics of Interest from Readers Healing herbs and using the wild plants for medicine was one of the most often mentioned topics in the recent survey results. In case you’re just joining me here and aren’t yet a Wild Ozark Musings newsletter subscriber, I recently sent…