Nature

20 July 201720 July 2017

Fairy Gardens and Mushrooms and Gallivanting Around the Woods

There is something magical about moist & shady places. I’m in the woods a lot, photographing and looking at ginseng. During my wandering, I see so many little microhabitats with moss-covered rocks, cool shady spots – nooks that look like they could be fairy hangouts.

My favorite photo of the early spring plants of the ginseng habitat this year. — Christmas fern new fronds unfurling. Looks like a spot a fairy could call home, doesn’t it?

Imaginary Worlds … or Just the Unseen Worlds?

Add flowing trickles of water to the scene and even more citizens of the unseen world appear. Like sprites, nymphs, … and Water Priestesses.

Perhaps only those of us with overactive imaginations conjure up such imagery.

Or perhaps we’re just more receptive to knowing things that aren’t seen by humans.

Anyway, I’m far behind on many things, blog posting included. I’ve been too busy being influenced by the woodlands and immersing in the realm of fairies.

Projects Underway and Completed

Over the last few weeks, I’ve finished a drawing of a Water Priestess.

"Water Priestess" by Madison Woods, rural fantasy artist. — The second drawing in my “Rural Fantasy” series is “Water Priestess”.

I’ll use her image on note cards and other artsy-type products. The note cards are listed at Etsy, and the prints will soon be listed there, too. I’ve decided to see if I can reach a larger audience through Etsy because our little online shop here doesn’t get many visitors.

Fairy Gardens

In an attempt to bring some of the magic of the habitats I frequent out to the ordinary world, I’ve been making fairy gardens.

I’ve been bringing these to the farmers market in downtown Rogers (AR), but also sell the DIY kits online through our shop. Might list those at Etsy too.

Fairy Garden Mushrooms

Then I thought some cute little mushrooms would go great inside them. So I started making and painting cute little mushrooms.

A troop of Fairy Garden mushrooms from Wild Ozark.

After all that, I decided I needed to refresh my Etsy shop and see if I can actually sell any of these creations. They’re all listed at our online shop and at Etsy.

More Gallivanting

We’ve also been working toward being legal, FDA-approved makers of our Shagbark Hickory Syrup. The next trip to the Arkansas Food Innovation Kitchen will result in our first commercially produced batch of syrup.

On our first trip for this project, we cleaned the bark. Before that we collected the bark, which involves visiting several shagbark hickory trees.

We don’t want to overharvest from any one tree, so we gallivanted around the woods gathering a little bit of bark from many trees.

In the end, we cleaned and processed about 7 lbs of bark. It took most of the day, but we sure enjoyed using the commercial facilities for a change! I’ll write up a blog post about this experience as soon as I get a chance.

The Products that resulted from such Nature Immersion

Water Priestess Note Cards

Fairy Garden Mushrooms

Fairy Garden

Shagbark Hickory Syrup

About the voice behind this blog, Madison Woods

I'm a creative old soul living way off the beaten path with my husband in the wild Ozark Mountains. Besides homesteading, growing plants & making crafty things and newsletters, I write books and stories. My rural fantasy fiction, written under the pen name, Ima Erthwitch, usually takes place in a much altered Ozarks.

Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark

Spread the Word
Share this post or tell a friend about my website. "From little acorns do mighty oaks grow." A little thing like sharing could start momentum! This is a free and tremendously powerful way to help.
Buy a Book
See all of my books here:
Nonfiction: Madison Woods Amazon Author's Page.
Fiction: Ima Erthwitch Amazon Author's Page.
Shop at our Nature Boutique
Unique gifts, books, and information for the nature lovers in your life. Adding more items as time allows: Wild Ozark Nature Boutique.
Become a Patron
A small monthly stipend of even $1 from enough supporters will help me continue the educational outreach and construction of habitat gardens. More information here: https://www.patreon.com/wildozark

Thank you for reading and/or participating in this Wild Ozark community! ~ Madison Woods

5 July 2017

Kings River, Looking at Rocks and Evading the Rain

Rain's a'coming. Kings River with stormclouds and backlighting. — Rain’s a’coming.

We hiked around a few gravel bars along Kings River yesterday.

Wild Ozark is not far from the headwaters of this locally important waterway, but other than what we see from the window as we drive over the several bridges that cross it on the way to town, we haven’t explored much of it.

Where to Go

Most of it runs through private property, and so is inaccessible. By canoe would be the best way to see some of the stretches of this river that you can’t see from the roads.

There are a few public put-in points for canoers farther downstream from the little town of Kingston, the closest being the Marble Access point.

The Kings River Falls Natural Area is at the headwaters. I made a blog post with photos from a hike I made there in January a couple of years ago. It’s very popular most of the year, and in summer is appreciated for deep swimming holes and cold water in gorgeous surroundings.

Rocks, Rocks, and More Rocks

Rocks are a prominent landscape feature everywhere in the Ozarks, but especially in the creeks and rivers. Very little sand or mud and lots and lots of rocks.

For a rockhound, this is paradise. From a strategic point of view, though, it’s troublesome. Pockets can only hold so many rocks and a person can only carry so many larger ones in hand before difficult choices have to be made.

I suppose if everyone carried out two pockets of rocks, we might eventually make a dent in the rock population… but I doubt it.

The rock too big for my pocket. On the other side there's a fossil, but I didn't see that until we got home with it. — The rock too big for my pocket. On the other side there’s a fossil, but I didn’t see that until we got home with it.

Rob has so much self restraint. But he finds the arrowheads and I don't. These are all the rocks he brought home. Except he carried my big one on the way out after I was tired. — Rob has so much self restraint. But he finds the arrowheads and I don’t. These are all the rocks he brought home. Except he carried my big one on the way out after I was tired.

The Rocks I Left Behind

I love the combination of rocks, water, and lighting.

That little spot near the center is a small fossil on the rock. It's under water so I couldn't get a better picture of it. Not sure what it is, some sort of sea creature from long ago. — That little spot near the center is a small fossil on the rock. It’s under water so I couldn’t get a better picture of it. Not sure what it is, some sort of sea creature from long ago.

More photos of the river

I hope you enjoyed this photo tour of a gravel stretch along Kings River.

We’ve had more non-resident visitors to our area than usual lately, and unfortunately some of them are disrespectful to the land.

Sadly, we’ve begun to see graffiti on the bridges and trash on the roadsides, something that rarely happened in years past. If you drive through remote and rural areas to see the beauty, or to get away from the hustle and bustle of town, please leave it as beautiful as you found it. The people and animals who live there thank you.

About the voice behind this blog, Madison Woods

Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark

Spread the Word
Share this post or tell a friend about my website. "From little acorns do mighty oaks grow." A little thing like sharing could start momentum! This is a free and tremendously powerful way to help.
Buy a Book
See all of my books here:
Nonfiction: Madison Woods Amazon Author's Page.
Fiction: Ima Erthwitch Amazon Author's Page.
Shop at our Nature Boutique
Unique gifts, books, and information for the nature lovers in your life. Adding more items as time allows: Wild Ozark Nature Boutique.
Become a Patron
A small monthly stipend of even $1 from enough supporters will help me continue the educational outreach and construction of habitat gardens. More information here: https://www.patreon.com/wildozark

Thank you for reading and/or participating in this Wild Ozark community! ~ Madison Woods

3 July 20173 July 2017

Tall Thimbleweed (Anemone virginiana)

Thimbleweed is a graceful, interesting native Ozark plant that grows along forest edges (also native to many other areas of the eastern United States). It is most often found in the dappled shade of liminal spaces between forest and clearing.

Before sending up flower stalks, the plant is only about a foot tall.

The long slender flower stalks add an extra foot or two in total height. The stalks sway in the breezes, giving it one of its other common names, “windflower”.

Thimbleweed (Anemone virginiana)

During the heat of July while out scouting for rocks – yes, rocks. I scout for plants, habitats AND rocks regularly. Anyway, I spied the bristly elongated cones of Thimbleweed. Of course I had to zip back up to the house because I generally don’t carry along the camera while dealing with rocks.

Thimbleweed flower cones — Once the petals fall, the cone resembles a thimble, which is how the plant gets its common name.

Last year in late January I noticed the seed fluff getting ready to take flight. Of course I gathered some of the seedheads. In the course of my gathering, many were naturally released onto the breeze to reseed elsewhere, so no danger of over harvesting seeds from this one.

Thimbleweed gone to Seed — Thimbleweed gone to seed

Thimbleweed is another one of my favorite plants (I have quite a few “favorites”, haha) of the Ozarks. I didn’t get the seeds I’d gathered sown this spring but I’ll try again next year. If successful, I’ll have some of these graceful beauties to offer at the market booth and nursery.

Here’s a few links to pages with more information about Thimbleweed.

It has a history of medicinal use, but I’d enjoy this plant just because of its unique appearance.

It stands out in a crowds of weedy growth and I like that about it. That’s what I’m trying to do as a writer and blogger in a sea of other writers and bloggers, so we have something in common.

It’s a plant that should be easy enough to propagate, so hopefully it will also one day grace the “Plants” category in our online store. I should be able to begin offering plants by mail in a few months.

More info

Photos

About the voice behind this blog, Madison Woods

Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark

Spread the Word
Share this post or tell a friend about my website. "From little acorns do mighty oaks grow." A little thing like sharing could start momentum! This is a free and tremendously powerful way to help.
Buy a Book
See all of my books here:
Nonfiction: Madison Woods Amazon Author's Page.
Fiction: Ima Erthwitch Amazon Author's Page.
Shop at our Nature Boutique
Unique gifts, books, and information for the nature lovers in your life. Adding more items as time allows: Wild Ozark Nature Boutique.
Become a Patron
A small monthly stipend of even $1 from enough supporters will help me continue the educational outreach and construction of habitat gardens. More information here: https://www.patreon.com/wildozark

Thank you for reading and/or participating in this Wild Ozark community! ~ Madison Woods

30 June 20171 July 2017

Don’t Pick the (Hemlock) Flowers

Take it from our grand-daughter. Don’t pick the hemlock flowers.

A couple of weeks ago, Karter’s bouquet caused painful blisters. She picked wildflowers on an outing with her mom and friends down by the river. All the grandkids always love to pick flowers when they come over here, too. But from now on, they know not to pick the hemlock flowers. I told them just to not pick any white flowers at all, just to be sure.

If you have never seen what poison hemlock or water hemlock sap can do to a person’s skin, it’s a good thing to know.

If you don’t know what these plants look like, that, too is a good thing to learn. Here’s one of the large poison hemlock flowers. I posted about this a couple of months ago.

There’s another, smaller, variety of hemlock (Cicuta maculata) that goes by the common name “water hemlock”. It looks similar to Queen Anne’s lace and often grows side by side with it. That’s the one Karter picked when she was picking the QAL down by King’s river.

The sap causes terrible blisters and sunlight magnifies the effect.

This is a pic of the smallest blister Karter had.

Blister caused from poison hemlock contact on 4-year old girl. — The smallest blister.

When the blister on her arm leaked fluid, it left a burn mark all the way down her forearm. My daughter didn’t know she had picked them, and didn’t realize every minute longer in the sun that day was making the situation worse.

By the time she broke out in the blisters, it was too late to just wash off the poison. Her babysitter put baking soda on the blisters when they sprang up the first day, and when Karter came to stay with me for the night, she said that helped it feel a lot better.

She stayed with me the next day and I kept her plastered with clay. It was mixed with goldenseal tincture and more baking soda. Karter said it was cold when I put it on there and that it felt nice.

Those lumps are the blisters under the clay, not clay lumps.

The clay helped to keep any of the oozing fluid from draining on adjacent skin. Here’s a pic of sweet little Karter wearing mud on her face.

I don’t know if the clay did much to help, but it did make it feel better and I don’t want another opportunity to compare not using it. The blisters are dried up and her face thankfully never got blisters, just burns. It doesn’t look like it’ll scar. The burn on her arm might, though. Maybe her fingers too.

About the voice behind this blog, Madison Woods

Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark

Spread the Word
Share this post or tell a friend about my website. "From little acorns do mighty oaks grow." A little thing like sharing could start momentum! This is a free and tremendously powerful way to help.
Buy a Book
See all of my books here:
Nonfiction: Madison Woods Amazon Author's Page.
Fiction: Ima Erthwitch Amazon Author's Page.
Shop at our Nature Boutique
Unique gifts, books, and information for the nature lovers in your life. Adding more items as time allows: Wild Ozark Nature Boutique.
Become a Patron
A small monthly stipend of even $1 from enough supporters will help me continue the educational outreach and construction of habitat gardens. More information here: https://www.patreon.com/wildozark

Thank you for reading and/or participating in this Wild Ozark community! ~ Madison Woods

17 June 201719 June 2017

Elderberry Flowers Oil Infusion

Elderberry at Wild Ozark — American elderberry, Sambucus canadensis

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 is toxic.

Step by Step

Pick the elderberry flowers. But don’t pick ALL of the flowers. Save some for the pollinators and some to make berries for you and the birds.

Choose only the fresh flowers, just opened and not turning brown yet. You’ll have to pull the branches down where you can reach them if the flowers are too high.

Cut them and let them drop into your bowl.

Don’t cut all of the flowers so there will be some left for the pollinators and for berries.

Be forewarned. You’ll get showered with bugs and old petals while you’re doing this.

Separate the petals from the stems.
Spread them out on a pan and let them sit for a few minutes outside so the bugs can vacate the premises. I put them on a sheet of kraft or parchment paper, on the pan.

When you’re ready to transfer them into the jar, you can use the paper like a funnel.

Spread them outside on a pan to let the bugs escape.

Add the flowers to a jar.
Cover with the oil of your choice and put a cap on the jar. I used macadamia nut because I had it on hand, and coconut oil because I didn’t have enough of the macadamia alone.

Elderflowers infusing in the sun. — Elderberry flowers infusing in the sun.

Let it sit in the sun to infuse all day. Every once in a while turn the jar to move the oil around.
Strain the next day into a fresh jar. Use a wooden spoon to press the flowers to get every last drop. I had more than would fit in the pint, so grabbed another smaller jar to capture the rest.

Label your treasure! This is something I am trying to do better at.

It’s one thing for me to know what’s in a jar or bag by smell, it’s another when I have to ask someone else to retrieve something for me, based upon my description of that smell or taste. If I’m not able to physically retrieve it myself because of injury or any other reason, I need to have them labeled so someone else can do it.

Case in point is when I wanted to slather on some healing balms after my ACL/meniscus tear and couldn’t walk down the stairs to get it myself. With nothing labeled, it would have been hard to ask Rob to bring what I needed.

Strain it again the next day. Use a fresh jar and transfer the label to it. After the tiny bit of moisture from the flowers has had time to gather itself together and form little bubbles or globs beneath the oil, you need to strain it again.

This time use a piece of paper towel and pull it through the funnel until you have most of it out of the bottom. Then cut off the paper towel so only an inch or so hangs beneath the funnel.

Then put two coffee filters opened in the funnel and pour the oil through the coffee filters first. it’ll be slow to go through so you might have to wait a bit before pouring again. Between the coffee filter and the paper towel, the little bit of moisture should get captured.

Your resulting oil should be crystal clear with a yellow tint and the scent should be lovely and light.

Let me know if you make this and how you used it. I’ll be using it in lip balms this time. When the tubes arrive next week, I’ll document the process and share that here in a blog post too, so stay tuned.

Happy Harvesting!

Email me if you’d like this post in PDF format. [email protected]

About the voice behind this blog, Madison Woods

Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark

Spread the Word
Share this post or tell a friend about my website. "From little acorns do mighty oaks grow." A little thing like sharing could start momentum! This is a free and tremendously powerful way to help.
Buy a Book
See all of my books here:
Nonfiction: Madison Woods Amazon Author's Page.
Fiction: Ima Erthwitch Amazon Author's Page.
Shop at our Nature Boutique
Unique gifts, books, and information for the nature lovers in your life. Adding more items as time allows: Wild Ozark Nature Boutique.
Become a Patron
A small monthly stipend of even $1 from enough supporters will help me continue the educational outreach and construction of habitat gardens. More information here: https://www.patreon.com/wildozark

Thank you for reading and/or participating in this Wild Ozark community! ~ Madison Woods

16 June 201716 June 2017

Armadillo Dilemma: To Kill or Not to Kill

So an armadillo moved into one of the ginseng nursery beds. It’s been a destructive force in the area since it arrived a couple of weeks ago.

What would you do? Kill the armadillo or let it live?

Why a dilemma to me?

First of all, I don’t like to kill anything unless we’re going to eat it. I’m not going to eat an armadillo.

But the armadillo is causing havoc. Wild Ozark grows wild-simulated American ginseng, which is indistinguishable from wild except on a genetic level.

The critter isn’t eating the ginseng, but the earthworms that live in the ginseng patch.

If I let this go and allow Nature to determine what happens next, the armadillo will continue to tear up ginseng rootlets as it hunts earthworms at night.

Armadillos are not native here. Neither are the earthworms. Am I native here? At least on a human-level, I think I am.

There is evidence that humans lived here many thousands of years ago. Not so for the cute little leprosy-hosting armored bandits. They migrated up from Texas, along with their road-runner friends.

At least the earthworms are beneficial and don’t harm the plant that is the basis of our livelihood.

But the armadillo is also eating grubs, which are the larva of an insect (Japanese beetle) that also isn’t native. And the grubs do eat the roots of plants possibly including the ginseng.

So it could be doing me a service even if it is very destructive in the process.

Don’t fear the Armadillo-Leprosy connection

As a side-note, there’s no need to worry about the leprosy unless you’re cuddling armadillos. You can’t catch the disease just by inhabiting the same piece of ground.

If you do tend to play with wild animals, however, I’d leave the armadillo off of your list of critters to cuddle. Just in case. At least leprosy can be treated nowadays.

But that’s about as comforting to me as knowing that I can get rabies shots if I’m bitten by a rabid animal. I’d just rather not.

Armadillo Decision

If I kill the armadillo, then I have interfered with Nature, right? If I don’t kill it, maybe it’ll help cut down on the Japanese beetle problem.

If I let the it live, then it will likely produce offspring, if it hasn’t already. Then those in turn will turn up even more of the nursery beds.

Even if it eats every last one of the grubs it’ll never run out of earthworms to devour. The grubs aren’t so much of an issue in our woods. The earthworms are doing a helpful job.

I feel that I myself am a natural part of Nature, and therefore have a right to defend territory I’ve marked as “mine”.

I’ll tell this to the invader later today. Then it can either leave or stay and face the consequences.

First I’ll try the live trap and relocation. If that doesn’t work, it’ll be on the hit list.

About the voice behind this blog, Madison Woods

Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark

Spread the Word
Share this post or tell a friend about my website. "From little acorns do mighty oaks grow." A little thing like sharing could start momentum! This is a free and tremendously powerful way to help.
Buy a Book
See all of my books here:
Nonfiction: Madison Woods Amazon Author's Page.
Fiction: Ima Erthwitch Amazon Author's Page.
Shop at our Nature Boutique
Unique gifts, books, and information for the nature lovers in your life. Adding more items as time allows: Wild Ozark Nature Boutique.
Become a Patron
A small monthly stipend of even $1 from enough supporters will help me continue the educational outreach and construction of habitat gardens. More information here: https://www.patreon.com/wildozark

Thank you for reading and/or participating in this Wild Ozark community! ~ Madison Woods

12 June 201728 June 2017

Shagbark Hickory Syrup

A package of the bark and some of the syrup from the bark of the shagbark hickory tree.

Shagbark Hickory Syrup

My husband comes up with some tasty ideas for things to make here on the Wild Ozark homestead. Last time it was home roasted coffee. That was so successful it’s now one of our homestead standards (except for right now because we’re out of home roast and have to use store bought).

This time his idea was shagbark hickory syrup.

Freshly gathered hickory nuts. Hard to beat the squirrels to the good ones!

Skeptical? I was too. This is how the bark of a shagbark hickory looks.

We got our starting recipe from Dave’s Cupboard. Rob was looking up recipes for hickory pie (like pecan pie but using hickories instead) and he stumbled on this site.

We gathered nuts the in fall with plans to make things from them when the weather turned.

We gathered bark, too, because the idea of making syrup from it sure did intrigue. Friday eve Rob made the syrup and, like the coffee, it was so delicious it’s going to become another must-have in our cupboard!

Our modified recipe for Shagbark Hickory Syrup

Rob modified the original recipe some to make it taste more like we like and you can do the same to suit your own tastes. Here’s a rough outline of how it’s done:

Gather bark from the tree
Clean bark by washing and scrubbing
Break bark into smaller pieces
Roast bark in the oven
Add bark to a pot and cover by several inches with water
Decoct the bark by cooking on very low heat (no boiling, no bubbles breaking)
Remove bark from water, strain liquid, return to pot
Decoct to concentrate to nice dark color
For each cup of liquid add 2 cups sugar
Cook until sugar is completely dissolved
Add a little cream of tartar to keep it from crystallizing
Pour into jars
Enjoy!

Here’s the link to the original recipe at Dave’s Cupboard if you want to try making some, too.

You can get a very small bag of bark for $10 with a free bottle of our syrup thrown in here. I’ll soon be adding some larger quantities of bark as a product to the site if you need more to make more than just a taste of the syrup.

About the voice behind this blog, Madison Woods

Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark

Spread the Word
Share this post or tell a friend about my website. "From little acorns do mighty oaks grow." A little thing like sharing could start momentum! This is a free and tremendously powerful way to help.
Buy a Book
See all of my books here:
Nonfiction: Madison Woods Amazon Author's Page.
Fiction: Ima Erthwitch Amazon Author's Page.
Shop at our Nature Boutique
Unique gifts, books, and information for the nature lovers in your life. Adding more items as time allows: Wild Ozark Nature Boutique.
Become a Patron
A small monthly stipend of even $1 from enough supporters will help me continue the educational outreach and construction of habitat gardens. More information here: https://www.patreon.com/wildozark

Thank you for reading and/or participating in this Wild Ozark community! ~ Madison Woods

8 June 2017

Little Phoebe Leaves the Nest

We host a nest of phoebes each year in the front porch rafters. I’m never sure if any of them survive the relentless predation of our cats, but each year I hope.

Yesterday one of the little babies flapped wings and stepped out of the nest.

Today it took flight. It made it all the way to a tree after a short stop on the porch rail.

Momma phoebe still brings it snacks and encouragement.

Phoebe fledgling getting fed by parent. — Getting a quick snack.

The nestmates do not look too impressed with their sibling’s feat.

Phoebe fledgling nest mates not too impressed. — Not too impressed.

About the voice behind this blog, Madison Woods

Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark

Spread the Word
Share this post or tell a friend about my website. "From little acorns do mighty oaks grow." A little thing like sharing could start momentum! This is a free and tremendously powerful way to help.
Buy a Book
See all of my books here:
Nonfiction: Madison Woods Amazon Author's Page.
Fiction: Ima Erthwitch Amazon Author's Page.
Shop at our Nature Boutique
Unique gifts, books, and information for the nature lovers in your life. Adding more items as time allows: Wild Ozark Nature Boutique.
Become a Patron
A small monthly stipend of even $1 from enough supporters will help me continue the educational outreach and construction of habitat gardens. More information here: https://www.patreon.com/wildozark

Thank you for reading and/or participating in this Wild Ozark community! ~ Madison Woods

7 June 20179 June 2017

Woodland Flowers of June at Wild Ozark

It’s been awhile since I’ve wandered with the camera, but this morning on my way to town I brought the camera just so I could capture some of my favorite woodland flowers blooming along the driveway and county road.

Wild hydrangea blooms all along the shady, moist places on our driveway. It's one of my favorite woodland flowers. — Wild hydrangea blooms all along the shady, moist places on our driveway. It’s one of my favorite woodland flowers.

The sparsely petaled wildflower in the photo above is the original version. It’s the wildflower that blooms alongside creeks and other moist shady places.

You might recognize the hybridized version more easily. I saw this one blooming today at Compton Gardens in Bentonville, AR when I went out there to check on our little ginseng sanctuary:

A hybridized version of the wild hydrangea. This one is blooming now at Compton Gardens in Bentonville, AR.

There were some other pretty little flowers blooming in the same area as the wild hydrangea. I’m not sure what these are and right now I don’t have time to look it up, but if you know, please leave a comment to tell me.

When I have time, if no one has volunteered the identity, lol, I’ll look it up and add the name. I’ve only noticed them in the shade, so I’m assuming they’re also woodland flowers and prefer the shady places.

unknown little flower- well, *I* don't know what it is, but if you do, please let me know! — unknown little flower- well, *I* don’t know what it is, but if you do, please let me know!

Every year I look for the jewelweed flowers, and every year I take photos. It doesn’t matter that I already have probably hundreds of them in the files. It’s the same with bloodroot, and all the other woodland flowers. I just can’t help it.

Orange spotted jewelweed. — Orange spotted jewelweed, another of my favorite woodland flowers.

Black cohosh is one I’m always watching and waiting for. This woodland flower is borne at the top of a stem stretching far above the main plant. Every year I try to get a good photo of the whole plant, and every year I fail. It’s just too tall from tip of the spire to the leaves at the bottom.

So this time I took three photos- one of the flower, one of the middle stem portion, and one of the base. Then I stitched them together in photoshop. It’s not perfect, and you can see in the top where the stems don’t meet just right.

But it gives a better look at the whole plant than any single photo of the whole plant I’ve managed to get so far.

Black cohosh from tip to toes, one of my favorite woodland flowers.

Once I managed to quit stopping to take photos I got on with the rest of my trip. Compton Gardens was the intended destination, but then The Artist Retreat Center in Bella Vista became a spontaneous destination since I was already in the neighborhood.

While at the ARC, I enjoyed a quick walkabout in the woodlands and visited with Sara while we cooked up a plan to have a public nature walk. If you’d be interested in attending such a thing – we’ll do a plant walk and nature journaling session, contact Sara through the ARC’s FB page and let her know. We haven’t settled on a date or participant cost yet, but public interest (or lack thereof) will help us figure it out.

Here’s a few of the plants we encountered there:

Wild geranium, one of the woodland flowers at the ARC in Bella Vista, AR. — Wild geranium

Anyway, there’s the photo summary of my day today, minus the boring grocery store and hardware shopping. Hope you enjoyed!

About the voice behind this blog, Madison Woods

Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark

Spread the Word
Share this post or tell a friend about my website. "From little acorns do mighty oaks grow." A little thing like sharing could start momentum! This is a free and tremendously powerful way to help.
Buy a Book
See all of my books here:
Nonfiction: Madison Woods Amazon Author's Page.
Fiction: Ima Erthwitch Amazon Author's Page.
Shop at our Nature Boutique
Unique gifts, books, and information for the nature lovers in your life. Adding more items as time allows: Wild Ozark Nature Boutique.
Become a Patron
A small monthly stipend of even $1 from enough supporters will help me continue the educational outreach and construction of habitat gardens. More information here: https://www.patreon.com/wildozark

Thank you for reading and/or participating in this Wild Ozark community! ~ Madison Woods

27 May 201728 May 2017

Downtown Rogers Farmers Market

Update to our market schedule: We’ll be at the Rogers, AR Downtown Farmer’s Market on Cherry Street today and the rest of the Saturday’s until October!

About the voice behind this blog, Madison Woods

Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark

Spread the Word
Share this post or tell a friend about my website. "From little acorns do mighty oaks grow." A little thing like sharing could start momentum! This is a free and tremendously powerful way to help.
Buy a Book
See all of my books here:
Nonfiction: Madison Woods Amazon Author's Page.
Fiction: Ima Erthwitch Amazon Author's Page.
Shop at our Nature Boutique
Unique gifts, books, and information for the nature lovers in your life. Adding more items as time allows: Wild Ozark Nature Boutique.
Become a Patron
A small monthly stipend of even $1 from enough supporters will help me continue the educational outreach and construction of habitat gardens. More information here: https://www.patreon.com/wildozark

Thank you for reading and/or participating in this Wild Ozark community! ~ Madison Woods

Imaginary Worlds … or Just the Unseen Worlds?

Projects Underway and Completed

Fairy Gardens

Fairy Garden Mushrooms

More Gallivanting

The Products that resulted from such Nature Immersion

Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark

Show some love and share!

Like this:

Where to Go

Rocks, Rocks, and More Rocks

Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark

Show some love and share!

Like this:

Thimbleweed (Anemone virginiana)

More info

Photos

Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark

Show some love and share!

Like this:

Take it from our grand-daughter. Don’t pick the hemlock flowers.

Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark

Show some love and share!

Like this:

Which Elderberry Flowers?

Step by Step

Happy Harvesting!

Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark

Show some love and share!

Like this:

Why a dilemma to me?

Don’t fear the Armadillo-Leprosy connection

Armadillo Decision

Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark

Show some love and share!

Like this:

Shagbark Hickory Syrup

Our modified recipe for Shagbark Hickory Syrup

Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark

Show some love and share!

Like this:

Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark

Show some love and share!

Like this:

Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark

Show some love and share!

Like this:

Ways You Can Support Wild Ozark

Show some love and share!

Like this: