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Nature Sketching – Day 17 “Grape Fern and Fall Leaves”

Wild Ozark Nature Sketching Day 17- "Grape Fern and Fall Leaves"
Wild Ozark Nature Sketching Day 17- “Grape Fern and Fall Leaves”

It gets hard to find a subject to draw that doesn’t include dead leaves at this time of year.

I at first wanted to draw this pretty beech leaf nestled on a darker sycamore leaf, but decided against it in favor of the grape fern instead.

I never did find the creature causing the noise under the leaves. Perhaps it was a sound I could only hear with my back turned, because every time I turned around to try and see it, the noise would stop. As soon as I returned to sketching, the sound returned.

When I was finished with my drawing I did spend some time near the ground trying to find the source of the sound, but it was for naught. I never did see anything, and it never would do whatever it was doing while I was looking.

Perhaps it was only my imagination? I’ve found caterpillars chewing my tomato leaves by sitting nearby and listening until I’d narrowed down the location. I’ve found springs by following drip noises as water made its way down mountainsides.

I don’t think I imagined it. I just didn’t spend enough time investigating.


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

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program; an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

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

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Nature Sketching Day 15 – American Ginseng in early October

I went out in search of beech drops for today’s sketch. I didn’t find any. On my way up the path toward the pond, though, I found something exciting.

Today’s nature sketch features American ginseng in early October. The leaves are yellowing now, the fruits have all fallen, and winter is coming.

ginseng in october
Ginseng in October

This American ginseng plant is growing in an unexpected spot. It is not one I planted, and I would have never thought to look for wild ginseng in this location.

This makes it all the more exciting. It’s growing on the downhill side of a cedar deadfall, among poison ivy and one pawpaw tree sprout along with some other scrappy little saplings of unidentified sorts. The trees overhead are dogwood, elm, and cedar. Besides the pawpaw, the only other typical companion plant I saw was a grape fern.

I would have to describe the site as a recovering location. It looks as if it was on the outskirts of dozer damage when the logging road was used last, which had to have been fifteen years ago. We only use it now for the 4-wheeler, but it’s still wide enough for a small pickup to fit through.

Aside from the ginseng I found withering remains of twayblade orchid and a Lady’s Tresses orchid, also on the decline.

If you are interested in more information about American ginseng, we have a lot of articles at our home site.


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

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program; an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

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

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Nature Sketching Day 14

At this time of year it’s even harder than usual for me to make a quick trip to town and back. If I bring my camera with me, it’s a guaranteed impossibility.

Today I had to stop for photos of the Felkins Creek valley as the sun was setting.

Wild Ozark Nature Sketching Day 14-Evening Light on Hillsides
Nature Sketching Day 14-Evening Light on Hillsides

 

Thank you for visiting and sharing this moment in space and time with me 🙂


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

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program; an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

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

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Nature Sketching Day 11 – Leaf on Water

My son says my nature sketching looks like a turkey feather. It is not. It is a leaf half submerged in the water, haha. Can’t have the world at large making the same mistake.

Wild Ozark Nature Journal Day 11- Leaf on Water
Nature Journal Day 11- Leaf on Water

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

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program; an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

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

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Nature Sketching Day 10

Eventually I’d like to be able to draw a large tree well enough to create our Wild Ozark logo. Today was the first attempt. It was a bit overwhelming as I looked at all the leaves and tried to figure out how I could possibly include them all.

I believe this is a post oak, one of the white oak varieties. The acorn from yesterday’s nature journal entry is from this tree. Not all of the acorns are that black-purple color, though, and I don’t know what causes the variation.

Wild Ozark Nature Journal Day 10 - Old Post Oak
Wild Ozark Nature Journal Day 10 – Old Post Oak

Welcome to my nature journal! One of my sincerest hopes is that if you’ve stumbled across this website, that you’ll visit every day to see what little aspect of nature has found its way onto my page.

Thank you for visiting and sharing this moment in space and time with me 🙂


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

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program; an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

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

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Nature Sketching Day 9

Wild Ozark Nature Journal Day 9- Rolled Grape Leaves
Wild Ozark Nature Journal Day 9- Rolled Grape Leaves

I didn’t mention it in the journal entry because I ran out of room, but I also saw a wasp carrying a mantis head. I’m assuming he won that trophy in a battle, but he could have also collected it from the ground I suppose.

On another occasion I watched a red wasp cut away a section of rolled leaf like the one pictured. After extracting the caterpillar from his little hidey hole, he carried it off.

So as much as I dislike being stung or bitten by certain insects, they do serve a large role in the balance of life here at Wild Ozark and everywhere. I try to keep that in mind.

Welcome to my nature journal! One of my sincerest hopes is that if you’ve stumbled across this website, that you’ll visit every day to see what little aspect of nature has found its way onto my page.

Thank you for visiting and sharing this moment in space and time with me 🙂


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

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program; an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

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

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Nature Sketching Day 7

Today’s sketch was a practice in focus. So many distractions tried to throw me off task. The first problem was the dogs. For the past six days they’ve listened and stayed home when I headed out. Today was just too much for them and they caught up with me just as I was finding my subject. So the whole time I had to maintain some attention on them to keep them from coming too close. Turbo managed to sneak up and nearly laid right on top of the fern at one point.

Wild Ozark Nature Journal Day 7 - Christmas Fern
Wild Ozark Nature Journal Day 7 – Christmas Fern

Welcome to my nature journal! One of my sincerest hopes is that if you’ve stumbled across this website, that you’ll visit every day to see what little aspect of nature has found its way onto my page.

Thank you for visiting and sharing this moment in space and time with me 🙂


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

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program; an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

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

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Nature Sketching Day 6 – “Lobelia Inflata”

Today I went out on foot, backpack loaded with my towel and cushion to sit on, sketch journal, and pencils to do my daily entry for the Wild Ozark Nature Journal.

Once I found my subject, this aging Lobelia inflata plant, I settled down to tune in with my surroundings. Turned out that the towel and cushion weren’t very effective at masking the fist sized rocks underneath. So after some adjustments I was able to get semi-comfortable.

Unlike the past drawings (except the first one), where I tried to minimize the background, this one I chose almost specifically *because* of the rocks stacked behind the lobelia plant. The first was also chosen because of the rock.

I love rocks. I love collecting them, especially the ones with fossils embedded. I also like sitting on them. When I find a rock to sit on, I like to just listen. When you sit alone in nature you’ll hear a lot of sounds. At first you’ll hear the loudest, closest, or most prevalent sounds. But then you’ll start to notice the other more subtle ones that are usually overlooked by people in a hurry on on a mission to get from point a to point b.

A creek trickling in the distance, maybe just a drip-drip-drip from a slight elevation drop before the water goes back beneath the sands and rocks during a dry spell.

Insects drone and buzz, sometimes annoyingly close to ears and eyes. Sometimes it is even more annoying when the buzz suddenly stops, because usually that means it has landed…on me.

Squirrels overcome their irritation and alarm chirps and resume normal chatter and chirrs. I know that’s not a real word – WordPress has informed me of that with the red underline. However, I don’t know how else to describe that particular utterance they make.

Anyway, I liked the rocks stacked behind the lobelia plant and so today I decided to make them more real and less just shadows behind the subject.

It takes more time to do it that way, but today I had more than the allotted hour to make my entry. As the light faded and the details of the leaves became harder to differentiate, I had to speed up and get it finished.

Wild Ozark Journal Day 6- Lobelia inflata
Wild Ozark Journal Day 6- Lobelia inflata

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

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program; an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

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

Posted on

Nature Sketching Day 5

 

It’s amazing how quickly an hour flies by when you are trying unsuccessfully to figure out how to do something. I finally just put the pencils to the page and decided to take what I got for today’s nature journal entry.

I see now things I could have done differently, but the idea behind this whole project is to chronicle my progress. When I look back at the end of the year, I want to see improvement – hopefully!

Wild Ozark Journal Day 5 - Little Orange Mushroom
Wild Ozark Journal Day 5 – Little Orange Mushroom

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

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program; an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

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

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Nature Sketching Day 4

This one will be much easier, I thought as I settled on a subject for today’s entry. It is all mostly green, with hardly any other colors to try and incorporate.  Right. Well, it’s hard to make a single color look like more than a coloring book page. So my quest for “easy” ended with being proven wrong yet again.

The difficulty in getting texture and form into a single color gives me grave concerns about the future snow scenes. White is all… white. Right? I hope before I’m faced with a page of white to give personality too that I learn to work with shadow and light a bit more.

The entry for today was carried out while perched on a fairly irregular rock in the middle of a muddy creek bed. My butt was numb five minutes in. Something kept biting my toes, too, but I ignored the numb butt and the stinging toes until I had at least the outline drawn and some sort of plan in place.

Turned out to be ants on my toes, taking offense to my intrusion. The numb butt lasted the duration of my stay. I figured that would be preferable to a wet and muddy one, which is what would have happened if I’d just sat on the ground instead.

Wild Ozark Nature Journal- Ground Cherry by the Creek
Wild Ozark Nature Journal- Ground Cherry by the Creek

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

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program; an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

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