Earth Day At 50 With Me: Haiku – Haibun Memory

Earth Day’s 50! Then:/ I’m in Milwaukee’s River./ Now: I’ll plant Earth’s fields. Earth Day is 50! A half century ago I stood in the Milwaukee River in Estabrook Park near my home in Glendale, Wisconsin, loudly singing with other youth and cleaning out the old tires, mattress springs, tin cans and other junk that […]

Finding Wonderful Hidden Wildflowers: Haiku

It is often so/ that when we clear dross and junk,/ we find wonderful. Using a loping shears to clear underbrush and non-native privet from around the hardwood trees in my back yard reveals an undergrowth of black-eyed susans and other hidden wildflowers. Sometimes you have to burn the grasses and weeds from large fields, […]

orange and black butterfly on woodland sunflower, NW Georgia, July 2018, part of a natural yard

Wildflowers and Butterfly Beauty: Three For The Price Of One

Wildflowers and butterfly beauty is one of the best parts of rural life. As people go back to the woods or the fields, focusing on being self-sustaining and off-the-grid, one of the first questions they ask is: “What should I DO?” One of the most vital things I tell them is what they should NOT […]

Trouble In Paradise — Dealing With Pests And Problems

Every place has pests and problems to deal with, its own Trouble In Paradise. Wisconsin mosquitos and cold, Arizona’s oppressive heat and poisonous bugs and snakes, Washington state’s rain and mold and rain and dampness, Georgia’s bugs and heat and humidity and CHIGGERS! As part of the #LightTheWorldNow #BuildHisKingdom project, I was thinking about the […]

The Wildflower Fire Experiment + What Is This Flower?

A couple of months ago, I was mulling over what to do with the long grasses which are covering the north part of my property. I know some of the clumps are non-native and invasive species, while the other grasses seemed to be thatched pretty heavily, not allowing anything to grow. In addition, these grasses […]

Wildflower Planting Coast-to-Coast

Gene Jr. lives in the Pacific Northwest, near Seattle, WA. Fly diagonally across the USA to where Dave lives in Northwest Georgia. Yet, thousands of miles apart, Nature’s Guys were planting wildflowers on the same day! I called Gene to get some more information. Here’s a summary of our wildflower discussion: Dave: What type of […]