Welcome to Winding Pathways
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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Summer Reading
Take in some great summer reading! Cornelia (Connie) Mutel, Winding Pathway's good friend, sent us her most recent book, A Sugar Creek Chronicle: Observing Climate Change from a Midwestern Woodland. Her book weaves three themes together that encourage readers to enjoy...
Photovoltaics Power Winding Pathways
Just before the summer solstice Winding Pathway's new photovoltaic system began producing electricity. A few months ago Paulson Electric Company in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, did an analysis of our home and provided us with an airtight proposal. Thanks to tax credits from...
Lyme Disease and Ticks
We are proud of and fortunate that our yard is home to a wide array of fascinating plants and wildlife. But, last year Rich encountered a wild animal that he wishes he'd avoided. A deer tick found and bit him, although he never saw the tiny eight legged creature. A...
Keeping A Bird List
A joy of inviting beautiful wildlife to a yard is the periodic chance to see something new. That happened recently at Winding Pathways. We were astonished to spot a Black Poll warbler in our oaks. It was the first of this species we'd ever seen anywhere. Another...
Lightning Strike Addendum
Years ago a tremendous lightning bolt struck a white pine at the Indian Creek Nature Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The powerful blast tore a vertical strip of bark from nearly the tree's top to the ground. It was at least 25 feet long and about four inches wide....
Lightning Strike!
An enormous explosion brought us bolt upright in bed. 10:44 p.m. just after we’d fallen asleep on April 27th. . The blast was so powerful it knocked pictures off the wall shattering the frames and glass. A quick check revealed no other home damage and a few low...
Wrens Return to Iowa!
At the end of April house wrens returned to Iowa right on schedule. Every year they seem to appear like magic. Where they were absent just a day or two before the yard suddenly seems to be filled with wren antics and their effervescent voice. House wrens winter...
Binoculars are for Everyone
We recently noticed a tiny water drip above our dining room table. It looked like we had a roof leak. Instead of dragging the heavy ladder out to check the roof we grabbed a pair of binoculars that we always keep handy. From the yard the binoculars gave us a close up...
Magnolia in Labyrinth
A short reflection walking in the Laughing Labyrinth.
Obsidian A Fascinating Rock!
We’re honored to welcome visitors to our Winding Pathways website seeking information on obsidian. Many have probably learned of this rock through video games. Ironically Winding Pathways is located in Iowa, a state where natural deposits of obsidian aren’t found....
Keeping Deer Out
Few gardening experiences are as frustrating as discovering a patch of almost ready-to-bloom tulips or ready-to-pick green beans devoured by deer. Over the past couple of decades deer populations have skyrocketed across North America, making gardening challenging. We...
Free Range Kids
Walking to and from school in the 1950s and ‘60s yielded exercise, adventure, learning and fond memories.
Rich walked or bicycled about a mile to and from school down one road, along a woodsy path, across the Rockaway River, and around a wetland to school. On her way to Florida schools, Marion leaped over logs oblivious to the potential rattlesnakes that could have been sunning.
Spring Symphony
After an unusually mild winter we were hardly surprised by the early onset of spring’s symphony. At Winding Pathways in Iowa it usually starts on clear cold February days when male cardinals begin their beeker beeker beeker call. They were close to their normal...
Cosmetologists, Mammoths and the Osage Orange
Imagine an enormous elephant in the back yard, its huge tusks smashing a tree while it gobbles leaves, branches, and fruits. It once happened! Mastodons, mammoths, camels, horses, and sloths were once native Iowa wild animals before they slipped into extinction some...
Backyard Beekeeping
Interest in beekeeping is heading toward the stratosphere. Although the number of bee colonies may be declining more and more are showing up in suburban and urban yards.
We kept bees for years and enjoyed watching them visit garden flowers. Their honey was delicious.
Indoor Vegetable Gardening
Last fall, approaching my three-quarters of a century mark in age, I decided in my gardening life to experiment on a different level with growing vegetables. Winter was quickly on its way with its sharp spears of cold. Some seedlings, specifically beets, carrots and lettuce, would meet their untimely demise if I didn’t intervene.