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On the cusp of wilderness between 1833, when Iowa opened for settlement, and 1840, when the City of Solon was platted, people settled in the area. I seek to understand that time period, and it is hard to find reliable information about the views and culture of those immigrants. There are several later histories —… Read more
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Monday was a challenge for several reasons. The weather forecast was rain just after sunrise, so I reviewed radar and decided to take my walk about 40 minutes before dawn. Light was beginning to creep over the landscape, when I encountered a fellow trail walker who brought their own illumination in the form of a… Read more
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Tomatoes are coming in, along with eggplant, peppers, garden huckleberries, and green beans. It won’t be long before the rush to harvest is finished. Read more
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Some days it is a wonder how little time kitchen projects take — a lot less than fretting about aging cucumbers in the refrigerator drawer. A gardener doesn’t have time for fretting. When confronted with excess produce, one simply gets down the juicer, sorts cucumbers needing to be used, slices them in half and feeds… Read more
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Editor’s Note: While researching another post, I found the National Park Service presented this report filed by Colonel Logan Henry Neal Salyer on July 6, 1863 from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The Fiftieth Virginia Infantry was comprised mainly of soldiers from Wise County, Virginia. The name Salyer was prominent during my father’s younger years there. “The regiment… Read more
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I am reading Grace Paley’s collection of stories, Later the Same Day and was struck by how she moves the narratives without the types of digital anchors we often see in writing today. There are fewer invoked cultural objects and more force in narrative progression through her writing alone. Shouldn’t we always be interested in… Read more
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Editor’s Note: This was first posted at Blog for Iowa on Aug. 6, 2011 to note the anniversary of dropping the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. It is presented without editing. In Colorado last week, we bought a Sunday newspaper at a grocery store. The cashier commented, “I don’t read them anymore, they’re all… Read more
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My aunt was born on Sept. 9, 1941, 13 years after my father and ten years before me. Because of that, she seems a generation apart from her three brothers. Read more
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There is a lot of media buzz about nuclear reactors these days. Something essential is at stake and you may not be hearing about it in media. Read more
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The heat wave broke on Thursday, and it rained all day Friday. We need the rain. I was so confident of the forecast, I did not water the garden on Thursday. It turned out I was right. I wasn’t ready for peppers, yet here they are. I picked a good number of jalapenos, as well… Read more
Tales from the pilgrimage.
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