State park trail entry point.

Journey Home

Tales from the pilgrimage.

Paul Deaton

  • What’s After Paris?

    Last week, Al Gore reflected on the ten years since he founded The Climate Reality Project. Following is an excerpt from an email he sent to the Climate Reality Leaders he trained. Ten years ago, I trained the first group of Climate Reality Leaders in my barn in Carthage, Tenn. I asked them to join… Read more

  • Sleep Came Easily

    Mounds of grass clippings blocked the John Deere’s steering as I mowed part of the lawn. The temperature was ideal, the sky clear, and I was alert enough to safely operate the equipment. To engage the steering I backed off and tried again. Grass clippings lie in wind rows where I mowed last night. Using… Read more

  • (EDITOR’S NOTE: Ed Fallon has long been a friend of Blog for Iowa. Here is his latest on the Bakken Oil Pipeline). Over the past two years landowners, farmers, tribes and environmentalists have done everything possible to stop the pipeline. We have pursued legal and legislative channels at great cost of time and money. We… Read more

  • Couple Hours to Myself

    Hope regular readers are well tolerating my posts from Blog for Iowa. They are different from what I normally write here, but then none of us is one-dimensional — I hope. I got off work at the orchard a couple hours early. It’s the beginning of the season and we had plenty of staff to… Read more

  • Hiroshima Day 2016

    The Washington, D.C. rumor mill is saying President Barack Obama may “do something” about nuclear weapons before the end of his term. Among ideas being discussed are early retirement of some of the non-deployed weapons in the arsenal; declaration of a no first use policy; or taking weapons off hair-trigger alert. The arms control community… Read more

  • (EDITOR’S NOTE: This post was written for On Our Own: Sustainability in a Turbulent World in 2013 and has been corrected and updated). The Cumulus radio station in Cedar Rapids was advertising how a person could earn up to $340 per month selling their plasma. It’s enough to make it worth a look to see… Read more

  • Republicans have taken the effort to suppress voting rights nationwide, including in Iowa. Iowa Republicans have done their part, if not as egregiously as in other states. They would do more to suppress voting rights if they controlled our bicameral legislature and the governorship. One of the first things Iowa Governor Terry Branstad did in… Read more

  • The conventions dispersed and the road home was ahead as Blog for Iowa writers engaged with Senator Chuck Grassley last Friday. Both Trish Nelson, in a chance meeting in Mount Pleasant, and Dave Bradley, at a town hall event in Columbus Junction, each encountered Grassley in eastern Iowa. Both stories are worth hearing and indicate… Read more

  • August Recess

    SOLON, Iowa — While Trish Nelson takes a well-deserved break, I will attempt to fill her shoes at Blog for Iowa. Delegates from the national party conventions dispersed last week and there is a lot to write about. Party and twitterverse aside, the telltale sign the election campaign shifted to a new phase was when… Read more

  • At the Apple Farm

    Between working opening day at the orchard and the kickoff of a friend’s political campaign I had two hours. Day six of a hundred straight work days was about as good as it gets: a reunion with friends from last season, a chance to catch up and engage again in this apple life. It’s not… Read more