State park trail entry point.

Journey Home

Tales from the pilgrimage.

worklife

  • Three Cup Day

    Today will require an extra cup of coffee. This week is the biannual vendor show at the home, farm and auto supply store. We’ll be short staffed today and tomorrow while associates from Iowa and Wisconsin travel to Dubuque to attend seminars and discuss products and process with our vendors. If it’s like last year,… Read more

  • Low Wage Grind

    A co-worker asked if I needed to borrow another water bath canner to survive the season. This year’s abundance of vegetables has been stunning. There is a lot to preserve including apples, pears, celery, peppers and a couple dozen pints of tomatoes. I said no. By the time I get home from a shift — either… Read more

  • Winds of Change

    Just as the election of Barack Obama encouraged me to leave a 25-year career in transportation and logistics, the presidency of Donald J. Trump is stirring winds of change. Where they will take our small family is uncertain. Each year presents its challenges and successes. We’ve been able to hold on financially — by the… Read more

  • Rush to Winter

    Today begins a long stretch of work shifts on weekdays at the home, farm and auto supply store, and on weekends at the apple orchard — 96 days in a row. I’m not ready but both jobs help pay bills. Work I have been doing on weekends will get shoved to weeknights and early morning. I’ve… Read more

  • Home Stretch

    The campaign to survive after a transportation career turned the bend and is heading into the home stretch. Economic realities we face as a family continue to exist, but the effort to cope — including 12 lowly paid jobs since 2012 — will find some relief as I reach full retirement age in December and with… Read more

  • Seedling Season Ends

    Yesterday I made the last 62 trays of soil blocks at Sundog Farm (Local Harvest CSA) and Wild Woods Farm. Totaling 946 trays or roughly 110,000 individual seedling soil blocks, I made more than in any previous season. Adding Wild Woods Farm this year is the reason for an increase in this specialized work. Not… Read more

  • Winkling the Week

    Sunday afternoon I felt a bit dizzy. I assumed it was the long day, split between two farms, getting tired after making 57 trays of soil blocks. As I placed the last tray of 72 blocks on the table for cucumber seeding, I washed my tools and headed for the car. Something was up. It… Read more

  • Saturday at Home

    After a Saint Patrick’s Day meetup with friends in Iowa City I drove home, parked my car in the garage and haven’t moved it since. It was too cold for outside work on Saturday so I stayed in, did laundry, cleaned the bird feeder, wrote, read, and cooked dinner of bean soup, Carnival squash and… Read more

  • Kansas Wildfires

    Yesterday I loaded pallets of fence posts, barbed wire and bottled water on a trailer pulled by two farmers in a pickup truck. They were bound for Kansas where wildfires fed by wind gusting at 70 m.p.h. burned 650,000 acres and killed thousands of cattle during calving season. Tens of thousands of miles of fence… Read more

  • Season’s New Hope

    My first work day at Local Harvest CSA, was spent organizing for the season and soil blocking for the first seedlings. I made two trays for myself as part of the barter deal with the farmer. In one I seeded basil, Conquistador celery and Tall Utah celery. In the other was four kinds of kale:… Read more