When Hometown Pride calls, say yes

October 23, 2026

I’ve heard this before, probably first from my mother, then later from friends or family. But I am identifying more and more with this. Sometimes there just isn’t enough of me. I don’t mean physically, I just feel mentally there isn’t enough brain power to keep all the plates spinning in the air. Especially as the harder I try, the more behind I get. I’ve always been a doer, and I know how to do many things, but no one can expand the hours in the days, no one can give us an eight day week, and months that should always be 32 days long, just don’t exist. It’s my ...

Road safety during harvest and year round

October 21, 2026

The world is moving too fast now, and no place do we see this more than on our roads. It’s time to slow down and be more aware, as farmers are moving farm equipment, trying to get their crops harvested before the weather takes another turn. But it’s also the time of the year, when the wildlife are running, as their shelters and food are disappearing as farmers hit their fields. It seems obvious that with fall, we should all be paying more attention to the roads and how the weather conditions impact not only people, like the farmers, but the animals that we share our world ...

Our kindest and tenderest emotion

October 19, 2026

Do you remember the day you left home to strike out on your own? I do. It was in October, 59 years ago. The oldest of six children from a large close-knit family, I was the first to cut the apron strings and move into a place of my own. It was time to leave. That spring my father, at the age of 40, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Dad ran the feed mill in town and it was obvious his working years would be cut short by the illness. One less mouth to feed, I figured, would help the situation. Equally obvious was the fact that Dad and I didn’t see eye-to-eye ...

Be grateful, be safe, thank those working around us

October 16, 2026

This week across Iowa, harvest is in full swing. After a long rainy September, our farmers can finally get into the fields. If you have been in Iowa a few years, you know what is involved. People are working long hours using large equipment. Our roads are having entirely different traffic patterns. Even the deer are more erratic as corn fields are leveled. Despite all of the September rain, there is even a risk of devastating field fires. I grew up on a family farm in Greene County. As soon as I could walk, my parents and big brothers were telling me to stay away from the bull ...

That is totally groovy and I dig it

October 14, 2026

Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s in small town Iowa had many benefits for which I am grateful. At the same time, when you leave home and get into the “real” world this set-up can leave you with a deficit of worldly knowledge. In the late ’50s I acquired a sweatshirt imprinted with slang and illustrations from the “beat generation.” Beatnik words like “cool,” “Daddy-O” “square,” and “fuzz” were common slang in the post-war beat counter-culture and 11-year-old me tried to comprehend them all. In my early ’60s teen years there was a new slang. ...

It’s sad to see them go

October 5, 2026

While driving around Iowa I have noted a continuing decline in the number of barns. Once the monarch of every Iowa farmstead, the barn has given way to more efficient metal buildings and, in some cases, no buildings at all. Things change. As with threshing machines, windmills, the outhouse and the horse-drawn wagon the wooden barn is rapidly becoming a part of our past. And that’s okay, I guess. Things change and we have to learn to change with them. Still, I feel some sorrow in the loss of the barn. So much of what made a farm a farm several decades ago centered on ...