Friday, January 13, 2012

Looking for a good art exhibit to visit?

Come see Bill Witt's photography from Enchanted by Prairie at the Waldemar A. Schmidt Art Gallery located on the ground floor of the Fine Arts Center at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa.

Hours: 9 a.m. - 7 p.m. daily

Comfort Foods of Iowa

A Recipe for a Day
"Take a little dash of water, cold,
     And a little leaven of prayer,
And a little bit of sunshine gold,
     Dissolved in the morning air.

Add to your meal some merriment
     And a thought of Kith and kin,
And then as your prime ingredient,
     A plenty of work thrown in.

But spice it all with the essence of love
     And a little whiff of play,
Let a wise old Book and a glance above
     Complete the well-made day."


Baked Ham
Mrs. Erma Geist, Joliet, III


Select a thick ham weighing fourteen pounds, scrape trim, cover with fresh, cold water, let soak over night. In the morning, drain and dry; prepare a thick dough by mixing flour and water together, roll out to one-half inch thickness and enclose ham in it, wet the edges and press them firmly together; place ham in a large dripping pan and bake slowly in a moderate oven from four to five hours, remove from oven, break off shell and skin, trim off any ragged portions, stick fat side with whole cloves in diagonal rows an inch apart, grate the crumbs of white bread thickly over this surface and return ham to oven until a golden brown. Ham cooked in this way is cooked in its own juices and is very delicious and no waste.


David Schoonover, editor, P.E.O Cook Book

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Winter Bird




Townsend's Solitaire
Myadestes townsendi

On January 18, 2004, John Hockema found a Townsend's solitaire in a red cedar, a common species of juniper, about ten miles from my home. Although I had looked for solitaires before, I had never found one. I hoped my luck was about to change, but my search that day was unsuccessful. The next day Craig Mandel led a field trip to Fillmore County for his Twin Cities-area Audubon Club. I met them at the solitaire place, but in spite of looking carefully and playing a recording of the bird's clear, single-note call, we were unable to find this thrush from the western states and western Canada that sometimes winters as far east as the Upper Midwest, where it maintains a solitary territory in the middle of a supply of cedar berries. Some compensation for our lack of success came with the sightings of a southern shrike and overwintering flickers and robins on the way to my woods, where the group leader found further compensation in watching a tufted titmouse at our feeders, a species that is uncommon elsewhere in Minnesota.

During breeding season, the solitaire's diet expands to include worms, spiders, and insects that it finds in coniferous mountain forests. It hunts by hovering to pick insects and berries from foliage, pouncing on prey that it finds on the ground, and flying out from a perch to catch prey in the air. Although the bird is similar to flycatchers in its slender shape, long tail, and method of catching insects, the complex, warbling songs that the male sings to defend his territory prove his membership in the thrush family.

Solitaires use pine needles, bark strips, twigs, and grass to construct a shallow cup nest in a dirt bank, in the crevice of a cliff, under tree roots, or under another overhanging shelter. Ornithologists know that the clutch size is usually three to five, that the incubation period is about eleven days, and that both parents feed their babies, which have spotted breasts like the other young thrushes, but they know little else of this bird's breeding biology. In his 1926 book Birds of Western Canada, P. A. Taverner wrote, "A bird typical of the high mountain solitudes, well named Solitaire. Its unobtrusive dull grey golor, glorious song, and the romantic habitat and names surround it with an air of mystery that piques the imagination."

I suspect that solitaires have occasionally wintered among our cedar trees in years when they have wandered east due to poor supplies of berries in their usual winter range. My inability to find one may be due to lack of luck or diligence, so I will continue to look for this bird, which my friends say is not so difficult to find, especially since the species is doing well and faces few significant threats.

Nancy Overcott, illustrations by Dana Gardner, Fifty Uncommon Birds of the Upper Midwest

Monday, January 9, 2012

Bachelor Bess Winter Story

January 6, 1913 / Fort Pierre, South Dakota
To Mrs. M. M. Corey


Had a nice ride out Sunday evening—plenty of [buffalo] robes and a dandy team. though of course it was cold. It was 18 below Sunday morning and it will beat that a long way tomorrow morning. I am at the school house—have a big fire and have moved my desk down by it. It is not only cold but there is an ugly southeast wind that seems to cut clear through. The weather has been clear ever since I got here except Friday which was blustery. And this is the first windy day. I'm not going home till dark—I might as well save that much coal.

Must close—Lovingly yours
Bachelor Bess

Bachelor Bess: The Homesteading Letters of Elizabeth Corey, 1909-1919 edited by Philip L. Gerber