Excerpt from Esther's Town

Despite all the faults I can discover in the new, I like much of it. Life is more comfortable. I enjoy its conveniences. I could not have imagined as a boy that the average American would ever have it so deluxe. Dependable automobiles, household appliances, calculators, tools, typewriters, mechanical equipment, and furnishings abound. Homes, offices, stores, and industrial plants are well lighted, ventilated, heated, and cooled, and they are attractively appointed. Even though I still prefer fresh air over refrigerated air (which plugs my sinuses), I know this all sums up to progress.

What I am less sure of is that Americans are wisely using all their advantages and resources. I am encouraged that Estherville and the nation are developing awareness of the country's improvidence and wastefulness, but a happy mix of imposing environmental control and meeting needs of the economy has not been achieved.


Esther's Town by Deemer Lee

Midwest Nature Quote of the Week

True prairie was not a matter of location, but of composition. The lie of the land had nothing to do with whether it was prairie or not; if it was tallgrass prairie it included the tallgrass communities. Some prairie was flat, but much of it was rolling, and some was broken and rocky. But it needed tallgrasses if it was to qualify as true prairie—the most easterly of the great American grassland societies that sprawled between the Rockies and the eastern forests.

John Madson, Out Home

Midwest Nature Quote of the Week

The wild, untrammeled character of this landscape, its relatively large remaining prairies, and its unusual and rare species have attracted national attention in recent years. The Loess Hills have become the focus of scientific research, education, and conservation. Such efforts are not misplaced, any more than efforts to preserve Rembrandt’s paintings or Bach’s music would be misplaced. The Loess Hills can feed our spiritual hunger and our intellectual curiosity as richly as the highest products of human civilization would feed them. We are now coming to realize that maintenance of biological diversity and healthy natural systems, such as those in the Loess Hills, is necessary for the perpetuation of human life as well. Wisely used and managed, the Loess Hills can continue to satisfy the needs of both humans and native species indefinitely.

Cornelia F. Mutel, Fragile Giants: A Natural History of the Loess Hills

Midwest Nature Quote of the Week

In some of the quiet places, where leaf mold is heavy and old logs decay on the forest floor, lives the world's most savage mammal. It's a ravening little beast seldom seen by man; an irascible, twittering phantom that kills incessantly. Even the weasels and great cats can't match its talent for bloodletting, for each day it must devour its own weight in food or starve.

But the same nature that grants a genius for death always stops short of fatal perfection. This terrible hunter--the shrew--may weigh no more than a dime.

John Madon, Stories from Under the Sky

Butterfly of the Week: Peck's Skipper

Peck's Skipper

Polites peckius (Kirby 1837)
Status: Common breeding resident

Flight: Two distinct broods in Iowa. Adults are most commonly seen from late April to October. A single early October collection suggests that a partial third brood may fly in some years.

Distinguishing features: This small skipper has a distinctive patchwork of light yellow on the underside of the hind wing, unlike any other skipper in the state. Wingspan: 2.5 cm. (males), 2.7 cm. (females).

Distribution and habitat: Map 180. One of Iowa's most abundant skippers, found in a wide variety of human-altered and natural open habitats across the state. It is often seen along creeks and in permanent pastures.

Natural history: Peck's Skipper exhibits some degree of phenotypic variability in its markings. For instance, the hind-wing undersurfaces on some specimens do not have clear-cut spots but instead form a large yellow patch reminiscent of the Whirlabout (Polites vibex [Geyer 1832]). In fact, the few records of the Whirlabout from the state likely represent this form. While Peck's Skipper has been reared on a number of different grasses in the laboratory, it apparently commonly feeds on rice cut-grass and panic grass in nature.

Questions: What food plants are utilized by the larvae in Iowa? Is the variability in wing appearance (spot pattern, size, etc.) more controlled by genetic or by environmental factors? Are adults preferentially attracted to particular flower colors or shapes?

The Butterflies of Iowa, by Dennis W. Schlicht, John C. Downey, and Jeffrey C. Nekola

Interview with Leigh Adcock, Part 1

In developing the press’s new list in food studies, acquisitions editor Catherine Cocks is talking to people who are active in the field. Recently, she spoke with Leigh Adcock, the executive director of the Women, Food, and Agriculture Network, about her organization and its aims.

Catherine: According to your website, the Women, Food, and Agriculture Network exists to enable women in sustainable agriculture to talk with each other about the issues they face. Why do women need an organization of their own?

Leigh: As in other male-dominated fields, women in agriculture often prefer to network and learn from one another in an organization dedicated to them. Other women-in-ag networks exist for those engaged in more traditional commodity-based farming; WFAN is one of a small number of networks around the United States dedicated to women engaged in small-scale, diversified farming. We are the only one that engages in leadership development and policy advocacy on a national level.

Catherine: What are some of the issues that concern your members the most?

Leigh: Our last member survey showed that most women in sustainable ag are concerned about affordable health care for their families. That was the biggest barrier to success as small-scale farmers. Beyond that, their other concerns are similar to those of other farmers—access to land and capital.

Catherine: Since the informal founding of WFAN in 1994, the local/sustainable/organic food movement has grown exponentially. How has this growth affected women farmers and landowners?

Leigh: As the movement has grown, our membership has grown along with it. When I started as WFAN’s executive director in 2008, we had about 300 members, mostly in Iowa and neighboring states. Today we have nearly 3,000 members from all states and several other countries. Our operating budget has grown as well, as we expand our programming to meet the increased demand for networking, education, and leadership development opportunities for women in the movement. The healthy food and farming movement has been a women’s movement from the beginning—women operate the farms, buy the food, and staff the nonprofits that support the movement.

Sightings of summer tanagers are reliable at Waubonsie and Lacey-Keosauqua state parks in Fremont and Van Buren counties.


The Iowa Nature Calendar, by Jean C. Prior and James Sandrock

Butterfly of the Week: Tawny-edged Skipper

Tawny-Edged Skipper

Polites themistocles (Latrielle [1824])

Status: Common breeding resident. 

Flight: Essentially flies continuously from mid May through September. Probably three overlapping broods: adults are more frequently encountered from late May to early June, from late June to mid July, and from early August to early September. 

Distinguishing Features: This small brown skipper is very similar to the Crossline Skipper (Polites Origenes). It differs by having a small, sharp, sinuous sigma on the upper fore wing in males and an orange patch along the upper fore wing costa in females. Females also lack faint light spots on the upper hind wing. Adults of both sexes tend to be smaller than Crossline Skipper adults. Wingspan: about 2.8 cm. 

Distribution and Habitat: Map 184. Abundant throughout the state in a wide variety of native and human-modified open habitats. Although commonly found in native prairies, it is also often seen in old fields and city parks. 

Natural History: Larvae probably use panic grasses as their Iowa food plants, although other hosts have been reported from other states.

Questions: How far do adults travel from their site of emergence? Does this species avoid competition with other panic grass-eating skippers by feeding at different locations on the plant or at different times of the year? 

The Butterflies of Iowa, by Dennis W. Schlicht, John C. Downey, and Jeffrey C. Nekola

Iowa Nature Calendar

Upland sandpipers circle whinnying calls during courtship flights over grasslands.


The Iowa Nature Calendar, by Jean C. Prior and James Sandrock

Interview with Jenny Barker Devine: Part 2

Jenny Barker Devine, author of On Behalf of the Family Farm: Iowa Farm Women’s Activism since 1945, is an assistant professor of history at Illinois College.

4. Do you think women in farming today work in different circumstances than their mothers and grandmothers, or are there important continuities?

The most notable differences are in the technology and work options available to women. But even with all of these changes, women’s intense commitments to their families and to their land have remained the same. Over the decades, women’s primary concerns have been about building successful operations that can be handed down through the generations. In the past, policymakers have written this off as sentiment, but what women are really demanding is sustainability. One wonders what our current agricultural economy would look like if policymakers had listened to women decades ago.

5. Of all the individual stories you tell about women activists in the book, which one is your favorite?

All of the individual stories have some personal significance for me, but my favorites come from the oral histories by members of the National Farm Organization (NFO). Those women laid bare the triumphs and struggles of their lives and I am so grateful for their honesty. I often think of Luella Zmolek talking about how “it was a very sad day when the last cows went out of the yard.” All of her hopes and dreams were placed in those cows, and she gave them up for the NFO. It not only shows the depth of her commitment and the strength she possessed to see her ideals through, but I think we can all relate to those moments when life just isn’t what we thought it might be. 

Interview with Jenny Barker Devine: Part 1

Jenny Barker Devine, author of On Behalf of the Family Farm: Iowa Farm Women’s Activism since 1945, is an assistant professor of history at Illinois College.

1. How did you get interested in farm women’s political activism?

Looking back, it was a pretty unlikely topic for me. I actually grew up in town and my last relatives to live on farms were my great-grandmothers—both of whom left in the 1920s. My first exposure to the topic was as a college senior, when I interviewed ten farm women about their experiences during the Second World War. Those women, with a really strong self-identification as workers, inspired me to entirely rethink what I had learned about feminism in women’s history courses. They were more interesting to me than urban wage-earning women because on a farm you negotiate work roles and economic resources with a husband or other family members, rather than a boss. The social and family dynamics involved are still incredibly fascinating to me.

2. Why focus on the decades after 1945?

When I first started this research, there was a wonderful literature on activism before 1945 as well as activism during the farm crisis of the 1980s. I was curious to know what happened between those years. Scholars of the farm crisis asserted that women’s activism was something new, but I had this hunch that it was actually quite old. I wanted to know what happened as the dramatic changes related to mechanization were actually unfolding, and how those changes affected farm women and their perceptions of appropriate roles on the farm.

3. You argue that the Iowa farm women who participated in the Farm Bureau, the Farmers Union, the National Farm Organization, and the Porkettes in the 1950s and 1960s were feminists, even though they probably wouldn’t have called themselves that. Why do you think this is so?

In my line of work, as an academic who studies and teaches about gender issues, saying “I am a feminist” is an asset that enhances my credibility in scholarly circles. But this is not true everywhere, and even in 2013 identifying as a feminist carries certain risks. Depending on the crowd, you risk being ostracized as a disruptive, anti-male, anti-family radical. For women working to better conditions in the countryside, feminism wasn’t the primary issue. They saw improving women’s lives as one part of a much larger whole, so they drew from and developed feminist strategies, but standing up and publicly proclaiming one’s feminism was not a priority. This is not to say the women in these organizations wanted to identify but were too fearful. It simply wasn’t rhetorically necessary for them or their success as a group.

Be sure to see Robert & Linda Scarth's photography show at the Des Moines Botanical Center March 1-April 30. 

Hoverfly on fringed gentian at Becky's Fen

Fly agaric

Buckeye on New England aster

Jack-o'-lanterns

Deep Nature, photographers Robert & Linda Scarth

For more from Robert & Linda Scarth visit their website!