Midwest Nature Quote of the Week

The creature called the turkey buzzard hovers over the land like a fallen angel. A great carrion bird with a naked, raddled head and plumage like an old shroud, watching for death with his amazing eyes.

Other birds and animals do not fear him, for unlike his raptor cousins he does not bring death; he only attends it. Somewhere along the antediluvian track he specialized, losing his raptorial talons and the killing power of his feet. When the buzzard lost his ability to kill and embraced a postmortem cuisine, he became the most despised of birds.

He is certainly the ugliest. Not just homely, but repugnant in an epic, classic way. He’s the Ugly Champ of America, hands down. His feathers are a rusty black edged with brown and his only color is in the naked atrocity of a head.

John Madson, Stories from Under the Sky.

This day in Iowa history

March 13, 1961

The Iowa General Assembly designated the oak as the state tree.

From The Iowa Nature Calendar by Jean C. Prior and James Sandrock, illustrated by Claudia McGehee.

Excerpt from Esther's Town

Scandinavian immigrants found Emmet winters more severe, the snow deeper, the wind more violent, the thunder and lightning more terrifying, the dew wetter, and the countryside more desolate than their native lands. They thought their old-world clothing of wool much warmer than American-made garments, largely of cotton. Moreover, they choked easily on a strange language. The name of the Des Moines River, close to their homes, was often pronounced by the newcomers from Scandinavia as "DisMines" River. Such words as "slough," "Sioux," and "Dubuque" were also twisters. My father often amused me when I was a boy by telling of the Norwegian who reported that on a trip across the state his wagon "got stuck in the slutch, halfway between SI-ox City and DUB-kwee."

Deemer Lee, Esther's Town.

Plant of the Week: Gumweed

Gumweed
Grindelia squarrosa (Pursh) Dunal.
Other common names: curly cup, rosinweed, sticky heads, tar weed
Grindelia: in honor of David Hieronymus Grindel, a Russian botanist at the beginning of the 19th century
Squarrosa: from the botanical term squarrose, meaning “having stiff spreading bracts,” in reference to the many bracts surrounding the base of each flower
Daisy family: Asteraceae (Compositae)

Photograph by Thomas Rosburg, Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie: The Upper Midwest, Second Edition

Excerpt from Esther's Town

A fireplace provided the heat and was the stove to bake bread and prepare the meals. No family intentionally allowed the fire to go out, even in the heat of summer, when a bed of coals was kept outdoors for use when needed for cooking. There were no matches. A trestle-like table and a cupboard supported on one wall were provinces of the housewife. On another wall a rifle, bullet pouch, and a powder horn hung from pegs. The luxury of kerosene lamps was to come later and electric light much later yet. A shallow dish of lard or other grease with a loosely twisted cotton rag in it for a wick provided illumination of a sort. More sophisticated and somewhat scarce were candles fashioned from a mold that was shared by the settlement--an improvement upon dishes of grease. But often an open fireplace provided the family's only lighting on winter evenings.


Deemer Lee, Esther's Town.

Midwest Nature Quote of the Week

We spent our tallgrass prairie with a prodigal hand, and it probably had to be that way, for these are the richest farm soils in the world. There were certain wilderness things that were fated to be spent almost to the vanishing point: bison in shortgrass plains, lobos and grizzlies in settled cattle country—and the vistas of true prairie.

But spending is one thing; bankruptcy is another.

John Madson, Out Home.

Book News: Esther's Town now available!

Esther's Town could be "Any Town, U.S.A.," for the equals of its cast of characters can be found in any small town. And here, as usual, was the town newspaper editor, the observing eye of all the foibles and peccadilloes that form any town's history. Remembering all the years with love and humor, editor Deemer Lee chronicled for the forty-four years he gathered and wrote news--forty-one of them as editor and publisher of his town's newspaper.

The excitement and fun begin with bootleggers, Chautauqua meetings, and an accomplished arsonist--who achieves in less than two months the impressive score of burning seven barns and one feed store, with an unsuccessful attempt on the Methodist church. Scandinavians move in, build crude shelters for the first winter, and add their special characteristics to the town. The Irish arrive and stamp their mark on the whole territory. The circus comes to town and entrances everyone with its ancient pageantry. The railroads come through and add a rowdy element to the population. The Depression begins and farms see 11-cent corn, 108-degree heat, and a twister. All these events, plus adventures with a massive meteorite and haunting river tragedies, create the drama and flow of small-town life, story by story, in a fascinating revelation of Americana.


Esther's Town, by Deemer Lee