Tales from the pilgrimage.
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It began with the first wave of tomato harvest. Because of the rain, a number of themburst their seams. I only knew to cut off the bad spots and store them in a stainless steel mixing bowl with a dinner plate as a lid. I put the bowl in the refrigerator overnight.
When I got to 6:30 p.m. I couldn’t account for how I spent my day. I literally could not remember what I did after returning from the grocer in the county seat. I tried reconstructing events. When did, I received phone calls, wrote emails, Ate food, and the like. It was no help… the afternoon […]
In January I began a new journal using an inexpensive, spiral-bound notebook. It is a place to write without public eyes. I need that. The pages have been slow to fill, yet when I do write there, I find a place to express something personal. I am glad to be back in that habit. I […]
The following was sent to U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, along with U.S. House Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks...
I used to think I could talk with Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks. That was in 2008 during her first run for Congress. I was on the county board of health and felt that gave me standing to discuss issues with the ophthalmologist. I found her during a break between two parades in Johnson County and asked […]
It is ironic that as many hot peppers as I use in our kitchen, my family has an aversion to capsaicin...
Sometimes things come together in a positive manner.
On the cusp of wilderness between 1833, when Iowa opened for settlement, and 1840, when the City of Solon was platted, people settled in the area. I seek to understand that time period, and it is hard to find reliable information about the views and culture of those immigrants. There are several later histories — […]
Monday was a challenge for several reasons. The weather forecast was rain just after sunrise, so I reviewed radar and decided to take my walk about 40 minutes before dawn. Light was beginning to creep over the landscape, when I encountered a fellow trail walker who brought their own illumination in the form of a […]
Tomatoes are coming in, along with eggplant, peppers, garden huckleberries, and green beans. It won’t be long before the rush to harvest is finished.
Some days it is a wonder how little time kitchen projects take — a lot less than fretting about aging cucumbers in the refrigerator drawer. A gardener doesn’t have time for fretting. When confronted with excess produce, one simply gets down the juicer, sorts cucumbers needing to be used, slices them in half and feeds […]
Editor’s Note: While researching another post, I found the National Park Service presented this report filed by Colonel Logan Henry Neal Salyer on July 6, 1863 from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The Fiftieth Virginia Infantry was comprised mainly of soldiers from Wise County, Virginia. The name Salyer was prominent during my father’s younger years there. “The regiment […]
