A new sister-in-law!

The family is growing... There was a beautiful wedding this weekend!

Congrats, R and A! You'll make a great team!

Fall is Fleeting

These colors are completely unretouched. This place is stunning, if one only takes time to appreciate it!



Here's a picture to compare to my blogger profile shot, taken in the same place as last year. Along with growing garden crops and chickens, I've been growing hair this year. It's threatening to overtake me (eeek!) so I'm thinking of a radical change next week. Will probably donate it- anyone know if Locks of Love is "for real"?


















And even the cats are all business this fall, enjoying as much outside time as possible before the snow flies. Don't mess with Lutsen: she's on a mission!

Decorah Decorum

I love that title (say it out loud), and I don’t think it’s too far off the truth. There was a certain “decorum” in Decorah, Iowa, but not in the overtly Lutheran way I expected. It’s the home of Luther College, but we didn’t even visit campus. I decided, however, that if I ever had an alternate life as a professor or Lutheran college student, I’d consider Decorah!

We made Decorah a destination in the trip back from Nebraska, mostly because of the Seed Saver’s Heritage Farm. (Blogger won't load my pictures again, so gaze at this site's scenery) We found that lovely spot, and spent almost a full day exploring their trails and fields and browsing books and seeds in their timber-framed visitor center. They have an impressive mission, preserving old varieties of seeds to preserve genetic diversity. They have the farm in Iowa, but encourage partnerships among members, sharing their own varieties.

Their compost pile was impressive: growing product for seeds (not the actual produce) means lots of BIG cucumber and melon “shells” with their seeds carefully scooped out, jumbled together into a huge pile. The heritage orchard was similarly mind-boggling: hundreds of trees, grown for the trees themselves (for grafting), not the actual apples. We did sample a few apples (WF’s a true apple variety buff) and tried to note their names, hoping to someday propagate some old varieties in our “orchard.” We also wandered their small disjunct population of white-pines: it was like being back in Northern MN: weird.

We looked in the window here, but didn't realize till later that there really IS still a hatchery in this spot: An interesting marketing twist, no?

And any town with a charming co-op like the Oneota Co-op gets a gold star in my mental “good towns to live in” list. It was small, but it managed to offer some great stuff I’ve not seen elsewhere and a cozy little deli (using real dishes, something our new big city co-op hasn’t managed).

We were co-op tourists quite a few places along the trip: Lincoln, Nebraska, Ames, IA, and Viroqua, WI: all fine places if you ever find yourself passing through. I love glimpsing the little pockets of lefty culture in Midwest towns: it gives me faith that there ARE good people in that place, kin of a certain type. What else do you take as a sign of “kin” in a new town?

F.A.S.T. Foray

Who knew so many of you were such fiberglass aficionados?

I really must tell you about our visit to the Mecca of giant critters, the fantasy island of fiberglass fun. I have always been a big (heh) fan of these monstrosities, and once wrote a review for the Minnesota Marvels book.

In the book, Dregni highlights the origin of many of these roadside jewels, but I had forgotten about it until we were paging through some Sparta, WI tourist info. We immediately sidetracked to seek out this great place. WF was not yet convinced of the value of this search, and I was afraid we tourists would just be a nuisance (the listing in the brochure was under “shopping”- just in case you wanted to bring back a giant fish from your travels).

But hark! We were greeted with this sign:


I thought it would be a giant fiberglass critter heaven. But alas, most of the fancy, painted items are custom made and sent out to the buyers right away. The yard consisted mostly of other-wordly-looking shells and molds, mostly brown, grey and disintegrating. A bit spooky, actually. A distinct (and toxic?) odor of fiberglass resin emanated from the buildings.


But it was still a roadtrip highlight in rural WI! Local businesses and even homes showed a higher than normal incidence of giant fiberglass objects in their yards (hence the rooster in the previous post) than the standard American average incidence, so there WAS that added benefit. If you can’t make it to the factory, definitely check out the F.A.S.T. catalog online: Wow!

2 years!

Thanks, WF, for 2 great married years; here’s to many, many more!

(The rings, the flowers and the partnership are ALL still going strong, even if a little less “new” around the edges. That’s the benefit of sturdy, locally grown or produced “goods”!)

Signs, signs

We're back! I've fallen headlong back into work with a huge writing/editing day, so a sampling of signs will have to suffice for now:


To follow up on the last post, Nebraska Husker mania: (I wonder if anyone is gleeful about the other political implications of these banners?)

Football is taken similarly seriously in rural Iowa. Here, a whole small town got into the creative action with homecoming signs all around town (the home team was playing the Bison, apparently). Others included: "Stamp out the Bison" (on Post Office window) and "Make Change out of the Bison!" (on the bank window)- Heh. But this was our favorite, on a convenience store window, of course.

Speaking of convenience stores/gas stations, does this name strike anyone else as vaguely inappropriate? Ahem.



One rest area in Iowa surprised us by having artwork depicting modern farming practices (biotech mural in the restroom), including a lament about erosion. Reading Wendell Berry aloud in the car made the content more poignant:



And don't worry, WF got away from the giant, hungry rooster. Whew!




A good trip overall, with lots of fine, wholesome rural adventure. It's also good to be back; more later!