August Reading List

A Long Petal Of The Sea by Isabel Allende is an epic novel spanning decades, from the Civil War in Spain to refugees escaping to Chile. Poet Pablo Neruda's words introduce each new section and his life is an element of the storyline. The title is from one of his poems describing his homeland, Chile, as a long petal of sea and wine and snow.

Redhead by the Side of the Road is Anne Tyler's latest. As usual, her novels are about ordinary people and happenings that she makes fascinating.

Stars Over Clear Lake is Loretta Ellsworth's first novel for adults after writing four young adult novels. I really enjoyed reading this book set in the Clear Lake/Mason City area with the Surf Ballroom as a featured backdrop. (Her parents met at the Surf Ballroom.) It was also interesting learning about the WWII German prisoners of war camp at Algona which housed an average of 3,261 POW's from April 1944 to February 1946.

The Grave Tattoo by Val McDermid is a psychological thriller in which present day murder has its roots in the 18th Century and the mutiny on the HMS Bounty.  I discovered this author when binging on the six seasons of the British crime drama Wire In The Blood and realizing it was based on McDermid's books. Naturally I had to read one. And one is all my library has. I would definitely read more of this author's works.

Murder On Pleasant Avenue by Victoria Thompson is #23  in her Gaslight Mystery Series. I always enjoy reading these quick little mysteries set in NYC around the turn of the 20th Century. Thompson always includes some history about the time and place and I have a vested interest in what happens with her main characters.

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout wasn't as good as Olive Kitterage, but I still enjoyed it.
A quote from the book: "And it came to him then that it should never be taken lightly, the essential lonliness of people, that the choices they made to keep themselves from that gaping darkness were choices that required respect."

The Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich's latest novel is based on her Grandfather's life. Erdrich is such a good writer and I feel as though I gain a better appreciation of the Native Americans of the upper Midwest.

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng is such a wonderful book. I want to read more by this author but my local library only has this title of hers. My other library (old hometown) has another one of her titles. I see a trip there in the near future.

American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins is a 2020 Oprah's Book Club selection. There was a time I tried to read every book chosen by her, but I haven't puposely read any of those for a long time.
I had taken this book off the New Books Shelf, read the summary on the inside of the dust jacket, decided it sounded too depressingly real for me to read at this time and put it back on the shelf when another woman started perusing the shelves. She took American Dirt off the shelf, looked at me and said, "Have you read this?" I shook my head no. "Oh, you have to read this. This is the best book ever! I'm not kidding. It is so good." I told her I had just looked at it, but thought it sounded too depressing, too much like current events. She didn't disagree, but assured me I wouldn't be disappointed because it was "such a good book!" 
Guess what? We were both right. It was good and it was too real, but I couldn't stop reading it.

Wallace Prairie Walk Continued

I was so chuffed to finally see a Rattlesnake Master plant in person, on a prairie.

It is a plant I've been aware of for years, but had never actually seen.

I took a photo of this plant because those lime green, star-shapes intrigued me. I was hoping to identify the plant from my picture, but I should have paid more attention to the flowering plants around it.
Until I can investigate more and know for sure, I think this is a Cup Plant. (Silphium perfoliatum)

Another plant I've never seen before, the seed pods of which totally captivated me. But it was the blue-green foliage that helped me identify it as False Blue Indigo.

The yellow flowering plants in the bottom right corner are Stiff Goldenrod.

An old willow branches over the small prairie pond.

Turning my back to the pond and facing west, is this scene of the rolling hills of Southwest Iowa - a beautiful landscape I never tire of.

A landscape that is quickly filling with the giant turbines of wind farms.

Many of these are right across the road from the Wallace homestead farm house. The whomp, whomp, whomp of the blades was very evident, even on a relatively calm day.

We noted the crescent moon-shaped hole in this old maple tree and mused about what creatures might be living therein.

And admired the farm's bountiful apple crop. Bud noted the tall deer fence surrounding the orchard.....

.....while I felt nostalgic about the leaning posts and sagging wire of the old fence line - reminders of days on the farm.

More land was being cleared east of the orchard. This pile of trees had been pushed up resulting in a country version of impressionist art.

I got excited when I saw this bird at the top of a dead tree. At a distance I thought it had a rusty chest and was hoping it was a Bluebird.

Once I got it zoomed in, I could tell it was a female Oriole. Still beautiful, but when, oh when, am I going to see an Eastern Bluebird again?

I thought we would see many butterflies walking through the prairie, but this Great Spangled Fritillary was the only one I saw.

Here at the end of the prairie walk, back near the buildings, were flowers I was more familiar with.

Phlox and foxtail weed mingle with a rusty hand corn sheller in front of the Red Shed.

A deep red Hollyhock is a nice contrast against a white picket fence.

There is something so summer about Hollyhocks...a holdover from the carefree days of my childhood?

This delightfully scented Star Jasmine vine grows up the southeast corner of the Red Shed.

Dwarf blue and pink bachelor buttons outside the shade of the high tunne; marigolds and various vegetables inside.

I was so intent on getting a picture of the bumble bee on the lime zinnias that I didn't even notice the butterfly with its wings closed on the pink zinnia behind it until I had the photos imported to my computer.

The zinnia display was so colorful and pretty, I was reminded how much I do like them and need to plant some again.

If you go west from the Wallace farm, instead of east back to the highway, the gravel ends and you come to an intersection with the choice of three dirt roads.

Our plan was to look for rocks before going home. I had been on this road before and knew it was a good place to hunt rocks.

However, due to our extreme lack of rain, the rocks were so covered in dust, it was impossible to tell whether they were pretty/interesting/worthy of collecting, or not.

I could even see animal prints in the dust; raccoon, I think.

We'll have to go back someday after a rain.

The roadside ditches have been dug out recently which means more rocks should be dug out, too.

I thought it showed the tenaciousness of the bindweed to see this little flower growing against the planed bank.

And the chicory in the ditch on the other side.









We drove a number of dirt roads before coming home. One of which was little more than a couple tracks - I called it a cowpath. And I've been kicking myself for not taking a picture of it!

It was a great morning; a fun, free, fantabulous jaunt.

Addendum: Two views of the one rock I did bring home:

A Prairie Art Walk

Today was the last day to see the Prairie Art Exhibit at The Wallace Country Life Center in Adair County, northeast of the town of Orient and about 16 miles north of our home. It was supposed to end with The Prairie Art Festival today which was canceled due to Covid concerns. However, the self-guided tour of art along the paths through the 9-acre prairie was open from dawn to dusk.
We arrived about 8:30 and had all 40 acres of the Wallace Farm to ourselves during the hour and half we were there.
This year's theme for the art was "The Pollinators". Paintings were contributed by community members of all ages. I did not attempt to take photos of them all, just some that caught my eye as we wandered along the trails.

The words on this one are: "Let me tell you 'bout the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees.."

This one of the Monarchs would undoubtedly have been my Mother's favorite, as it is mine.

In addition to the pollinator's paintings there are the permanent installations:

Susan Gardels' 'Grasses/Voices'....

Jim Russell's 'Scarecrow and War' ....

...and this new one, 'Victory Garden' in honor of a former farm manager.

I love this so much.

Close up of the metal hat and pumpkin.

A roll of rusty barbed wire and a pail.

And a lone tomato plant - possibly the honoree's favorite garden vegetable?

Lastly, a picture of a woman outstanding in her field. (Haha) It was a lovely cool morning for a walk on the prairie. Tomorrow, a continuation blog post about all the different plants (this is one of them) that caught my eye. Hopefully I'll be able to figure out what everything is so I can provide captions.

Happy Trails To You

It has been almost a year since I looked across the northwestern reaches of Green Valley Lake and saw that causeway across an inlet. It confirmed for me that there were trails over there, trails that I promised myself I would investigate someday.

Yesterday I was in the mood to go somewhere other than in the neighborhood for my morning walk. When I said I was thinking about going out to Green Valley, I hadn't been out there since the first part of August, Hubby Dearest asked if he could go along. I said, "Of course, but I'm thinking about walking some new trails and I'm not sure you will want to do that". He surprised me by saying that was fine, he just wanted to walk with me. In other words he was okay with walking slower than usual.

So we both took our cameras and walking poles. I drove past the park ranger's house, past the entrance to the main part of the park, on down the road past private residences and farm fields, until the road curved to the north and ended in a parking lot.
In front of us was this causeway which crosses the far north end of Green Valley Lake - the area where the Platte River once flowed until it was dammed to form the lake. I can't find specific dates for when that was, but my earliest memories of it are from the late 1950's, early 1960's.

My next photo was of sunlight creating sparkles in the lake foam and the algae buildup on one of the steel culverts.

Bud spotted something white in the distance, "What's that?"

My zoom lens confirmed that it was the bleached root of a dead tree.

There were some indecipherable, to us, blue marks on some of the limestone and on the surface of this little pool.

Is it from farm chemical surface runoff as we suspect?

Regardless of the cause or source, it made for what I thought were some interesting photos.

And here I am, ready to start up the first path we came to.

This was a nice, moderate incline - enough to get my heart rate up for sure.
HD is looking for birds to photograph. There was surprising little in the way of birds, butterflies or dragonflies to see and no birdsong to be heard. We did scare off a large bird that flew away to quickly for identity, but I thought it was a hawk.

This trail dead-ended at the top with a soybean field to the north and cedar trees to the south.

I took this shot on the way back down. I wish I were capable of describing the amazing scents along this trail. I never could identify any particular trees, weeds, flowers or other woodsy growth that would account for the sweet smell.

Back at the bottom of this first trail, a second path branched off south, southwest, nearer the west shoreline.

The first thing I found interesting enough for a picture was this feather still misted by the morning dew.

I know they are on the noxious weeds list, and I hated having to dig them out of the pastures, but I can't help really admiring the lovely blooms of the bull thistles. Scotland Forever!

We made it to, and across, the second causeway - the one seen across the lake in that first photo from a year ago.

The path continued on from here but we did not. It was starting to get hot, I was getting tired. Bud reckoned that by the time we got back to the car we would have gone more than a mile in something more than an hour.

Enough for this day, but I want to go back again and go further down this trail.

From the end of that causeway looking across the sparkling water to the area from which I took that causeway photo last September.

Which came first? The ivy killed the tree? Or the tree died and the ivy grew on it?
Either way,  I found the stark beauty arresting.

I was disappointed about not getting photos of any butterflies or birds, nor of the one dragonfly I saw.

These are the only treasures we found. The three black feathers were all in the same area. The smaller gray one was farther along the trail.

The limestone rocks, the large one with some blue ??? on it and the small ones with some traces of fossils as well as the fishing lures were all picked up on that last causeway.

Back home Bud downloaded the information from his Garmin Fitness and GPS watch onto his laptop.

We walked 1.56 mile in one hour six minutes - which includes stopping for pictures.

Looking at this photo I'm thinking that trail must go all the way around the lake. Next time I'm going to try and find the beginning of this west side trail from the south end and start hiking from there. Perhaps someday we will cover all the west side corridor.

Oh, happy trails to us. 😎💕