Weekly Blog

Oct 13, 2021

            Someone asked me why I wasn’t blogging anymore, to which I replied that “life got in the way.” I will blog every Wednesday from now on. At times it will concern what is going on at the present time and other times, it could be one of the science Q&As that are in The Journal or the Monroe County Herald newspapers.

            Last week, Ann and I traveled to west-central Iowa to a town of Odebolt, population 1100 if everyone is home. It is the place that caramel corn and Crackerjack started and houses the largest popcorn ball in the world. Odebolt is smack-dab in the middle of farm country and huge grain elevators sit right in the middle of town.

            We were in Odebolt for the one-room Iowa school conference. Sessions on Friday and travel to rural schools on Saturday. We gave a 20-minute PowerPoint presentation on Friday about our newest book, Country School Days: True Tales of a Wisconsin One-Room School. It has a publishing date of November 1, 2021, but we have advance copies, and it is up on Amazon.com. The price on the back is $17.95, but when we do book talks, we sell it for $12, same as all our other books. It is at J&R Variety in Tomah.

            It’s satisfying to see those huge John Deere and Case IH combines or harvesters move through the Iowa fields. Soybeans are going into the big bins atop the machines at the present time and corn will be harvested in about a week. Most combines have a 40-foot header or cutting width and throw up some crop dust that can be spotted from miles around.