Another year, another successful Winding Stairs Festival in the books for the community of Traer. In an effort to do things differently this year, I made the trip for both Friday and Saturday. Double dipping on Friday at Lost Island Theme Park during the day while night-capping at the Winding ...
What is over four miles long, is full of dirt and has a potential power output of 50 megawatts? This is not a trick question but a unique idea to reduce our carbon emissions that even those who don’t care about global warming can appreciate. It is an energy-storage-by-rail project that is ...
“You make me dizzy Miss Lizzy…the way you rock and roll!” They are unbelievably gorgeous and Lisianthus is by far the hardiest flower that I grow – let me explain… I found one of the Lisianthus blooms I’d cut the day before lying on the ground in the high tunnel, looking as ...
Most churches don’t pay taxes. Right or wrong, it’s a fact. The logic behind it is that churches, and other nonprofits, are good for America. We bring people together. We serve our communities. We lift up the oppressed. So we get that little boon to help us get by. But there are ...
Resiliency is what the United States needs. Recently, a company named CrowdStrike had an outage which affected many businesses around the world including numerous airlines. This outage left fliers stranded across the globe for longer than they wanted to be. This is not resiliency. When ...
Let’s talk Zinnias. Who loves them? Who hates them? Who has a love/hate relationship with them like I do? I love the range of colors and styles (the pin cushion scabiosa variety is one of my favorites). I also appreciate their cheerful blooms and the tiny inner flowers that form around the ...
A boy can dream. While I do not have a ton of experience in agriculture outside of farming – and I do not have a formal education in it – coming from a different background with different perspectives can lead to one seeing agriculture in a different light. With this being said, the ...
Over two decades ago, Gene Takle, director of Iowa State University’s Climate Science Program, used a NASA climate model to explore what would happen if the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere doubled. With additional carbon added to the atmosphere since then, his predictions that were ...
In the summer of 2014, I toured the western half of the United States playing bass for singer/songwriter Jen McClung. Several of the venues that hosted us were churches. At one in particular – Hope Unitarian in Tulsa, Oklahoma – the pastor’s office was our “green room.” On the door of ...
It would be an understatement to say this upcoming presidential election does not have the electorate fired up. Each candidate has their flaws, and neither feel like a once-in-a-lifetime, straight-from-central-casting presidential candidate. With it being a runback of 2020 no one was clamoring ...