Picking Iowa Sweet Corn at Dan D Farms

Eating Dan D Farms sweet corn is an Iowa tradition.  Actually, people all over the world love the corn, coming to the Knoxville Nationals in August and shipping it home.  Every year for the past several years I have joined Dan Dennison and his corn picking crew in the early morning to speak with them about picking corn, and this important Marion County tradition.  Dan is a great guy to talk to, and the kids he hires to pick corn are fun too. Here is this year's interview.

http://www.kniakrls.com/2011/07/in-depth-picking-dan-d-farms-sweet-corn/

Coal Mining In Marion County

You wouldn't know it now but Marion County, IA was built on coal mining.  Local historian Doug Wilson is an incredible source of information on Coal Mining in the county as well as other localities in Iowa.  Here is my three part interview with Doug.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Watermelon

The watermelon appeared on the front porch one hot Saturday afternoon in September, sitting in my patio chair with a bit of dirt and bird poop on it.  It was about the size of a basketball and nearly as round and it was green, not striped, and I looked across the street at the house and machine shed where Jim worked on his tractor and knew where it came from.  I yelled for the kids and we hosed it off, pulled a little yard table and more chairs off the deck and into the grass and under the shade of the big elm out front.

I grabbed a butcher knife and we sliced the melon into big chunks and ate it with the juice running down our chins onto our shirts and I taught the kids how to spit watermelon seeds at each other and me and how to pinch them between your fingers and shoot them at each other and other things we had a mind to including the dogs.  We hoped Mom would walk out the door but she didn’t.  Asa who is seven said we sure are going to have a lot of watermelon volunteers in the spring aren’t we, and I said yes.

When we got to the center of the watermelon I pointed the big knife down and cut out a pyramid of the beautiful red seedless center and gave it to Johanna and said this is called the heart of the watermelon and I am giving it to you.  She paused for a moment giving that statement her four year old consideration it deserved, smiled and ate it.  We ate that melon like wolves, threw the rinds and what was left in what Mom calls the compost heap and really isn’t, hosed ourselves off, goofed in the yard until we were dry, and went back into the house to watch TV and read and Mom didn’t know any different.

A few days later my cell rang and I didn’t answer it, but listened to the message a couple of days after that and it was Jim and he said did you and the kids like that watermelon because if you did I have another one for you.  When I saw Jim under the big trees in his yard on Saturday, I wandered across the road to his house, a hundred yards or so away, on the big round curve heading into town.  His back was to me, as he was bent over the tailgate of his rusty 69 Chevy pickup so I shuffled a bit in the gravel as I crossed the road so as not to startle him.  He turned and said walnuts.  Shukin’ walnuts.  

His nearly black hands worked quickly, peeling the crusty brown-green off walnuts. Wait til the husk dries a bit and shuck it off, and let them dry, bake them in the oven and they’re good eatin’ especially in baked stuff.  Cookies and things.  Cakes. He pointed. See all those walnuts on the ground there?  Come on over anytime and take em home, I’m done with them and have this pickup bed full.  He looked behind me and pointed. Those two trees over there are pecans, and I looked and saw the pecan shells starting to dry and spread, opening like wooden blooms, nearly ready to drop their nuts.  Don’t see many pecan trees around here, I said.  No, he replied, they open and drop their seeds like hickory’s do.

Kids like that watermelon?  Yes, they did.  I have some more he said, wiping his black hands on his jeans, and started into his back yard.  Never planted these watermelons, he said.  They just come up year after year.  Must be volunteers from someones garden years ago.  Maybe a dozen watermelons were scattered across what looked to be an old garden plot.  Tomato plants and gourds grew amidst the watermelons.  Volunteers.  All volunteers he said.  He reached over and pulled at a striped melon.  This one’s stem’s dry.  I guess it’s ready.  I took the watermelon from his hands, and it was warm from the sun, with dirt and bird poop on it.

Don’t get your shirt dirty he said.  I said it doesn’t matter.  We walked back to the pickup so he could get back to shelling walnuts.  I set the watermelon on the edge of the bed of the truck for a moment, and glanced into the back of the truck.  Six dead blue jays were lined up, like in a specimen case in a natural history museum.  Was feedin’ those one by one to the cat, but just got too many he said, shucking walnuts.  They was getting the pecans.  Jays can clear a pecan tree in no time if you don’t shoot em.  Shoot them?  I said.  Yep, challengin’, he said with a little smile. Twenty two.

He continued shelling walnuts, and I wandered back across the street with the watermelon, wondering what the fine was for shooting blue jays, and thinking back to my granpa who thought blue jays were smarter and certainly more interesting than most people.  I got home, set the watermelon in the grass in the shade of the elm, and went to get the hose.  Kids, come out here, I yelled into the house.  Watermelon!

Carnival Life in Southern Iowa

Kenny Linville of Oskaloosa manages JKL Rides, a family venture.  What's it like to run manage a carnival in southern Iowa?  This podcast is one for KNIA/KRLS in Knoxville/Pella, IA.  I saw Kenny and crew setting up for the Fourth of July in Bussey, IA, and stopped to speak with him.  I don't know if I have ever known a man who works so hard.  But I'll let Kenny tell his story here.