An Iowa Farm

Spring is coming and I go south and to Iowa to a farm.  I will post less on this blog.  Here is a description of what awaits me and why my writing and posting rate will decline.

Two and a half miles north-east of Belle Plaine along gravel roads is the farm: 160 acres of sodden land, ploughed and awaiting the spring planting of corn and soya beans. The natural grasses are green, the trees still bare, and the bird flock around the barns for last-years droppings. The pond embankment is falling in, a victim of winter’s freeze and the subsequent thaw. Pieces of the garage roof blown off by the winter winds litter the gravel drive and pieces of wood from the corners of the house lie amidst the sprouting bulbs soon to burst into yellow and purple.

The farm house stood stoic and silent through a recent tornado watch as the rain pelted and thunder lit the sky. This morning all was blue with a few wisps of cloud over the sun-drenched infinite landscape. So I went to Belle Plaine to buy a few things.

First to the bank, where they greeted me like a long-lost friend with cries of “It must be spring for you are back.” They deposited my US check with no hold “for we know you OK.” The Canadian check baffled them as that will have to go to a bigger bank to set the exchange rate, “but don’t worry it won’t take long”. (My Canadian bank puts a 21-day hold on US checks and does it with a surly snarl.)

Then to the library where the same gray-haired old lady pulled my card and welcomed me back and proceeded to spend thirty minutes with me as we searched for a book on the Benton who gave his name to the county. We found a famous artist from Missouri of the same name and three books on the history of Benton County that now I am reading to get to the bottom of the county’s name. She also found me three origami books, all tattered and well worn from the seventies. And she talked of climate change and about a recent long and scary article in the Time magazine on global warming.

The fat lady at the hardware store helped me find just the right tools to do some plumbing to fix a leaking pipe in the farm house, and we chatted about my winter travels for an hour or so as old men came an went buying nails and screws and a stray paint brush.

The owner of the consignment store knew immediately I walked in that I was looking for wool sweaters and helped me find a beauty made in Italy and costing all of $6.50.

Lunch was in Keystone at the hole-in-the-wall place with no name that I can discern. Buffet style corn and carrots and a strange but tasty mix of mince-meat and spaghetti washed down with a beer made for a return to the heavy food of the mid-west. No sushi or Indian or Chinese here. Just the plain old stuff derived from the customs of European peasants. Comfort food you may call it. Just like the comfort that comes from walking into a store and being recognized and helped in a friendly, leisurely way, and being treated like an equal. Not sure I am regarded as a local, but what with the unusual paint job on the farm house and the Californian license plates and the snow-bird habits, we are known and probably talked about and recognized. And that is enough.