Riverbend Journal

  I'll admit I've been a vit envious of Steve Reed's critter videos which never fail to entertain. I already had a trail camera that took still videos but it just wasn't the same and never seemed to catch other critters besides deer which are plentiful.  During Amazon Prime day recently, I purchased a deeply discounted trail camera that takes video and set it up on a post on my back deck pointed towards the garden. I promptly forgot about it for nearly a week until I happened to glimpse it being set off in our house security camera footage which is focused on entrances to our house and not towards the garden area. In that footage, I could just glimpse a deer off in the far distance. I retrieved the footage from the newly purchased trail camera on my way inside from picking that morning's vegetables from the garden and started to review it. Besides hours of footage of me working in the garden, I was pleasantly surprised to see some interesting videos of a few critte...

  One recent evening, my wife happened to look out the window and spot a visitor. She at first blamed me thinking I had placed a plastic version of the visitor on a fence post as a joke or a deterrent to our rabbit problem. That is, she thought that until the head swiveled 180 degrees and stared at her. During the springs and falls, when our bedroom window is open, I have heard it talking many a night. Barred owls are quite common here though I don't see them very often so it is a treat to see one. I am positive that with our mulch, there is more than one mouse living in our garden and as we found out a couple days ago, one rabbit too. My wife was walking between rows of vegetables when she stepped on something that gave a yowl causing her to jump back. A small rabbit took off fleeing the garden and hiding in some shrubbery next to the house so I don't think there was serious damage. Finally, we heard about a new restaurant in town which was right up our alley. My Alabama broth...

 I neglected to mention this, but I’m actually sitting on a deck overlooking a body of water that I can’t see the other side right now. This means I have to peck type with one finger for the next five days so my apologies if I don’t stop by or leave a comment on all your blog posts. I’ll read them all when I get back home and I’m sure write a story or two about where I am at.

  1870 map showing Appanoose Island and the ferry It was 6 a.m. Friday morning on the 30th of March, 1860 when Obediah Aumack drove his horse and wagon into the Des Moines River at lower ferry of Ottumwa on his way to do his daily milk deliveries. As he drove the team through the shallow water, he saw the body of a young girl laying in the river slightly downstream at the head of Appanoose Island. She was laying on her side with her face down in twelve inches of water and her head pointing downstream. Her red calico dress was hooked on a tree stump beached on a towhead at the head of the island.  Sand had already partially buried her body. Her skull had been broken and blood matted her auburn hair and small gold drop earrings. One eye was black and blue and the face swollen. Deeply indented finger marks were still visible on the fair skin around her throat. Aumack shouted for some help from some people on the town side of the river but the distance was too great to be heard cl...

For the last week or two, our harvests from the garden have looked very much like the one above, a few yellow squash and a couple handful of French green beans. Largely, we have been keeping up with them just eating them with our evening meals but we did break down and give away some squash to a couple of acquaintances that evidently weren't hooked up since squash and zucchini are practically everywhere this time of years. With a cool streak for July, nearly breaking records for the lowest high temperature of the day in the upper 70's, we decided to take advantage of it by digging up what remained of our root crops. Above, you see what was left drying on our deck before we started the preservation process. We had eaten most of our white potatoes over the last couple months so there wasn't a lot of them left. But we hadn't picked any of the red potatoes so there were quite a few of them. Being the first year for this garden, the soil quality is horrible but I was pleased...