Cultivating More Histories in Iowa

Another stark contrast moving from Galesburg to Jefferson, Iowa. We found ourselves amongst numerous environmentalists/prairie restorationists and felt a little more at home than before. Our trip began on Jerry Peckumn's farm, where we had a chance to learn all about the difference between sustainable and non-sustainable farming practices.


This is Jerry standing in front of one of his semis loaded up with spray chemicals.


Jerry letting the ATV get some air. We both had the opportunity to give it a spin, which was a first for each of us and a bit harder than it looks.


Scouting for the aphids that were apparently "exploding." Although we found four in five fields, so we were a little skeptical.


Jerry's farmer father whose farm went to one of Jerry's siblings and Jerry had to build his own business from the ground up.




Unloading corn at the ethanol plant.


The machinery in these parts towers over the farmers.


Jerry is a huge environmentalist and takes hikes every morning at 6am. We went with him. twice. fun. Jerry talked a lot about his switch from political conservativism to "muddled-ism." During the Iowa caucuses NPR interviewed him as one of the people voting for the opposite party than they would normally follow.


We had the opportunity to dine at Danielle and Don Worth's house. They are both rabid prairie restorationists and also know the people from whom they get all of their food. We had some amazing salmon salad and got a tour of their property.


Don on Eric's Oak Savannah.


This is George Naylor!!! He is a small family farmer dealing with issues of the growing influence of facotry farming. George was highlighted in Michael Pollan's book "The Omnivore's Dillemma" and while we visited him we got to ride in the same tractor as Michael Pollan did! We were most def. starstruck.


George told us some wonderful stories about growing up with parents who farmed during the Great Depression. His uncle was asked if he would be willing to scoop shit for a living and his uncle said, "For money, I would eat it."



Excerpts from George's interview:

"Maybe it’s because I’m an only child, and I’ve never had hardly anybody to talk to, so when I do get a chance, I unload everything, all this knowledge and whatever, or experience. My parents and my aunts and uncles were always processing, analyzing things. And I grew up at an interesting time. I mean, I was born in 1948, which is three years after the end of World War II. And I guess the Korean War started soon after I was born. And I was totally oblivious to it, obviously, because I was just a little kid, and people didn’t really talk about WWII that much, even though I had uncles in it.

So I grew up on the farm here, but only up to the middle of eigth grade. And then we moved to north Long Beach, California, which turns out, it was working class part of town and everything, you know, not the glamorous part of town. But I had aunts and uncles and cousins back here in Iowa that I visited every summer. So the contrast between growing up here and moving out there – in school here, there were 50 kids in my grade for one town, and I go out there, and there was more like 400. And I need to go around and talk to all the old people that are around here that were friends of my parents to actually find out why we moved out there because they never really gave me a clue. It’s funny, that was one thing they didn’t process openly with me.

There were probably several reasons; one was economics. There was basically a farm depression at that time in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. It would have been – let’s say seven years after the New Deal farm programs were being dismantled. The start of the dismantling started in 1953, and so farm prices were just horrendous. So that was one thing. My dad was around 50 years old, and he didn’t see how there could be much of a future here. And during the war, he had worked as a civilian in the signal corps in New Jersey, and so he got the taste of living in the city and working with electronics, and he had a twin brother out there…

So I ended up going to junior high, high school, junior college, and college out in California. I went to Long Beach City College, and then I graduated from UC Berkley in 1970. I ended up studying math, yeah well, basically so I wouldn’t wind up having big term papers to write, big stacks of books to read. And also, I had to avoid the draft, so I didn’t have any choice. They gave student deferments at the time, but you had to maintain a certain grade point average and carry a certain load. I was nervous about it, especially ‘cause toward the end, my last quarter, right at the tail end, they got rid of the deferments. And they went to the lottery, so all my friends are gathered around the TV that night, watching to see – they pull out dates for your birthday, and you get a number. And luckily, I got like 234 or something, so that meant I probably wouldn’t get drafted.

I did not like the whole city scene, as far as the traffic, being on freeways, and thinking of all these pistons going up and down and belching out smog. Back then in Long Beach, when I was in Junior High, there was so much smog that when we’d come in from phys ed, our eyes were watering and our lungs hurt from breathing in the smog, and that sucked. And then you looked around, and there were all these people on the freeway; they looked like a bunch of ants, you know? Or bees, or something. It just drove me nuts. So I guess I longed to come back to the farm. And I had an aunt who subscribed to Organic Gardening and Farming Magazine for me, so I’m out there in college, getting Organic Gardening and Farming Magazine, and reading all their critiques. I mean, they had critiques then of modern agriculture. There was an old radical person, that wrote stuff like “The Good Life” or something like that. “on Two Acres.” And then I’m listening to the radio, and there are people talking about going back to the land. And then there was the natural food movement, people eating natural foods, and so there were little restaurants opening up that served natural food, emphasizing whole grains and fresh vegetables."

George was also recently featured in the documentary film "Fresh." He showed it to us at his house and would peek out from the kitchen and talk to us while he was on the screen.


We went canoeing down the North Coon River the morning of our departure.


Kate found a mystery skull (we are hoping for either oxen or buffalo, George is hopeful it could be a wooly mammoth) on a sandbar during the canoe ride.


For our goodbye dinner we made blueberry pie from scratch. Also, as you see George inspired us to pick up a pair of matching bibs at Bomgarrs.


The skull was very photogenic. Here we are being "tough."


We finnished up the week visiting MATEO!!! in Des Moines. Here he is posing with the family vinyard and windmill that his mother recently hit with the tractor. A little Tuft of love in the middle of the heartland of America.


We heard it through the grapevine!!!