MABEL, MINNESOTA ~ Imagine hearing there was a steam~engine gathering somewhere out in the country. No GPS. No Facebook event page. And apparently nobody you stop to ask has the slightest idea what you’re talking about. What do you do? Well, back in 1953, one man did the perfectly reasonable thing: He followed the steam-engine…

Illustrative image created for Word ’Round Town; not an actual photograph of the marker. DECORAH, IOWA ~ If you’ve ever walked around Decorah and thought there was something special beneath your feet… Well. You weren’t wrong. You may have just underestimated it by about 465 million years. A new bronze marker has been installed at…

IOWA ~ If you’ve looked up at a black walnut tree lately and thought, “Well, that seems a little early…” you may not be imagining things. Some black walnut trees across Iowa are turning yellow and dropping leaves sooner, and more heavily than usual this summer. According to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, the…

CEDAR FALLS, IOWA ~ Sometimes the most interesting things in town aren’t sitting behind a museum door or hanging in a gallery. Sometimes, they’re growing beside somebody’s garage. The City of Cedar Falls is looking for residents and organizations willing to open their backyards and green spaces for future A Practical Backyard Tour events. The…

There was a time when a little girl might twirl across an Iowa farmhouse kitchen in a brand-new dress, holding the skirt out with both hands and feeling as pretty as any child ever could. She may not have known that dress had once been a flour sack. She may not have known her mother…

Around Northeast Iowa, you don’t have to drive very far before a familiar flash of green and yellow appears. It might be working a field. Sitting beside a barn. Or heading down a country road while the rest of us patiently follow behind. 😂 But in Waterloo, there’s a place where those familiar green machines…

There is something especially inviting about an old porch. A rocking chair. A breeze moving through the trees. Maybe the creak of a floorboard underfoot. And if you happen to look up, you may notice something else: A ceiling painted a soft, pale blue. Pretty? Absolutely. But in many parts of the South, that color…

The Arbor Day Foundation’s 2026 tree survey is offering region-matched seedlings with a donation ~ but those tiny trees need a little planning before they arrive. A small seedling may not look like much when it first arrives. A few roots. A skinny stem. Maybe a handful of leaves. But give it enough years, and…

Butterflies on the move, a changing bug chorus, cooler mornings, and the first leaves beginning to whisper what’s coming next. It usually begins before we are ready to admit it. One evening, the insect chorus sounds just a little different. A monarch passes through with somewhere else to be. The mornings feel cooler. Dew hangs…

The Old Folklore Hidden Beneath the Husk Older generations did not have weather apps, satellite maps, or seasonal computer models. They watched the sky. They noticed the animals. And sometimes, they peeled back the husk of an ear of corn. According to a long-standing piece of weather folklore, unusually thick or tightly wrapped corn husks…

Feature image inspired by the former Hula Hoop Tree near Amber, Iowa. Tossin’ Another Neat Iowa Story Your Way! Remembering Amber, Iowa’s Colorful Roadside Curiosity By Deliverance HopeWord ’Round Town “For several years, one particular tree near Amber, Iowa, carried something far more colorful than leaves. It carried hula hoops. Dozens upon dozens of them.…

High above the rooftops of Lansing, where the Mississippi River bends around the town and continues carrying stories downstream, sits a bluff with a story of its own. It is a story involving a steamboat, a determined young woman, a race toward the sky, and a community that later turned the same hill into a…