Musings of a Wandering Mind
Just a quick update on one of the amazing effects of the derecho. Stumps are all that remain of the four trees that toppled. Notice the roll of fencing waiting to be placed. Here is the progression of photos for reference.
Though I am not religious (as I once was) and I have mixed thoughts and feelings about God and Faith, I still receive a bible reading every day from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Today’s verses are Psalm 133 from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the bible.
Many years ago I put music to the King James Version of the same psalm. I did change one word to be more inclusive and reflective of my perspective of the psalm’s true meaning. Though the words are a bit different, there is no mistaking the message. Unfortunately our country is living a much different reality. I’m guessing that just reading the words brings up contrasting euphemisms for the current state of our society in the USA. I’ll leave that to you.
Here is the NRSV version:
1How very good and pleasant it is
when kindred live together in unity!
2It is like the precious oil on the head,
running down upon the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
running down over the collar of his robes.
3It is like the dew of Hermon,
which falls on the mountains of Zion.
For there the LORD ordained his blessing,
life forevermore.
Here is a link to my recording of “Behold – Psalm 133”
Regardless of your sociopolitical proclivities, I think we can agree that our lives would be better if we could recognize and accept our differences and live together united in our core humanity.
Growing Season is Over
Soy beans are yellowing, clearly their growing season is over. The corn is definitely drying. We had only 0.46″ of rain locally in August, leading me to wonder if the cobs are fully developed. They appear to be okay. We’ll have to wait to know the bushel yields. It will be interesting to find out how yields will be reported this year. Will there be separate categories for normal vs. storm-damaged corn?
My little sample section appears to have survived for the most part. It is difficult to see the extent of the damage deeper in the field. I have noticed, while touring the countryside, damaged sections of large fields that appear fine on the perimeter yet are broken down within.
I could see it in the distance. I could hear the sound of the machine. If I had started my walk a few minutes earlier or walked just a little bit faster I would have pictures of the crane, extended, carrying workers with chain saws cutting the torn and twisted branch of the awesome tree I reported on in a previous post. I did see a dump truck full of branches drive away as I approached. Another took its place with yet another waiting its turn. There is a Bobcat loader holding large branch sections ready to load.
Cleanup continues throughout our town. The first round of debris removal is almost complete. But many homeowners were not able to get their trees cut up and to the curb in time for pick up. Most neighborhoods have large piles of branches waiting in the verge between the sidewalks and streets. Another sweep is planned.
But clean up has also revealed other interesting storm outcomes. You might recognize the fence in the pictures below. It turns out that there were four trees involved in that downing, three of which were uprooted, all toppling into one another, breaking the last tree mid-trunk. This scene still amazes me every time I observe it.
We are planning a drive through Cedar Rapids and points north in a few days. I anticipate additional pics and pieces to share.
A view from just past the parking lot that I could not get to from Squire Point road. That makes five parks we’ve tried to enter that are closed with either gates or emergency tape. Included are a state park, two county parks, and two Department of Natural Resources or Corps of Engineers areas.
I thought to take a hike in one of my favorite forests for a Birthday treat today. I hadn’t been to Squire Point in well over a year, a place I used to go to train for upcoming backpacking trips. Trails meander up and down and around the reservoir along thick tree canopies and sheer cliff outcroppings that have contained flood waters along the Iowa river for thousands of years.
But the road to Squire Point was closed due to the derecho. So I took a drive to the other side of the area to an entrance near a campground (the campground is closed due to the storm). It wasn’t long before my expectations for storm debris were realized. Here are some examples of what I encountered.
This was an interesting spot. The video below begins as I looked back to where a tree blocked a tricky, sloping spot on the trail. Then I pan to the next section that I’ll have to navigate to get to the Squire Point trail across the bridge.
I so enjoyed being out in nature today. It took longer than usual to make the circuit through Squire Point and Woodpecker trails. Change is inevitable. Natural change is amazing and awesome. I love the experience and continue to be amazed and in awe!
Soaring pelicans are amazing to see. They spiral up high on thermals, creating swirling columns that glimmer, then disappear as their wings catch the sun’s bright light. I think of Dee Canady whenever I see them. She loved them so and I remember watching them with her from her porch as they waded at the West end of Clear Lake. In more recent years I took her for rides to the Ventura Marsh where they gathered twice a year on their migratory path.
I have been watching them swarm over the distant reservoir these past several days when I walk my northern route. Yesterday there were four flocks, each with well over 100 birds. So today we took a ride to the North side of the reservoir to see if we could find them from the DNR lookout.
You can read a history of the American White Pelican if you can zoom in on this picture or by selecting the link. Their wingspans range from 8′ to 9-1/2′.
Those specks behind the sign are pelicans sitting on the water. The following pictures were taken with a Pentax DSLR 15.4 megapixel camera with a Tamron 18-200 mm Spherical DiII lens from a distance of between 200 – 300 yards.
I love it when nature reminds me of good friends. Those of you who knew Dee and the love of her life Jack cannot keep from smiling when remembering them. They were amazing people and an amazing couple. They were wonderful friends that Pam and I will cherish as long as we live.
Amazing pelicans, amazing friends. It’s a good day!
(For my faithful followers, there’s an update to my corn(y) theme near the end of this post that includes corn-specific storm damage pics from my chosen location.)
Merriam Webster defines “derecho” as “a large fast-moving complex of thunderstorms with powerful straight-line winds that cause widespread destruction.”
The storm itself was moving at 70 MPH. We headed down stairs just after I took the second photo. Fortunately we had ample warning of its impending arrival. The local TV weather person said “We normally talk about a severe weather threat. This is no longer a threat. We have confirmation of the damage path. You should be taking cover now.” So we already had shoes, coats, flashlights, and id’s in our lower level laundry room, our designated tornado shelter.
We actually “weathered” the storm from our hobby room downstairs where we could watch it through a south-facing window. It was quickly clear that this was different from any storm I’d ever witnessed. Those of you who know me know that I am a weather nut and trained NOAA storm spotter. At first it could be mistaken for a normal straight line wind or even a tornado. But very soon it was obvious that it was another event all together.
What didn’t stop was the wind. It didn’t really howl. It was more like a constant rumble that drowned out the sound of the thunder most of the time. Yes, there was a heavy rain storm. But we ended up with less than a half inch of rain. The rain came and went multiple times throughout the duration. The electricity went out within a couple minutes of the storm’s onset. I do admit to being concerned, and excited, so much so that I did not take any pictures out the window during the storm. Darn!
I witnessed the aftermath of an EF-5 tornado in and around Parkersburg Iowa in 2008. I went to Cedar Falls to pick up a new digital SLR body for my lenses. I was greatly impacted by the devastation I saw that May day, so much so that I wrote a song (Parkersburg) about the experience. (Google Search for Parkersburg Tornado) Though the derecho caused less acute damage, its path was dozens of miles wider and more than a hundred fifty miles longer than the path of the Parkersburg tornado.
Looking back with the advantage of subsequent storm reports, It really did look like hurricane videos I’ve seen. We fully expected our trees to break, but we were lucky! The house behind us did not fare so well.
I watched the branch on the right break off of the Poplar tree. It’s about 30 feet long. Fortunately it missed the fence. We watched the branch in the lower left tumbleweed across our yard and settle in theirs. That branch is actually about 20′ long. The young couple who own the house had moved out the week before and were scheduled to close on the sale of this property two days later. Their brand new house about 1-1/2 miles West received both roof and siding damage. I lent them some saws so they could cut up the debris. They did a great job of getting the yard cleaned up. I hope there were no delays.
It was about 45 minutes before I was comfortable going back upstairs. (Again, those who know me know that I normally experience severe storms from our living room, or even from the garage, or outside.) Still, the winds were gusting between 30 and 45 MPH. Now we could hear the thunder, and light rain continued for a while.
Staying inside for long was not an option for me. But even before that, we could see damage. Our neighbor’s trampoline blew over, crushing their soccer goal rig and plowing into their backyard neighbor’s fence. Most of that fence was down, the West side flattened.
Here are some pics from my first, short walk up the street. There was still some iffy weather and I’m glad I came home again before another minor thunderstorm arrived.
Venturing further on my second reconnaissance attempt I walked to a secondary artery, north/south road with houses on the East side and a bean field to the West. Here was the first extensive roof damage I’d seen. Large patches of shingles were missing from almost every house for a two-block stretch. I continued to walk around. The following pics exemplify the widespread damage in our neighborhood.
Twenty-four hours after the storm’s onset our electricity was restored. But our Internet and Cable were still out so we got in the car to see what we could see. We drove through Iowa City from NW to SE. As we entered the older east side of town it looked like a tornado had hit. Every block was piled with branches and full trees broken or taken down at the roots. IC sustained extensive shingle and trim damage throughout. Cleanup efforts were everywhere; chain saws, people hauling cut up tree sections to the curbs. Curbs, blocks long, were lined with debris. Unfortunately I was not comfortable stopping the car to take pictures during this tour.
Yesterday, though, I did take a 5-mile walk around the North section of our town during which I was able to take my time and snap some pics. I walk this route often so I was impressed with the damage I saw. It is the truth that, from the time the storm ended on Monday through yesterday when I took a walk around here, that I could not look even an eighth of a mile (660 feet, two football fields) without seeing significant damage. Here are some examples of the damage.
These last two pics represent a place I often admire along my route. The pine tree on the left is over 30′ high with a trunk diameter of about 2 feet. I love the branch that, many years ago, had to veer to the North and then upward toward the light.
But that tree was hard to see because of the huge Elm (I think) that used to be close to the road. Yes, they cut it off, but look how it twisted open during the storm. And then, to the right of those trees I saw another tree uprooted. Its root ball had grown under a fence. Check out the last pic. That base must be about 15′ in diameter!
That leaves an update on the corn. I had seen damaged corn at other points in my route. But this is the place where I took the pics for my other corn(y) posts. Where there had been beautifully tall, full, dark green, leafy stalks with young growing ears of corn, there are now tattered leaves, broken or leaning stalks and downed corn. The news today indicated there could be ten million acres of damaged corn across the Iowa storm path.
Today, four days after the derecho, electricity was restored to the area of Ankeny where my son lives. I sure hope their frozen food stores are okay!
Clearly clean up and recovery from this derecho will take a long time. My next door neighbor had some minor shingle damage. He was told by the roofing company that they could not even give him an estimate of when they could come look at his roof, let alone get it fixed, partially due to the previous hail storm from a few weeks ago. I saw several roofs with shingles sitting on them waiting to fix the damage from that hail storm.
Cities are providing free curbside debris pick up and are providing locations where citizens can take their debris if they can. Cedar Rapids even has a nightly curfew in effect until further notice. Electricity isn’t expected to be fully restored until next week. Pam and I are very fortunate to have made it through unscathed. We are thankful.
It’s now Friday. The storm occurred on Monday. I walked a different section of our neighborhood today and saw even more extensive roof and tree damage than I previously thought existed. Still, it is clear that Cedar Rapids was hit much harder than our area. Similar to hurricane aftermath, this will be a long term recovery effort. Our news station is reporting 2500 power poles down, 1090 homes with total or partial roof collapse, thousands of customers without power.
Dustin Honken is to be executed tomorrow, July 17, 2020 in Terra Haute IN. Dustin was convicted of murdering two of his drug business partners who were scheduled to testify against him, and unfortunately the girl friend and her two children of one of those men. All of this took place in or near Mason City IA and became a major news story during the 1990’s and early 2000’s. The Des Moines Register published a good timeline. Murderpedia also has a synopsis of Honken’s crimes. Honken will be the third person executed this week as the Trump Administration lifted a long-standing ban.
Angela Johnson was Honken’s girlfriend and, as explained in the article above, assisted in the murders. She became the first female sentenced to death by a Federal jury since the 1950’s. Her sentence was overturned in 2012. She is now serving a life sentence.
So why am I posting this information? There are some twists in this case that I find particularly interesting. First, the bodies of Greg Nicholson, Lori Ann Duncan, and Amber and Candice Duncan were found on a county road between Clear Lake and Mason City in 2000. The new Cerro Gordo County Law Enforcement Center was built in 2007 across the street from where those bodies were found – go figure.
Second, scrolling through the TV channels in early 2017, I stumbled upon an episode of Gangsters: America’s Most Evil retelling the story of Dustin Honken and those involved. I was surprised to find that they suggested that the main character, Walter White in AMC’s Breaking Bad (though the IMDB description does not mention Honken), was the inspiration for the character. I haven’t watched the episode in quite a while, but I remember that he moved from the Midwest to Arizona where he set up a meth lab for distribution to the West Coast and to ship east to Iowa for further distribution.
Walter White, like Honken, created a new super meth concoction that was sought after throughout the drug user community. Though Honken was not a teacher, he was a Chemistry “whiz.“
I am always intrigued by stories of people who, for whatever reason, deviate from social norms and cross the line into devious and violent behavior. I’m no doctor, but I’ve always contended that the line between normal and seriously abnormal behavior is a thin one. What makes a Richard Speck or Ted Bundy do what they do? What about Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, or the BTK Killer? And don’t even get me started on doomsday cult leaders!
I understand that many had various types of trauma during their youth. But some also exhibit sociopathic symptoms early in life that surface independently from those traumas (such as mutilating animals). Let’s face it. We all experienced trauma of one sort or another when we were young.
I don’t have answers. I’m just fascinated and watch documentaries about these people, similar to watching documentaries about the Holocaust. One thing I’ve learned by watching and reading is that there are probably dozens, if not hundreds of serial killers and crime-related (hush up) murders than we are even aware.
So tomorrow will end the story of a very bad man who impacted my life by brutally executing an innocent family (the Duncans) and some not-so-innocent other bad guys who didn’t deserve to die. I’ll leave it to others to determine if capital punishment is moral, ethical, and/or serves as a deterrent to crime. I will continue with my fascination.
