Iola

Our trip to Iola, Kansas, where cousin Suzy lives and our rendezvous with Mike’s brother Cork was to take place, is only about four hours from Lake Ozark. In those four hours I took 575 pictures. Kansas is a plethora of farm pictures. I narrowed it down to 70. I have to be honest with you. 70 landscape pictures along with the pictures I took while in Iola, seems daunting to me.

This is the photo I referred to last time. I’ve got four perfectly good shots of this building and couldn’t decided which one to show you. I’ve narrowed it down to these two. They’re enough different that I think you can appreciate them both.

Baby cows? This time of year? I thought it was a spring thing.

There was a thirty-some mile detour. Even though we’ve driven this route to cousin Suzy’s many times, the detour gave me a chance to see things I’ve never seen before — like this guy.

We drove past a stand of wind mills. Some were still being erected.

I’m no horse expert by any stretch of the imagination, but don’t horses prefer to be in a herd?

We had a very narrow miss when this old gal pulled out in front of us.

“Watch it!” I say.

We were traveling just under forty miles an hour and Mike slams on his brakes. They didn’t squeal but we slowed enough, and she was fast enough, that we just missed her. I really thought we were going to tag her back bumper.

Thank goodness for a dashcam because I didn’t take any pictures.

“Didn’t you see her?” I asked.

“Yeah, but I didn’t think she was going to pull out in front of me.”

That’s just a taste of the pictures I took. Let’s move on for now.

In Iola, this store signage tickles me. All them p’s! A peculiar purveyor of a plethora of pre-perused publications. Peculiar means odd. Purveyor is a seller. Plethora is a cool word, don’cha think? It means a large or excessive amount of something. Pre-perused means already read. And publications are books and other printed material. That sounds better than An odd man selling a shit-ton of used books, doesn’t it?

Speaking of odd men, I don’t think this guy’s suspenders are keeping up their end of the deal.

We checked in our motel, unloaded the car, and went to see Suzy.

I love, love, love Suzy’s yard. All the antiques cleverly arranged. If it’s metal, Suzy doesn’t throw it out. Instead, she finds a way to display it. I wandered the yard and took tons of pictures while Mike and Suzy went into the house to catch up.

Bondi was all eyes when I showed her the goat and horses. I was glad she didn’t bark at them.

She laid down and watched.

When one of the horses finally did come up to us, Bondi offered kisses.

Again, just a taste of Suzy’s yard. I joined Mike and Suzy in the house.

“You wanna drive back and look at the lake?” Suzy asked.

“Sure,” I said. Having been there before, I knew I’d see some different wildflowers.

The barn. Mike spent many summers at this family farm.

Suzy opening the gate. Railroad tracks dissect the farm. I say that but the tracks have been taken out and a public walking/jogging/bike-riding path has been put in its place.

Suzy’s WPA rock pile. WPA was a work program during the depression. Men were paid to pick up rocks from these fields.

The lake.

Every time I spotted a wildflower, I’d yell, “Stop!” Mike is a good husband and stopped for me.

“Peg, what are those big green balls?” you ask.

Its probably the only one of those that I do know. The first time I was here and wrote about the wildflowers, I took the time to look them all up. I’ve since forgotten what they are. But the big green ball I do know. It’s an Osage Orange or Horse Apple. Despite its names, it’s a member of the mulberry family. Horses are the only animal I know who’ll eat them.

Cork was due in later in the afternoon so we went back to our room to rest for a bit. Well, Mike rested. I took advantage of the walking trail which was just outside our backdoor, so to speak. There was a mill between our motel and the old railroad-tracks-turned-walking-trail. In this picture, I’m on the trail looking back and the motel is just to the left of the mill.

This whole section of the trail was shaded by catalpa trees. I’ve never seen so many catalpas in one place before.

I spotted this guy. He’s an assassin bug.

He saw me too and hid.

“I can still see you,” I told him.

I chased him around so you could get a good look at him.

All the days we were there and all the times I walked Bondi on the path, we didn’t see many people. But boy, when we did! Bondi barked and carried on like they didn’t have a right to be on the path! Then she’d watch them until they were completely gone from sight. Even if I got her to turn around, she’d only go a few steps before turning back to make sure they were gone.

Coming back, I see that even here, with all the trucks and gravel, flowers still find a place to grow.

“Let’s go see if Cork’s here yet?” Mike suggested. The campground wasn’t far from where we were staying.

An old gas station.

Mike sometimes has ESP when it comes to this stuff. Often times he’ll call Margaret just as she’s getting home from someplace.

“How did you know I was home. I just walked in the door,” she’d say.

Well, in this case, Cork and his lady friend/travel companion, Dee, had just gotten into their spot and weren’t hooked up yet.

There were hugs the whole way around.

Although we’ve never met Dee before, she and Mike have spoken on the phone several times, so they were friends already.

“I’m gonna unhook the Jeep and get stuff hooked up,” Cork said. “Then should we go get Suzy and get a bite to eat?”

That suited everyone and Cork went off to do the chores.

“I’m gonna walk Bondi,” I said and excused myself.

I found these guys right away.

Honeysuckle and asters.

Pecans. There’s a tree at the campground.

Cork, Dee, and Suzy looking at old pictures while we wait for our dinner.

Then a family photo back at Suzy’s house.

Sunset.

Bondi developed a habit of burying her chew bones under our pillows.

The next day we went to the little cemetery where a lot of family was laid to rest, including Mike and Cork’s mom.

Cork and Suzy discussing other family members and relationships.

Back in the car, Bondi greets Cork. She took a shine to him and kissed him whenever he’d allow it.

From the cemetery we back to the farm. The old farmhouse is currently being remodeled.

Two of the doors have these fabulous etched windows.

“All these years and they’ve never been broken,” Suzy said.

Suzy and Cork talking over old times.

The remember when’s continued as we found our way to the covered picnic area in the yard.

I wandered away to take pictures.

Suzy’s bone shed.

“The grandkids call it my voodoo shack,” she told me.

I took tons of pictures of the old farm equipment lined up in neat rows.

“Which one was the one I rode on?” I heard Cork asked Suzy.

And they wandered down the line discussing the various pieces.

Everyone needed an afternoon rest.

Driving through an intersection, Mike says, “That guy fell down.”

We circled around to see if he needed help but someone else had already stopped to help him.

In our room, Mike turned on the TV and laid down to rest.

We were planning to meet up for dinner and I wanted Bondi tired for her time in the crate. I took her out to the walking trail.

A guy walking on her trail! How dare he! She barked and barked and barked! Nothing I did would get her to stop until he was far enough away that she no longer perceived him as a threat. Even then she watched until he was gone.

I plucked a catalpa leaf to show you the size and Bondi jumped up to snatch it from me. I gave it to her.

A lazy grasshopper let me get him. I took his picture and gave him to Bondi. Like the leaf, she soon lost interest.

Dinner at Sam & Louie’s.

This little cutie patootie took the picture for me.

“Do you live around here?” Mike asked.

I quickly jumped in before Siera could answer. “Mike, you creep girls out when you ask them that.”

But Siera was a good sport and answered him anyway.

After dinner we went back to Suzy’s. Her son Jon and his wife Jill were driving down from Kansas City to see us.

I have to tell you. I am just absolutely amazed and astounded that this gal, despite being in her 80’s, has no gray hair!

Cork walked off for a smoke before we went inside.

“Peg! Here’s a spider,” he said.

Does he know me or what! I went over to where he was and there was a huge web with a big spider. This is his belly. When I went around to get a picture of his topside, he ran.

We sat around Suzy’s and talked while we waited.

“What is this thing?” Dee asked.

“It’s a foot rest. A friend made it for me,” Suzy said.

I’ve never seen one like this. Isn’t it just the coolest, most cleverest thing you’ve ever seen?

Jon and Jill arrived and we went out to greet them.

I let them visit and catch up. Then I noticed the sun was setting and casting an eerie glow through the trees. I went to take pictures.

I was playing with the settings and took this one of Suzy’s cat.

And back at our hotel, the sun setting behind the mill. Wait, is it a mill?

Our next day would be our last day in Iola, Kansas.

Suzy’s brother Dennis and his wife Susan were coming from Kansas City to take us all to lunch.

Dee is on the left, Cork behind her. Beside Dee is Susan with her husband (and Suzy’s brother), Dennis, behind her. Then it’s Mike, Suzy, and Suzy’s son Lon.

We went to a place called Bolling’s Meatery & Eatery. They sell fresh cuts of meat in half of the place and the other half was like a deli.

Sharing stories and pictures.

After we ate, Lon went out for a smoke. Seats got jockeyed.

When Lon came back, he sat across from me.

Lon lives with Suzy and even though I’ve seen him before, I’ve never had a conversation with him. He’s a very reserved person. The others were involved in their own conversation, reminiscing, catching up on news, and I couldn’t think of anything to say to Lon. So I said the first thing that popped into my head.

“You know, you’re really a very handsome man,” I told him. His reply just cracks me up.

“I know.” He didn’t even smile when he delivered that line.

I couldn’t think of anything else to say and Lon didn’t seem to need any conversation, so I turned to Mike. “What’s the deal with the dress on the wall?”

“I don’t know.” I didn’t really think he would.

“It’s got a tag on it. I think I’ll go see what it says.”

This place used to be home to a dress making factory.

I finished reading and when I turned around, I could see our party was breaking up. Mike was standing near the door talking with one of the employees. I bet he found out where he lives!

Dennis and Susan left, Cork and Dee went back to the RV, Suzy and Lon went home, and we went back to our room.

Mike turned on the TV and I took Bondi to the trail again.

Going past the mill — or is it called a grain elevator? — I see a truck. I get closer and can hear someone in there working.

I wonder if they’ll let me look around.

Don’t do it! I hear my beautiful sister in my head. They could be serial killers!

So, I walked on past.

On the way back, I still wanted to know what the inside looked like. I walked on past. Maybe they should be afraid of me, I thought. Don’t laugh! Women can be serial killers too! I could have a gun or a knife in my doggie poopy bag (where I carry poop bags and any treasures I may find on our walks).

I went back and heard metal on metal noises.

“Hellooo!” I cheerfully called.

“Hello!” a masculine voice called back.

I located the source of the voice and found this handsome guy working.

“Are you a worker or an owner?” I asked.

“An owner. My family owns this place.”

“May I take your picture?” I asked and saw confusion cross his face. Quickly I rushed on. “I blog and what woman doesn’t like to see a handsome hardworking man.”

I think he blushed.

“Would you mind if I look around a little?” I asked.

Mark and I talked as he showed me around. “When the corn comes in, it gets dumped here (you can kinda see the grate in the floor in this picture) and an auger takes it up that over there. It’s called a leg. From there it goes into one of the silos.”

One blurry picture of the leg is all that I got.

“If we’re shipping the corn out, you open one of those,” and he pointed to two chutes in the ceiling.

My eyes followed the ropes back to where two handles were hanging. “You pull one of those?”

“Yep,” Mark said.

I reached up to touch one. “They’re heavy!” I don’t know why I was surprised. They’d have to be sturdy to stand up to the job.

We walked back to the leg. I see there are controls on it. That makes sense since there are different silos. “So, you can control which silo it goes into?”

“Yep.”

Now I’m wondering how they know when a silo is full. Does it have an alarm on it? “How do you know when it’s full?”

“You have to keep track of how many trucks you put in. There’s a chalkboard you mark your truckloads on.”

“About how many truckloads does it take to fill a silo?”

“The two closest to the mill take thirteen semi loads and the far one takes twenty-four.”

My eyes wander, looking at all the things there are to look at, things that are new to me. Just across from the leg is a ladder that goes up and up.

“That’s a big ladder!” I say. Genius, I know.

Mark grinned. “We don’t use it much. We have a man lift.”

I’m not a fast thinker, and you might be a fast reader, but there were many pauses between my questions. Mark patiently waited for my next question.

My mind goes back to all that corn. Do they buy from local farmers? “Where do you get your corn from?”

“We grow it. We’ve got twenty-seven hundred acres, a thousand just in corn.”

Across the way was a doorway. I looked inside and saw machines. “What is that for?”

“It’s a grinder. They used to grind corn and milo. They sold bulk feed as well as sack feed.”

I took it they didn’t use it anymore.

Other than a few empty store rooms, there wasn’t anything else to see.

I started to thank Mark for taking the time to show me around and explain how everything works, when it occurs to me that I didn’t ask what he was working on.

“I’m fixing one of the fans. When the corn comes in from the field it’s hot and we have to cool it down. Air comes in the top of the silo and a fan pulls it out the bottom.”

And it was only then that another thought occurs to me. “What do you do with all that corn?”

“We sell to ethanol plants and chicken farmers in northwest Arkansas.”

I found the whole thing very fascinating.

Once again, I thanked Mark for his time and let him get back to the job at hand.

“Is he married?” I know all you single gals wanna know.

No, he’s not married. But he’s in a committed relationship.

“What’s the holdup?” I was just being nosy when I asked him that. Not that I have any room at all to talk. But I thought it a good segue into my experience. And who knows, maybe he would take it to heart.

He kinda laughed a little and shrugged. I’m sure he wasn’t going to tell this prying old woman his private business. Did it stop me from offering my advice?

NO!

“I was with my husband for twenty-one years before we got married,” I told him. “And it’s the best thing I ever did.” I’ve told y’all before that Mike is a much better husband than he ever was a boyfriend. You can be as committed as you want, but it’s not the same as exchanging rings and signing the papers. For me, it means forever — no matter what!

The next morning, we all had breakfast together before we hit the road. Dee and Cork were on to visit other family and Mike and I were heading home.

Or were we?

You’ll have to stay tuned to find out.

Let’s finish with road pictures.

Miles and miles of white fencing.

The roadside was covered with these yellow sunflowers for just about the whole trip to Iola.

I have a lot more photos but I've kept you long enough.

Let’s call this one done!