Read Books Online and Download eBooks, EPub, PDF, Mobi, Kindle, Text Full Free.
Tending Iowas Land
Download Tending Iowas Land full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online Tending Iowas Land ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!
Book Synopsis Tending Iowa’s Land by : Cornelia F. Mutel
Download or read book Tending Iowa’s Land written by Cornelia F. Mutel and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2022-12-28 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2023 Midwest Book Awards in Nonfiction - Nature, winner In the last 200 years, Iowa’s prairies and other wildlands have been transformed into vast agricultural fields. This massive conversion has provided us with food, fiber, and fuel in abundance. But it has also robbed Iowa’s land of its native resilience and created the environmental problems that today challenge our everyday lives: polluted waters, increasing floods, loss and degradation of rich prairie topsoil, compromised natural systems, and now climate change. In a straightforward, friendly style, Iowa’s premier scientists and experts consider what has happened to our land and outline viable solutions that benefit agriculture as well as the state’s human and wild residents.
Book Synopsis Tending Iowa’s Land by : Cornelia F. Mutel
Download or read book Tending Iowa’s Land written by Cornelia F. Mutel and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2022-12-28 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An Introduction to Iowa's Environmental Problems is an edited volume with 17 contributors besides Connie Mutel herself-all Iowa authors who are scientific experts in the field. Geared toward course adoption in Iowa and Midwest classrooms, it will fill a need for a comprehensive, but accessible and brief overview of the environmental issues Iowa faces, and what we can do about them. Specifically, the volume breaks down the issues surrounding Iowa's land and soils, water, atmosphere, and loss of biological diversity. Teachers lack a go-to resource for explaining this topic to their students, and many Iowans remain unaware of the environmental impacts of farming. And with the new administration's focus on environmental concerns, including climate change, the timing is right to change that. At this point, Iowa can choose a route toward becoming an agricultural factory that disregards nature's sustainability and resilience, or we can steer toward a saner future that recognizes and honors our soils, climate, water, and native species. With this book, Mutel will help guide future Iowa leaders toward the latter"--
Book Synopsis Iowa's Remarkable Soils by : Kathleen Woida
Download or read book Iowa's Remarkable Soils written by Kathleen Woida and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2021-05 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In language that is scientifically sound but accessible to the layperson, Kathleen Woida explains how Iowa's soils formed and have changed over centuries and millennia. Its soils are what make Iowa a premier agricultural state, both in terms of acres planted and bushels harvested. But in the last hundred years, large-scale intensive agriculture and urban development have severely degraded most of our soils. However, as Woida documents, some innovative Iowans are beginning to repair and regenerate their soils by treating them as the living ecosystem and vast carbon store that they are.
Book Synopsis A Peculiar People by : Elmer Schwieder
Download or read book A Peculiar People written by Elmer Schwieder and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2009-04 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now back in print with a new essay, this classic of Iowa history focuses on the Old Order Amish Mennonites, the state’s most distinctive religious minority. Sociologist Elmer Schwieder and historian Dorothy Schwieder began their research with the largest group of Old Order Amish in the state, the community near Kalona in Johnson and Washington counties, in April 1970; they extended their studies and friendships in later years to other Old Order settlements as well as the slightly less conservative Beachy Amish. A Peculiar People explores the origin and growth of the Old Order Amish in Iowa, their religious practices, economic organization, family life, the formation of new communities, and the vital issue of education. Included also are appendixes giving the 1967 “Act Relating to Compulsory School Attendance and Educational Standards”; a sample “Church Organization Financial Agreement,” demonstrating the group’s unusual but advantageous mutual financial system; and the 1632 Dortrecht Confession of Faith, whose eighteen articles cover all the basic religious tenets of the Old Order Amish. Thomas Morain’s new essay describes external and internal issues for the Iowa Amish from the 1970s to today. The growth of utopian Amish communities across the nation, changes in occupation (although The Amish Directory still lists buggy shop operators, wheelwrights, and one lone horse dentist), the current state of education and health care, and the conscious balance between modern and traditional ways are reflected in an essay that describes how the Old Order dedication to Gelassenheit—the yielding of self to the interests of the larger community—has served its members well into the twenty-first century.
Book Synopsis The Restoration of Land by : Anthony David Bradshaw
Download or read book The Restoration of Land written by Anthony David Bradshaw and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1980-01-01 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis The Emerald Horizon by : Cornelia F. Mutel
Download or read book The Emerald Horizon written by Cornelia F. Mutel and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2008-03 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Emerald Horizon, Cornelia Mutel combines lyrical writing with meticulous scientific research to portray the environmental past, present, and future of Iowa. In doing so, she ties all of Iowa's natural features into one comprehensive whole. Since so much of the tallgrass state has been transformed into an agricultural landscape, Mutel focuses on understanding today’s natural environment by understanding yesterday’s changes. After summarizing the geological, archaeological, and ecological features that shaped Iowa’s modern landscape, she recreates the once-wild native communities that existed prior to Euroamerican settlement. Next she examines the dramatic changes that overtook native plant and animal communities as Iowa’s prairies, woodlands, and wetlands were transformed. Finally she presents realistic techniques for restoring native species and ecological processes as well as a broad variety of ways in which Iowans can reconnect with the natural world. Throughout, in addition to the many illustrations commissioned for this book, she offers careful scientific exposition, a strong sense of respect for the land, and encouragement to protect the future by learning from the past. The “emerald prairie” that “gleamed and shone to the horizon’s edge,” as botanist Thomas Macbride described it in 1895, has vanished. Cornelia Mutel’s passionate dedication to restoring this damaged landscape—and by extension the transformed landscape of the entire Corn Belt—invigorates her blend of natural history and human history. Believing that citizens who are knowledgeable about native species, communities, and ecological processes will better care for them, she gives us hope—and sound suggestions—for the future.
Book Synopsis A Sugar Creek Chronicle by : Cornelia F. Mutel
Download or read book A Sugar Creek Chronicle written by Cornelia F. Mutel and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2016-03-15 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2010, while editing a report on the effects of climate change in Iowa, ecologist Cornelia Mutel came to grips with the magnitude and urgency of the problem. She already knew the basics: greenhouse gas emissions and global average temperatures are rising on a trajectory that could, within decades, propel us beyond far-reaching, irreversible atmospheric changes; the results could devastate the environment that enables humans to thrive. The more details she learned, the more she felt compelled to address this emerging crisis. The result is this book, an artful weaving together of the science behind rising temperatures, tumultuous weather events, and a lifetime devoted to the natural world. Climate change isn’t just about melting Arctic ice and starving polar bears. It’s weakening the web of life in our own backyards. Moving between two timelines, Mutel pairs chapters about a single year in her Iowa woodland with chapters about her life as a fledgling and then professional student of nature. Stories of her childhood ramblings in Wisconsin and the solace she found in the Colorado mountains during early adulthood are merged with accounts of global environmental dilemmas that have redefined nature during her lifespan. Interwoven chapters bring us into her woodland home to watch nature’s cycles of life during a single year, 2012, when weather records were broken time and time again. Throughout, in a straightforward manner for a concerned general audience, Mutel integrates information about the science of climate change and its dramatic alteration of the planet in ways that clarify its broad reach, profound impact, and seemingly relentless pace. It is not too late, she informs us: we can still prevent the most catastrophic changes. We can preserve a world full of biodiversity, one that supports human lives as well as those of our myriad companions on this planet. In the end, Mutel offers advice about steps we can all take to curb our own carbon emissions and strategies we can suggest to our policy-makers.
Download or read book Harvest Son written by David Mas Masumoto and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1998 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Japanese-American farmer recounts the challenges of taking over and renewing his family's farm in Del Rey, California, describing the pains and pleasures of farm work, and the perseverance of his grandmother.
Book Synopsis A Tallgrass Prairie Alphabet by : Claudia McGehee
Download or read book A Tallgrass Prairie Alphabet written by Claudia McGehee and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents the wildlife of the American prairie in text and illustrations.
Book Synopsis The Ecology and Management of Prairies in the Central United States by : Chris Helzer
Download or read book The Ecology and Management of Prairies in the Central United States written by Chris Helzer and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2009-05 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most prairies exist today as fragmented landscapes, making thoughtful and vigilant management ever more important. Intended for landowners and managers dedicated to understanding and nurturing their prairies as well as farmers, ranchers, conservationists, and all those with a strong interest in grasslands, ecologist Chris Helzer’s readable and practical manual educates prairie owners and managers about grassland ecology and gives them guidelines for keeping prairies diverse, vigorous, and viable. Chapters in the first section, "Prairie Ecology," describe prairie plants and the communities they live in, the ways in which disturbance modifies plant communities, the animal and plant inhabitants that are key to prairie survival, and the importance of diversity within plant and animal communities. Chapters in the second section, "Prairie Management," explore the adaptive management process as well as guiding principles for designing management strategies, examples of successful management systems such as fire and grazing, guidance for dealing with birds and other species that have particular habitat requirements and with the invasive species that have become the most serious threat that prairie managers have to deal with, and general techniques for prairie restoration. Following the conclusion and a forward-thinking note on climate change, eight appendixes provide more information on grazing, prescribed fire, and invasive species as well as bibliographic notes, references, and national and state organizations with expertise in prairie management. Grasslands can be found throughout much of North America, and the ideas and strategies in this book apply to most of them, particularly tallgrass and mixed-grass prairies in eastern North Dakota, eastern South Dakota, eastern Nebraska, eastern Kansas, eastern Oklahoma, northwestern Missouri, northern Illinois, northwestern Indiana, Iowa, southwestern Wisconsin, and southwestern Minnesota. By presenting all the factors that promote biological diversity and thus enhance prairie communities, then incorporating these factors into a set of clear-sighted management practices, The Ecology and Management of Prairies in the Central United States presents the tools necessary to ensure that grasslands are managed in the purposeful ways essential to the continued health and survival of prairie communities.
Book Synopsis Little Heathens by : Mildred Armstrong Kalish
Download or read book Little Heathens written by Mildred Armstrong Kalish and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2008-04-29 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I tell of a time, a place, and a way of life long gone. For many years I have had the urge to describe that treasure trove, lest it vanish forever. So, partly in response to the basic human instinct to share feelings and experiences, and partly for the sheer joy and excitement of it all, I report on my early life. It was quite a romp. So begins Mildred Kalish’s story of growing up on her grandparents’ Iowa farm during the depths of the Great Depression. With her father banished from the household for mysterious transgressions, five-year-old Mildred and her family could easily have been overwhelmed by the challenge of simply trying to survive. This, however, is not a tale of suffering. Kalish counts herself among the lucky of that era. She had caring grandparents who possessed—and valiantly tried to impose—all the pioneer virtues of their forebears, teachers who inspired and befriended her, and a barnyard full of animals ready to be tamed and loved. She and her siblings and their cousins from the farm across the way played as hard as they worked, running barefoot through the fields, as free and wild as they dared. Filled with recipes and how-tos for everything from catching and skinning a rabbit to preparing homemade skin and hair beautifiers, apple cream pie, and the world’s best head cheese (start by scrubbing the head of the pig until it is pink and clean), Little Heathens portrays a world of hardship and hard work tempered by simple rewards. There was the unsurpassed flavor of tender new dandelion greens harvested as soon as the snow melted; the taste of crystal clear marble-sized balls of honey robbed from a bumblebee nest; the sweet smell from the body of a lamb sleeping on sun-warmed grass; and the magical quality of oat shocking under the light of a full harvest moon. Little Heathens offers a loving but realistic portrait of a “hearty-handshake Methodist” family that gave its members a remarkable legacy of kinship, kindness, and remembered pleasures. Recounted in a luminous narrative filled with tenderness and humor, Kalish’s memoir of her childhood shows how the right stuff can make even the bleakest of times seem like “quite a romp.”
Book Synopsis Shadows Over Sunnyside by : Jeannie M. Whayne
Download or read book Shadows Over Sunnyside written by Jeannie M. Whayne and published by University of Arkansas Press. This book was released on 1995-12-01 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This remarkable collection of essays addresses social, historical, cultural, and labor issues as they affect a Southern plantation. The heart of the book is an examination of a "great experiment" to import Italian laborers to Sunnyside Plantation. From the crucible of tensions that this experiment produced, the reader obtains a concrete understanding of the implications of U.S. immigration policy, of changing labor relations following Reconstruction, and of a minority culture's introduction into the Delta.
Book Synopsis Iowa's Changing Wildlife by : James J. Dinsmore
Download or read book Iowa's Changing Wildlife written by James J. Dinsmore and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2023-12-05 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much has changed with Iowa’s wildlife in the years 1990 to 2020. Some species such as Canada goose, wild turkey, and white-tailed deer that once were rare in Iowa are now common, and others like sandhill crane, river otter, and trumpeter swan are becoming increasingly abundant. Iowa’s Changing Wildlife provides an up-to-date, scientifically based summary of changes in the distribution, status, conservation needs, and future prospects of about sixty species of Iowa’s birds and mammals whose populations have increased or decreased in the past three decades. Readers will learn more about familiar species, become acquainted with the status of less familiar species, and find out how many of the species around them have fared during this era of transformation.
Book Synopsis Gardening the Amana Way by : Lawrence L. Rettig
Download or read book Gardening the Amana Way written by Lawrence L. Rettig and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2013-10-15 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gardening in Iowa’s Amana Colonies is the culmination of techniques that stretch back several centuries to central Europe, when adherents to a new faith called the Community of True Inspiration formed their own self-reliant communities. As a child of parents who were part of the communal life of the Amana Society, Larry Rettig pays homage to the Amana gardening tradition and extends it into the twenty-first century. Each of the seven villages in Amana relied on the food prepared in its communal kitchens, and each kitchen depended on its communal garden for most of the dishes served (the kitchens in Rettig’s hometown produced more than four hundred gallons of sauerkraut in 1900). Rettig begins by describing the evolution of communal gardening in old Amana, focusing especially on planting, harvesting, and storing vegetables from asparagus to egg lettuce to turnips. With the passing of the old order in 1932, the number of the society’s large vegetable gardens and orchards dwindled, but Larry Rettig and his wife, Wilma, still grow some of the colonies’ heirloom varieties in their fourth-generation South Amana vegetable garden. In 1980 they founded a seed bank to preserve them for future generations. Rettig’s chapters on modern vegetable and flower gardening in today’s Amana Colonies showcase his Cottage-in-the-Meadow Gardens, now listed with the Smithsonian in its Archives of American Gardens. Old intermingles with new across his gardens: heirloom lettuce keeps company with the latest cucumber variety, a hundred-year-old rose arches over the newest daylilies and heucheras, and ancient grapevines intertwine with newly planted wisteria, all adding up to a rich array of colorful plantings. Rettig extends his gardening advice into the kitchen and workroom. He shares family recipes for any number of traditional dishes, including radish salad, dumpling soup, Amana pickled ham, apple bread, eleven-minute meat loaf, and strawberry rhubarb pie. Moving into the workroom, he shows us how to make hammered botanical prints, Della Robbia centerpieces, holiday wreaths, a gnome home, and a waterless fountain. Touring his gardens, with their historic and unusual plants, will make gardeners everywhere want to reproduce the groupings and varieties that surround Larry and Wilma Rettig’s 1900 red brick house.
Book Synopsis Report of the Secretary of State to the Governor of Iowa, of the Transactions of the Land Department by : Iowa. Secretary of State
Download or read book Report of the Secretary of State to the Governor of Iowa, of the Transactions of the Land Department written by Iowa. Secretary of State and published by . This book was released on 1914 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis The Tallgrass Prairie Reader by : John T Price
Download or read book The Tallgrass Prairie Reader written by John T Price and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2014-06-01 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The tallgrass prairie of the early 1800s, a beautiful and seemingly endless landscape of wildflowers and grasses, is now a tiny remnant of its former expanse. As a literary landscape, with much of the American environmental imagination focused on a mainstream notion of more spectacular examples of wild beauty, tallgrass is even more neglected. Prairie author and advocate John T. Price wondered what it would take to restore tallgrass prairie to its rightful place at the center of our collective identity. The answer to that question is his Tallgrass Prairie Reader, a first-of-its-kind collection of literature from and about the tallgrass bioregion. Focusing on autobiographical nonfiction in a wide variety of forms, voices, and approaches—including adventure narrative, spiritual reflection, childhood memoir, Native American perspectives, literary natural history, humor, travel writing and reportage—he honors the ecological diversity of tallgrass itself and provides a range of models for nature writers and students. The chronological arrangement allows readers to experience tallgrass through the eyes and imaginations of forty-two authors from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Writings by very early explorers are followed by works of nineteenth-century authors that reflect the fear, awe, reverence, and thrill of adventure rampant at the time. After 1900, following the destruction of the majority of tallgrass, much of the writing became nostalgic, elegiac, and mythic. A new environmental consciousness asserted itself midcentury, as personal responses to tallgrass were increasingly influenced by larger ecological perspectives. Preservation and restoration—informed by hard science—emerged as major themes. Early twenty-first-century writings demonstrate an awareness of tallgrass environmental history and the need for citizens, including writers, to remember and to help save our once magnificent prairies.
Book Synopsis Philippines - The Land by : Greg Nickles
Download or read book Philippines - The Land written by Greg Nickles and published by Crabtree Publishing Company. This book was released on 2002 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over seven thousand islands make up the country of the Philippines. Beautiful full-color photographs capture the islands' abundant coasts, mountain forests, and natural wonders such as the Chocolate Hills of Bohol, Banaue rice terraces, and the coral reefs and giant clam shells of the seas.
