Visitors

My folks came to visit this weekend. Friday, we found ourselves savoring homemade cinnamon rolls in Kalona and bobbing in and out of the main street shops. It is a cute town not to far from IC with a unique mix of midwest, Mennonite and Amish culture. I realize I, like many Americans, have a romanticized view of the Amish. There is a longing for simple ways, for evenings by lamplight, for sewing my own clothes, and harvesting and preparing of meals I and the earth helped cultivate. I realize it might be a whimsical wish, but how nice it would be, just for a little while, to live in such close community with others and with the land.


This is what I love about Iowa, the spring-green rolling hills and trees stitching the land to the sky. Lazy summer clouds hover above like a mobile, inviting you to recline back in the grass for a summer snooze.



I had to make a quick "phone call" at the cheese factory to tell Katherine and Sarah to hurry back to Iowa!



My parents brought me the first fruits from their garden. A lone green pepper- as small as it was tasteful. Not the sweetest bell pepper one has eaten, but it is early in the season. My dad said the plant probably put all of its energy into squeezing out one cute pepper since the plant was only about a foot tall!


For the record, Iowa City is an amazing place over the summer. Once the undergrads returned to their respective summer homes, and the average age of Iowa City increases by about ten years, it morphs into delightful city. Not, that it is not a nice city during the rest of the year, but during the summer, Iowa City's identity reemerges as it is not smothered by the university's presence. It gets to be its own city and have its own three months to shine.