Obituaries

I've known for a long time that there were bones under our hen house. A year ago this spring, when I was patching up the floor of the shed, getting ready to turn the shed into a hen house, I spied an old bone through a hole in the floor. There was a long bone attached to a knuckle with some cartilage and tissue still clinging to it. I pulled the bone out and threw it into the adjacent field. I figured it was an ...

Part of the midsummer garden bounty for many is the arrival of ripe, juicy tomatoes. This iconic garden crop can, unfortunately, be tricky to grow to perfection. As usual, the hazards include weather, gardening practices, pests and disease.Here's a brief guide to some common problems, along with strategies for prevention or remediationCracksThis problem occurs because of uneven watering while the tomato fruit ...

Rachel Remen is one of my favorite authors. In her book ?My Grandfather's Blessings? she writes, ?Most of us have been given many more blessings than we have received. We do not take time to be blessed or make the space for it. We may have filled our lives so full of other things that we have no room to receive our blessings. One of my patients once told me that she has an image of us all being circled by our ...

People have been so good to us. They've shown their support in more ways than I can count. As I think of what everyone has done for us, including you readers, I just feel so blessed and unworthy. There have been untold little things and big things done by friends and family to show support since we started doing foster care eight months ago.One specific blessing that I've been so thankful for is our neighbors, ...

On Aug. 20, 2016, the United States men's basketball team clubbed Serbia 96-66 to win gold at the Rio games. Just over seven months later, the U.S. baseball team hammered Puerto Rico 8-0 to win the World Baseball Classic.That's the kind of dominance we expect out of American international sports teams. There has been no greater sports dynasty in the modern era than the ole red white and blue, but there is still ...

Willy Amos of Mt. Pleasant is the poster child for Hy-Vee's ?helpful smile in every aisle? slogan. And it's genuine. If it wasn't for his wheelchair, you would never know that he is paralyzed from the waist down. As store manager for the Hy-Vee Drugstore in Mt. Pleasant, you see Willy out front working with customers, or in the back unloading a truck, stocking shelves or building displays. He's a human dynamo on ...

Clark County is going under water.I don't know if I actually remember hearing the painful announcement over the static-filled radio or if I've just heard my dad tell the story enough times it's lodged in my brain like a memory. But that's how it started for us, the Flood of 1993.Clark County, our home, was in imminent danger of going under water.We ? my parents, sister and myself ? were on our first family ...

Cookout season has arrived, but did you know June is also men's health month? The purpose is to encourage men to seek early detection health screenings for various conditions and focus on prevention through exercise and diet. One way to support this mission is to choose lean proteins that are low in saturated fat. So let's talk about chicken. We know it's often a leaner choice than certain cuts of red meat, but ...

I'm going to recommended a slew of books for this summer's reading. I'm starting with ?Varina,? by Charles Frazier; ?The Nix,? by Nathan Hill; and ?Mrs. Fletcher,? by Tom Perrotta. All three of these books were reviewed on NPR, and all three employ a suspect writing technique that I find questionable? shifting point-of-views back and forth between first person and third person and even to second person. It seems ...

The other day my wife and I took on the difficult task of attempting to weed our garden. I believe our crop of weeds is larger than we have ever endeavored. Somewhere, in the midst of tall, overbearing bullies, is a plant trying to grow. Then I read Proverbs 15:4; ?The soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit.?In the letter of James is a passage of what damage the tongue can ...