Manilla Iowa and Here is the Beef

IN 1956 when I enlisted I landed in a Platoon that of the 75 members 52 were from Iowa...6 were from Manilla, and one of those was my buddy Roger Conrad and his buddy Dale who once let my wife and I park our RV in his driveway...Roger was a member of the famous 5th Marines...bad ass Marine Regiment that can when given the word, go in and break things and kill people...Anyway Roger the retired Post Master of sleepy Manilla drinks coffee with these farmers in the bowling alley right there in Downtown Manilla. I met all of these guys, would be proud to call all of them my freinds...Farmers for the most part, smart farmers, hillside farmers, and I think hard working and successful...I love the farmland topography of western Iowa...Eastern Iowa starts out flat like Illinois but quickly starts to "roll" and after Des Moines not only rolls but terraces and contour most likely no till farmers are needed...No wonder the yields are high with slopes like that, there has to be extra acres of ground compared to flat lands...you flatten this state out and it would bleed over into South Dakota, Nebraska and maybe Minnesota...so with rich deep soils like that,we look with envy at the yeilds reported there each year....Yes I think I have figured it out there has to be 1.2 acres in almost every acre of Iowa farm land.

All kiding aside, I have been to Manilla now twice and I do like this little town, nothing much going on except people keeping their town clean, minding their own business and playing golf, and drinking coffee, and one other thing raising big watermelons....Last time there I picked a 38 pound melon in the Conrad garden on the west side of town...As soon as I snapped it off the vine, Roger said, "that sucker had better be ripe as Joleen has been eyeing that one all summer"....Lucky for me it was and we all had a slice...But this year probably upon Joleens orders we circled the garden in Rogers car...I noticed the door locks going down as we approached the garden...we did not even slow up much we circled the garden and he said there is my melons, we were going pretty fast but I think I may have spotted a half dozen nice ones sticking out above the vines...It would have been nice to thump a couple but I guess we were in a hurry to get back to the house and get me checked into my room in the Conrad Hilton/Manilla....

OK second pic down is of one pen of many of Dan's beef cattle...Raised on waste products of ethanol production....The more I think about this the more confident I become in the "long haul" of our nations ethanol initiative that we have launched...

Back home in Indiana from my Marine reunion in Omaha/Council Bluffs area...Lost 9 bucks in the new horseshoe casino there in Council Bluffs Iowa...Figured out the second day, by staying away and doing other things like lying in the bath tub warm pool, I was able to keep my losses very low....and exercising my mending knee and not my arm on those machines...Crops are good all the way from my farm to western Iowa and back, but for the first time since I farmed my lawn never browned one time..The year could not have been more perfect even recieving over an inch while I was gone....I think West Central Indiana is without a doubt the garden spot of the nation in 2008....Never have been able to say it before, and maybe never again so maybe I will be heard to say it a time or two before this year passes us by....Some of Indiana has been blessed this year...We have a license plate you know that boldly states "IN GOD WE TRUST", maybe well just maybe the ACLU does not really appreciate our license plates nor our good crops that the GOD they seem to want to disprove has blessed us with...But this farmer does......