Cataract Surgery Re-Visited

by | Dec 11, 2025 | Reflections/Profiles, Wonderment

Well, Rich’s cataract removal surgery was fourteen months ago – October 2024. How did it work out?

What are Cataracts?

 

Opaque cataract in eye

Cataract

Cataracts grow slowly. The gradual reduction in visual acuity is a little like the frog in boiling water. Declining vision is slow but relentless. When is the time to choose surgery…….and does it work?

“My vision gradually diminished. The world looked slightly foggy and I’d see sparkly halos around lights, especially headlights when I’d drive after dark,” Rich remarked.

His Ophthalmologist, Dr. Brian Privett, watched his cataracts slowly grow over several annual routine eye tests. Finally, they both agreed it was time.

Surgery

The surgery was short and easy, at least for Rich. He was lightly sedated. Dr. Privett removed the right eye cataract. A week later he did the same on his left eye. Recovery involved a series of eye drops several times a day for about a month. Then it was all over. Dr. Privett had not only removed the cataracts but improved visual clarity at the same time.

Improvements!

Rich’s vision was much improved, and the halo radiating outward from headlights was reduced. Then, over time, vision began declining. At his annual checkup Dr. Privett found cloudy substances that form under the new cataract lenses. He prescribed a simple laser procedure called a Yag Cap to remove them. One eye this week and another next week.

More than a month’s gone by and Rich says his vision is the best in his life. Driving after dark is spectacularly clear. He only has a bit of occasional cloudiness in his left eye and an occasional floater that Dr. Privett says will vanish in time.

Back Story

Rich’s vision was poor from birth. In adulthood it was around 10/600. “I would have had trouble telling Marion from my brother ten feet away without my glasses,” he said.

Laser surgery in 1997 improved his vision, although he still needed to wear glasses for light corrections. Now, following the subsequent cataract surgery and a little more laser work, he no longer needs to wear glasses. The exception is for very close up work and reading.

Here are things he’s noticed:

  • It feels strange not putting on glasses. Sometimes he puts them on out of habit.
  • For years his glasses would fog up when he’d come inside on a cold day. That’s no longer an issue.
  • Even when glasses correct vision to 20/20, they still slightly degrade vision because there’s always some glare and the lenses gather dust and dirt.
  • Because he doesn’t need to wear glasses all the time, he puts them on and takes them off from time to time. He noted, “I’m worried I might put them down and forget where….so they’d be lost.” This was never a problem when wearing them was absolutely necessary every minute.

Safety Reasons to Wear Glasses

Safety glasses prevent objects flying into the eyes.

Safety glasses

There remains a strong reason to wear glasses, even when they’re not needed for visual acuity. Safety. Rich often operates power saws, drills, mowers, and other tools.

They can flip a wood chip or piece of debris in the eyes. So, he invested in a quality pair of safety glasses. They have a bifocal type lens that allows reading or seeing things closely but no correction.  Safety glasses are inexpensive.

Conclusion

So, at age 76 Rich is enjoying good vision. The best in his life. “My original laser surgery and later cataract removal freed me from glasses and let me see spectacularly well. It’s almost miraculous,” he exclaimed.

For information:  Dr. Privett is at the Iowa Eye Center at iowaeyecenter.com.

 

 

Do Solar Arrays Save Money?

by | Dec 4, 2025 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Energy Efficiency

We’ll soon celebrate the 10th anniversary of our solar electric system. Did our decade-old solar arraays investment save money?
The short answer is YES!

Here’s the back story.

Our system is small with only nine panels on the barn’s roof. When we had it installed our intention wasn’t to produce all of our electricity. It was to tame the sting of high utility bills and produce as much electricity from the sun as possible.

Men on roof installing solar array.

Men installing panels.

Our system was built by the Enphase Company and installed by SiteGen, a part of Paulson Electric. At the time it cost us about $9,000. We received about half of that back on our federal and state income taxes, so our net cost was around $4500.

We are “net metered” with Alliant Energy. This means that electricity moves back and forth through our meter. When we produce more than we use, the excess goes out to provide electricity to other users. When we need more than we produce electricity comes in from the grid. At the end of the month, we pay Alliant the “net”.

When we travel and our electric use is low, we push power outward, but most of the time we use more than we produce. We get a monthly bill from Alliant but it’s always lower than if we didn’t have solar.

Was Our System a Good Investment?

Every month we get a report from our Enphase system through a phone app and an Alliant bill. Monthly production varies based on how much solar energy strikes our panels. Long clear summer days boost production, while clouds and short winter days reduce it.

Overall, we calculate our system averages about $60 worth of electricity a month. In a decade we’ve made about $7200 worth of electricity at a net investment cost of $4500. That’s a good return. Lacking tax credits, it would have taken us another few years to break even.

How Long Do Solar Panels Last?

Solar electric companies project the lifespan of panels at 25 years. So, for many years we will enjoy cost reductions on our electric bill. As electric rates rise the value of our investment in solar becomes ever more valuable.

The Indian Creek Nature Center installed solar on its Sunroom 23 years ago. Despite its age the system produced 3055 kilowatt hours of electricity in 2024, its year of best production. There is no sign of degradation in production due to age,” said John Myers, the Center’s executive director.

Here are things we’ve learned from our system:

  • Our only maintenance is to use a roof rake to remove snow. Panels make no noise and have survived severe storms intact.
  • Annual electric production is a bell curve with its peak during the summer’s longest days and the lowest during midwinter.
  • Shade has a major impact. Even one puffy cloud on a clear day causes production to briefly drop as its shadow crosses our panels.
  • A big oak tree on our property, immediately east of the panels, got first dibs on sunlight. The tree shaded the panels in the morning. After we removed the old declining tree in early 2025 our morning electricity production jumped upward.

Society Going Backwards

The Trump administration and your representatives eliminated tax credits in the latest budget. Next year, credits will no longer be available to help homeowners reduce their electric bills.

Goinig Forwards

Back to the main question: Is investing in solar energy worth it today? Yup.

The payback time is longer but newer panels are more efficient than our decade-old ones and they’ve dropped in price.
We’d do it again, even without the credits.

Want to install solar?

Local companies skilled in setting up systems are found nearly everywhere today. A quick Internet search should yield several companies close to home. For general information check energy.gov solar. We’ve been happy with our Enphase system. Information is at  enphase.com.

 

Chestnuts Roasting By An Open Fire

by | Nov 27, 2025 | Foraging, Nature, Trees

As Christmas approaches, nearly every American radio station will play the familiar “The Christmas Song” commonly called “Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire.”

The song was written by Robert Wells and Mel Tormé in 1945 and made famous by the Nat King Cole Trio. Released in 1946 it became a Christmas melody popular for nearly 80 years. A pdf in the Library of Congress has an intriguing story.

Cruel Irony.

Chestnut tree with loosened bark from fungus.

Chestnut blight wiped out Americn Chestnuts all over the East.

For thousands of years Native Americans harvested baskets full of chestnuts. So did Eur-Americans who swept across North America. Nutritious and abundant, chestnuts fed people and wildlife.  Many were, indeed, roasted by open fires and on woodstoves.

The American Chestnut was one of the abundant trees in the Eastern Hardwood Forest.

It was a perfect tree with gorgeous honey colored wood that was strong, lightweight, and easy to work. Chestnut’s abundant nuts fed wildlife and people. Settlers turned their hogs loose into the woods to fatten on them.

Then one of America’s greatest ecological tragedies happened when an imported fungus created a blight that killed nearly every single one of billions of trees. They disappeared from forests and the human diet……almost.

Disease Resistant Options

Rich bought a couple of pounds of edible chestnuts from Iowa’s Stringtown Market and roasted them on our woodstove for a gathering of friends to enjoy. How?

Well, across the world are Chinese, Japanese and European chestnuts. Chinese Chestnuts resist the blight and have been planted here and there. The nuts Rich roasted were either Chinese or a hybrid of a few types.

Personal Connection to American Chestnuts

Growing up in wooded New Jersey Rich remembers fallen trunks of blight killed American Chestnut trees and small trees growing from their roots. They die before maturing enough to produce nuts. Rich’s Dad, Henry Patterson, salvaged wood from fallen chestnuts and fashioned many objects from it. Marion’s father, Les Fellows, remembers gathering chestnuts when he was a child in New Hampshire. He crafted picture frames that we think are from American Chestnut wood. The pictures in the frames are of Hardwick, MA, where Marion lived first out of college. Chestnuts are part of our personal heritage.

Enjoy Edible Chestnuts

Although hard to find in the market edible chestnuts still make delicious fare. Many recipes can be found online. We like plucking them from their shells and eating them right after roasting. Here’s how Rich prepares them:

  • Cover the nuts with water and boil them for at least 15 minutes to soften the hulls and leach out tannin.
  • When they are cool enough to handle, use a stout sharp knife to make an “X” shaped cut on the top of each damp nut.
  • Place the nuts in a cast iron skillet and heat on the woodstove. Watch them carefully and stir occasionally. The idea is to drive off most of the water.

Putting them on a cookie sheet and baking them in an oven also works well.

Then they’re ready to peel and eat.

 

Beware

Edible chestnuts are unrelated to horse chestnuts or buckeyes but the nuts look similar.  Horse chestnuts are toxic. DON’T EAT THEM. Here’s how to tell them apart.

> Horse chestnuts have compound leaves with leaflets that radiate out like fingers on a human hand. Edible chestnuts have single elongated leaves, often with shallow pointed lobes.

> Nuts in tight husks that don’t have porcupine-like spines outside are characteristic of Horse chestnuts. You could call edible chestnut husks “vegetative porcupines.” Prickly!

> Horse chestnut nuts are entirely smooth, while edible chestnut nuts have a “nub” at their end. See the photo with the arrow pointing toward the nub.

Edible Chestnuts have a small nub at the end.

Note the nub.

The Future

Enjoying Edible Chestnuts, Growing Them, and Saving the American Chestnut

We mostly enjoy peeling and eating edible chestnuts as they are. And, they work perfectly in many recipes. A good recipe source is at foodandwine.com.
(search for edible chestnuts)

Many nurseries sell chestnut seedlings. Pure American chestnuts are most likely to thrive when planted outside their native range where the blight still lingers. Many hybrids sold by many nurseries resist the blight. It’s wise to plant them a ways from the house for these  reasons:

  • Blossoms just plain stink. And the trees produce hundreds of “porcupines”. Don’t step on one with bare feet!

For these two reasons, we will never know why Marion’s dad planted the edible chestnuts near the house in New Hampshire.

The American Chestnut Foundation

The American Chestnut Foundation, tacf.org, has worked for years seeking ways to restore this valuable tree. Its website has excellent photos and information.

We hope some day to spend an evening sitting by our woodstove snacking on genuine American Chestnuts while listening to Nat King Cole’s Christmas song. Until then we’ll roast the hybrid Chinese Chestnuts we buy.

Where Do Bucks Hide?

by | Nov 20, 2025 | Garden/Yard, Mammals, Pests

One early November day we watched an enormous whitetail buck saunter across our yard. Seeing big bucks during their short mating season is common, but where do they hide the rest of the year?

Does and Young Always Around

It’s perplexing. We see does and fawns in all seasons in our yard and crossing roads as we drive around. Sometimes we wish they’d stay away. Marion sprays flowers with stinky deer repellent to reduce their hungry browsing and Rich builds fences around our vegetable garden and young trees.

Beauty

Fawn

Fawns quickly grow to yearlings. Some are bucks and rub their antlers on trees.

Deer are beautiful animals. Despite the occasional damage they do we love seeing them and sharing some aspects of our yard with them. But where the bucks are is puzzling.  Except for early November and early December, we never see them. They are huge and some have massive antlers. How can they hide?

Our Guess

Here’s our guess. For most of the year bucks are more nocturnal than does. We often find droppings in the morning and during the fall we see their rubs on small trees from unseen overnight visitors.

Bucks also have an amazing ability to hide in small patches of thick cover surrounded by roads, houses, and even factories. These places are common and often are scraps of undevelopable land or the back areas of city parks. Usually, people avoid these areas because walking in them is wet, buggy, or blocked by fallen trees. They’re perfect hiding spots for bucks.

How the Rut Works

Deer in Yard

On Halloween day a buck was hot on the “tail” of this doe and yearling.

Like most animals, but unlike humans, deer have a specific short mating season that biologists and hunters call the rut. It’s stimulated by decreasing daylight hours. Across the United States the main rut starts around Halloween and runs for a couple of weeks into November. During this time nearly all mature does become impregnated.

Young does born in the spring of a year generally don’t breed during the main rut. About a month later, in early December, there’s a secondary rut when young females breed. By the end of the year nearly all female deer are pregnant and will bring fawns into the world next May or June.

Caution Advised!

Buck

Buck with antlers

For most of the year bucks are shy, cautious and stay out of sight. During the rut they’re so focused on breeding that they abandon caution. So, beware when driving. They can be spotted at any time of the day or night. It’s always fun to see them, except when they cross a road in front of us in hot pursuit of a female.

Of all months, November is when most deer are hit by cars.

Mural Trails

by | Nov 13, 2025 | Travel/Columns, Wonderment

Chance Encounter Leads to Wall Mural Tours*

Zing works on Fia's Finds wall in autumn.

Zing is blessed with tetrachomacy.

Rich had a fleeting encounter with a muralist in October that inspired us to explore mural trails in the Cedar Rapids area. While we have passed by and noted many on our travels and around town, we had never sought them out.

Here’s how our mural trail tours started. Every once in a while, Rich visits Fia’s Finds, a consignment store on First Avenue SE, in hopes of finding a replacement for his favored vintage coffee cup that broke a few years back.  No luck on the coffee cup but he had a delightful brief chat with Zing, a young woman creating a colorful mural on the store’s outer wall.That got us thinking more about murals.

Paducah, Kentucky’s Wall Legacy

Artist in Paducah, KY, repairs wall mural.

Repairing mural.

Actually, we’ve long noted wall murals. But this August our interest was piqued while walking along Paducah, Kentucky’s flood wall.  Crafted on the long wall were murals depicting the city’s rich history. They were magnificent art that told a story. And, they are maintained. An artist was diligently working in the summer’s heat to refresh one of the panels. He explained that is part of his job thanks to long term funding, is to keep the murals in good condition. After that, we started paying more attention to murals.

Coffee Cup Connection
Yields Invitation

Back to Fia’s Finds. In early November owner, Sophia Joseph, invited us to a reception honoring Zing (Phelps), who’ll continue the mural when the weather warms next spring.

“I’m actually a tattoo artist. This is my first mural,” Zing told us with pride and enthusiasm, evidence of her craft poking through her torn jean pants. Her comment gave us a perspective. A mural is sort of a big tattoo on a wall. When we mentioned this, she responded, “Yeah, but a mural doesn’t wiggle when you work on it!”

Street art and tattoo artist Zing poses in front of her work at Fia's Finds in Cedar Rapids.

Honored at a reception.

When Zing’s family joined the reception stories began to flow. Her mom noted that as a kid she used markers to draw. On everything – including walls! So, her mom bought her real sets of art supplies. COVID-19 restricted so much but also opened doors. Zing took formal lessons through the visual arts division, a hybrid middle school, at the Figge Museum in Davenport, Iowa. She got more excited about drawing and tattoo work and now works at Wildside Tattoo.

She connected with Fia’s Finds owner, Sophia Joseph, after Joseph posted on Cedar Rapids Support Local seeking a wall artist. “It was the first time I ever asked permission to paint on a wall,” Zing quipped. Her mom smiled in agreement.

Wall Murals Everywhere

In our travels we have seen wall art murals popping up. In 2013 we visited the Freak Alley Gallery in Boise, Idaho. A cool experience watching artists transform an alleyway into an outdoor art gallery. Yearly, the murals are changed. Nationwide, transformative art on buildings now is the rage. And, such spectacular examples abound.

Dubuque, Iowa, has wonderful street art and wall murals downtown that we admire when we visit.

 

What’s New is Old

Faded Firestone wall art.

maintanence is important.

But wall murals are not a new concept.  Decades ago, businesses used wall art to advertise their products like soft drinks and smokes. A local example that could use love is the Firestone garage at 10th St. and Second Ave SE. On the back side of the building next to PCI II is a faded image of the Firestone logo. Zing may just be the talented artist who could help revive this iconic wall art. She listens to clients, is creative and uses her gift of tetrachormacy to full advantage.

 Mural Tour

Since we met Zing, we have taken tours of wall art in and near Cedar Rapids.

Highway 30 and Mt. Vernon

Out toward and in Mt. Vernon are some dandy barn murals. Our first stop was at the Big Apple Orchard on Hwy 30 near Mount Vernon. The barn sports a big mural of the Statue of Liberty with a twist. She holds an apple in her upthrust hand. Just east of Palisades State Park on the south side of Hwy 30 is the iconic American Gothic painting and a realistic buffalo prairie scene. A variation of wall murals is barn quilts that dot our landscapes and we have featured in the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

The town of Mt. Vernon is well know for its spring Chalk the Walk event where artists design and color in murals on the blocked-off main street.

Cedar Rapids

From there we visited more urban wall murals in Cedar Rapids’ Czech Village, New Bohemia, Kingston Yard, and along First and Second Avenues. Another day we stopped by Shores in the Mount Mercy University area and enjoyed two murals. We are eager to check out the new one in the Ground Transportation Center and see about a canvas one in the Alliant Tower.

They’re all colorful and fun. All tell a story. A great example is in Cedar Rapids’ Greene Square Park. Painted on an adjacent parking garage is a mural celebrating the Great America Rail Trail. It overlooks a section of the trail that will eventually stretch from coast to coast. Rich, and a friend, have bicycled portions of this trail in Nebraska.

We have visited in a small sample of the street art/wall murals in our town, and will visit more over the winter months. While the murals are fresh and vibrant now, time takes its toll.  So, we do hope businesses and street artists will maintain these unique designs that add vibrancy to any town or rural barn.

How to Find Murals/Wall Art

Murals are fun. We keep on the lookout for them and encourage you to do the same.

Want help finding them? Types of sources to help: Visit the website of the town you are interested in and find street art/wall murals/wall art examples. Locally, Murals & More is a great site to check out. The site streetartcities.com is a start but does not show all. Facebook is a source to check out, too.

We are happy to learn more about these incredible works of art and meet an artist. We will try to connect with other artists over time. Bravo to the artists, partners and sponsors who brighten up our towns and the landscapes.

  • While we know there are differences, we use the terms wall art, wall murals, street art interchangeably. While each artist defines differently, the idea is they all creatively tell a story.