Tales from the Huffmans

Dr. Stephen Johnson is a friend of ours.  He is an ecologist who teaches biology at a college in a nearby town.  He also writes very well and has had a number of articles published in different wildlife magazines.  Because I like his writing, I’m sharing one of his short biographical stories1 I like and [...]

Nothing in my previous experience or reading prepared me for the dense thicket2 that I was about to enter.  My colleague, Stephen Johnson, assured3 me that we just had to meander4 through the thick undergrowth5 to reach what was once tall grass prairie.  
 
I was born in Iowa, a state that once was 85 to [...]

   The other morning at 5:15 we awakened to the terrifying noise of the city warning siren sounding1.  Since there was a big electrical storm going on outside, we knew that this meant that a tornado2 might be approaching Pella and that we should head to our basement3 for protection from swirling4 winds, should they actually [...]

A blog which would be written by our dog if she could write. Written by Kim while Don and Maxine were in China.
Whine1 to my Kim when she’s sleeping in2 after 7 even though she takes me outside at 6 in the morning and she has a SNOW DAY3. I like to get fed [...]

     Last night Maxine and I had a phone call from a friend who is preparing a scholarly paper1 on the cross-cultural2 importance of water.  Soon after that, we heard a report on the evening news3 of the loss of water4 to a small community in central Iowa.  These two incidents5 again reminded me of [...]

I love autumn for many different reasons, but especially because of the beautiful leaves on the trees.  There is something sad about the fact that shortly after the leaves are at the height of2 their beauty, they will fall from the trees and blow away.  Our leaves are at their best right now, but in [...]

    Today as Maxine and I stopped to visit with a friend in McCall, Idaho1, she received a call from the Valley County Hospital2 in Cascade, Idaho3.  Our friend, Hope Miller, has worked for many years in mycology, the study of mushrooms.  She and her late4 husband, Orson K. Miller, were mycological colleagues5 of mine [...]

If you visit our home and ring the door bell, you will be greeted by the loud and happy barking of our dog2, Blitzen IV, usually referred to just as Blitzen or Blitz3.  The IV refers to the fact that she is the 4th in a string of4 black Labrador retriever dogs5 that we have [...]

We have an old folk saying1 that when the month of March comes in like a lion it goes out like a lamb.2  This means that if the weather is cold and stormy at the beginning of March, it will improve3 and be mild4 and gentle5 at the end of March.  That was NOT what [...]