News and Commentary on the Nature of Iowa

I'll make it "unofficial:" the ground in Eastern Iowa can take no more water until we get a few days of drying out.

How to make this call?

Easy: Ants.

I'm not the only ones with ants in the kitchen after last night's supercells crashed through this section of the state. The rain, which was only locally heavy, seemed to be the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back after several weeks of regular precipitation, sending the subterranean hordes to the surface in search of air.

This morning: several hundred tiny ants marching through the kitchen. A little red pepper on the countertop sent the back from whence they came, wherever that was, but ultimately, it will be a day or two before they'll go back to ground to clean up the flood damage.

The heat this weekend seemed to send the game fish into the deeps, but catfish were still biting fairly close to shore at the Coralville Reservoir.

In spots that a week ago were solid bets for bass, striper, and other assorted gamers, only the smallest of bluegill remained Friday through Sunday.

Both blue and channel catfish biting hard on nightcrawlers, however, making for exciting fishing. A stringer of three weighed in at more than seven pounds. These larger fish were a medium-length cast (40 feet) from rocky shoreline on the east side of the lake. A full-strength, lengthy heave into the deeper water yielded no results. Very close to shore and in coves channel cat maybe one foot long were biting, but no big ones nor prowling fish were encountered.

After the late-week storms, the water was up about a foot from the week before, though my bet is the Corps will continue pumping to restore last week's level, which I'd heard is where they want it for the summer. City Park in Iowa City is about one foot from flooding, so the Corps won't have a lot of room to open the gates wide unless they want the ire of the city upon them. Look for the drawdown to take more than a week, as a reported 2-inch hour of rain was reported last night in Marengo on the Iowa River.

A young woman blogged about her encounter with a Mississippi River-traveling black bear this week. The bear was, as is typical, going after the lady's bird feeder. Mmm, calories!

It's an OK post, and has excellent pictures halfway through. The gist of it is the woman sees the bear, freaks out, the bear sees her, freaks out (but much less so, which is usual), then the bear leaves. This is about how most bear encounters go.

The QC Times is logging sightings of the bear, likely because bears are large and unusual here, and they scare people, which is what real news is about, after all.

Here in Iowa, treat a black bear like you would treat a very large raccoon: If it's got something of yours and it's eating it (like a birdfeeder) consider it lost and don't fight over it. If it's just hanging around, go ahead and yell and wave your arms at it and it might go away. Might not. Just don't get too close if it's showing you its dental work.

And no, Windy Hill lady, there's no such thing as a bear-proof birdfeeder.

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