Books in the Bur Oak Books series

Acts as a manual for identifying the butterflies of Iowa as well as 90 percent of the butterflies in the Plains. This guide begins by providing information on the natural communities of Iowa, paying special attention to butterfly habitat and distribution. It then covers the history of lepidopteran research in Iowa and creating butterfly gardens.

The author reminds readers that the season of brown twigs and icy gales is just as much a part of the year as the time when the tulips open and tomatoes thrive. He keeps track of snow falling, birds flocking, soups simmering, garden catalogues arriving, buds swelling and seed trays coming to life.

Frank P. Donovan was one of the first writers to provide a complete exploration of the major steam railways that served Iowa. This collection of Donovan's essays describes the history of the state railroad systems and the companies who ran them.

While most colouring books offer fanciful recreations of the wonders of nature, Mark Muller's realistic drawings allow you to embellish real-world birds, plants, and animals with all the colours you can imagine. Layer your creative whimsy on his meticulous accuracy. Go ahead, ink in a hot pink bison or a turquoise sandhill crane or a buttery yellow tree frog, pouring magic into reality.

Barbara Scot's memoir begins with a trunk full of memories and her mother's cryptic letters about a marriage unravelling. The author searches for the truth, which takes her back to a scene of tragedy - to the farm her family lost and the close-knit secretive community she left behind.

Covers archeology, history, and culture of different native nations that have called Iowa home since prehistory. This book focuses on the tribes most connected to Iowa since prehistoric times: the Ioway, Meskwaki, Sauk, Omaha and Ponca, Otoe and Missouria, Pawnee and Arikara, Illinois Confederacy, Santee and Yankton Sioux, and Winnebago.

Set within the thoughtfully presented contexts of the technological revolution in American agriculture, the Second World War, the Cold War, and the emerging culture of affluence, The Farm at Holstein Dip is both a loving coming-of-age memoir and an educational glimpse into rural and small-town life in the US of the 1940s and 1950s.

In her calm, carefully reasoned perspective on place, Andrea Jones focuses on the familiar details of country life balanced by the larger responsibilities that come with living outside an urban boundary. Neither an environmental manifesto nor a prodevelopment defense, Between Urban and Wild operates partly on a practical level, partly on a naturalist's level.

Thirty-five years and many acres after planting his first patch of prairie flowers, Carl Kurtz is considered one of the deans of the great tallgrass prairie revival. The Prairie Enthusiast called the 2001 edition of his book a "readable and understandable introduction to prairie and the general steps in carrying out a reconstruction." Now this second edition reflects his increased experience with reconstructing and restoring prairie grasslands.Kurtz has completely revised every chapter of the first edition, from site selection and harvest to soil preparation, seeding, postplanting mowing, burning, and growth and development. He has written new chapters on establishing prairie in old pastureland and on the judicious use of herbicides, including a table that shows particular problem species, the types of herbicides that are most effective at controlling them, and the timing and method of treatment. New photographs illustrate species and steps, and Kurtz has expanded the question-and-answer section and updated the references and the section on midwestern seed sources and services.Tallgrass prairie is critical wildlife habitat and an important element in flood control and stream water treatment. The process of reconstructing and restoring prairie grasslands has made great strides in recent decades. Carl Kurtz's indispensable, step-by-step guide to creating a diverse and well-established prairie community provides both directions and encouragement for individual landowners as well as land managers working with government agencies and nonprofit organizations that have taken up the task of reconstructing and restoring native grasslands.

Tells the story of the first structure built on the Iowa State University campus. This book provides a comprehensive history of the Farm House from its founding days in 1860 to its role as the center of activity for the new college to its second life as a National Historic Landmark and welcoming museum visited by thousands each year.

Gives us close-ups of pasque flower shoots covered with ice in spring, coneflowers dancing in a summer breeze, and prairie dropseed in its autumn colors as well as such prairie companions as sandhill cranes, northern harriers, and bison. This book celebrates prairie landscape.

Summarizing the geological, archaeological, and ecological features that shaped Iowa's modern landscape, this book recreates the once-wild native communities that existed prior to Euroamerican settlement. It examines the dramatic changes that overtook native plant and animal communities as Iowa's prairies, woodlands, and wetlands were transformed.

Although the many common birds of the Upper Midwest are lovely to hear and see, there is no doubt that the uncommon birds attract more attention. An illustrated companion to ""Fifty Common Birds of the Upper Midwest"", this work celebrates the rarer birds of the Upper Midwest.

First printed in 1858, this was written to recruit emigrants to Iowa. A Home in the West tells of Walter and Annie Judson who one March night decide to move to the West in search of a better life. It portrays the challenges and transformations of the period and includes the Panic of 1857, the Mormon Handcart Expedition and Native Americans in Iowa.

From 1900 until the early 1920s, an unusual community existed in America's heartland. It was the largest unincorporated coal-mining community in Iowa and the majority of its 5000 residents were African Americans - unusual for a state which was over 90 per cent white.

This is the diary of Sarah Fisher, an Old Order Amish woman from Kalona, Iowa. Written throughout 1976 and 1977, it is an ongoing account of her seasonal routine, telling of a life where all tasks are undertaken without the conveniences of electricity, telephones or automobiles.

For over 50 years Birkby has written a weekly column for her hometown paper containing recipes, stories of friends and family, and her personal philosophy of life. This volume contains the best of these recipes and stories from the 1940s and 1950s.

This text contains seven short stories by Carrie Young.

Essays describe life in small towns, farming communities, and suburbs in states from Ohio to North Dakota.

Offers a loving ode to the prairies of the Midwest, to west central Iowa, and to family connections that stretch from the authors's Swedish ancestors to his parents to his wife and children. Throughout he embraces "the opportunity, as always, to settle, to remember, and be ready".

In We Have All Gone Away, his emotionally moving memoir, Curtis Harnack tells of growing up during the Great Depression on an Iowa farm among six siblings and an extended family of relatives. With a directness and a beauty that recall Thoreau, Harnack balances a child's impressions with the knowledge of an adult looking back.

An in depth biography of John Ruan, who rose from gravel hauler to multi-millionaire. During his career, Ruan built a diverse business empire based on trucking, banking, real estate, and international trade. One of Iowa's most famous citizens he is known not only for his business savvy but for his philanthropic efforts.

Educates prairie owners and managers about grassland ecology and gives them guidelines for keeping prairies diverse, vigorous, and viable. This title presents the tools necessary to ensure that grasslands are managed in the purposeful ways essential to the continued health and survival of prairie communities.

Examining the relationships among rivers, floodplains, weather, and modern society; stressing matters of science and fact rather than social or policy issues; and by addressing multiple environmental problems and benefits, this title informs and educates those who experienced the 2008 floods and those concerned with the larger causes of flooding.