Trading a bluff for a hollow

By RANDY MILLER

rmiller@thehawkeye.com

As spring approaches, the clock is ticking on my move away from my beloved piece of the bluff high above the Case New Holland grounds.

We purchased the property on Highland Avenue nearly 13 years ago and recently realized we’ve lived there the longest either I or my wife, Jene, have lived anywhere in our lifetimes. It is home.

Over the years while working to restore the property built in 1895 by C.H. Mohland, a lawyer and businessman, we’ve been visited by many critters, including deer, which sometimes bed down in a cozy corner of the bluff on cold winter nights, and groundhogs that roll along in a bundle of fur and then magically stretch out to three feet tall when they stand erect to sniff the air.

Of course, raccoons have been a constant attraction and occasional nuisance over the years, including just Friday when they got into the trash for the umpteenth time. One spring we watched as a litter of kits grew up in the hollow of the tulip tree on the south side. They would sit in the crook of a high bough and stare at us in the evenings as we watched them from the second-story porch.

We’ve also had black snakes and moles and even a skunk that wandered around the corner of the porch one spring evening when Jene was sitting on the porch swing. She at first thought it was a cat and was going to reach out to pet it, then quickly exited the area when she realized it was not.

We will be trading the bluff, which I named Redbud Ridge because I have nurtured a dozen redbuds along the backside of the house over the years, for a piece of Bonn’s Hollow on South Main Street.

We need to downsize, to simplify, and the 1915 Craftsman-style brick house in the 1600 block is just right. The steep and heavily wooded piece of the hollow behind the house won’t be as large or as easy to traverse as the switchbacks of the bluff that I came to know so well, but it still will be a place to occasionally commune with nature, which is essential to my well being.

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The clock also is ticking on the third annual Aldo Leopold Wild Words & Art contest. The deadline for submission of poems, essays and drawings is 5 p.m. Friday, March 20.

Entries in the three age categories aren’t exactly pouring in yet, but like most writers and artists, procrastination seems to be in the DNA.

The theme this year is “The Outdoors and You,” chosen to focus on people’s personal interaction with the natural environment. Winners, to be chosen by a panel of teachers, artists and writers, will receive $50 for first place, $30 for second place and $20 for third place, as well as a copy of Leopold’s “A Sand County Almanac.”

 The contest’s three age categories are: middle school, grades six through eight; high school, grades nine through 12; and college and adult. Entries will be accepted from Iowa, Illinois and Missouri residents living within a 50-mile radius of Burlington.

The contest is sponsored by the Leopold Heritage Group, with support from the Humanities Iowa Board, The Hawk Eye, the Aldo Leopold chapter of Pheasants Forever, Burlington Education Association and Des Moines County Conservation Board.

 For more information, complete contest rules and how to submit entries, go to the Web site www.leopoldheritage.org.

Winning entries will be published in The Hawk Eye on Sunday, April 19, and presented at a special event that day at Starr's Cave Nature Center.