w/ Ric Hanson
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Jim Field talks about the schedules for the Audubon and Cass County Fairs this week/weekend.
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Preheat a grill or grill pan to medium high. In a small bowl, mix buttermilk, EVOO, thyme, lemon zest and juice; season with salt and pepper. In a medium bowl, toss the chicken with half the buttermilk mixture. Thread chicken onto 8 skewers. Grill, turning frequently, until cooked through and browned in spots, 13 to 15 minutes. In a large bowl, toss together the romaine, cucumber, onion and grapes. Drizlle with the remaining buttermilk mixture, season. Serve the salad with the kebabs.
High winds, heavy rain and hail walloped parts of Iowa last night as a cold front pushed out the extreme heat. Meteorologist Rod Donovan, at the National Weather Service, says the biggest hail fell in north-central Iowa.The Clarion area reported two-inch diameter hail, as did Boone, with smaller hailstones the size of golf balls reported in Garner.
Some areas had tree damage with winds gusting to 65 miles an hour. In the KJAN listening area, quarter-sized hail was reported by spotters in Guthrie Center just after 9-p.m. Quarter-sized hail and winds of 40-50mph occurred near Bagley, in Guthrie County, at around 8:30-p.m. A few minutes earlier, nickel-to quarter-size hail fell in Avoca. Quarter-sized hail also fell at around 8:10-p.m., three-miles northeast of Shelby. Half-dollar-sized hail fell at around 7:20-p.m. four miles South of Missouri Valley in Pottawattamie Co., and quarter-to half-dollar sized hail fell at around 7:10-p.m., one-mile south of Missouri Valley, in Harrison Co.
Donovan says the storm front is leaving behind weather that’s much cooler that it was a year ago. The forecast is for highs in the 70s and 80s for the next several days with another cold front expected by the weekend, keeping highs only in the 70s. Last night’s severe storms forced the cancellation of a host of planned events in Perry for the thousands of overnight visitors on RAGBRAI, who head for Des Moines today.
(Radio Iowa/KJAN – Ric Hanson)
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – An Omaha man who aimed a laser point at a jetliner and police helicopter has been given two years in federal prison. 30-year-old Michael Smith was sentenced on Monday.
Prosecutors say a Southwest Airlines pilot reported that a laser pointer was aimed into his cockpit as the airliner was landing at Omaha’s Eppley Airfield on the morning of July 11, 2012. A police helicopter responded, and it, too, was targeted several times by a laser pointer. The pilot of the helicopter reported that he was temporarily blinded by the laser beam.
A Douglas County sheriff’s deputy testified that he found Smith in his backyard, pointing the laser at aircraft.
Sheriff’s officials in Page County say a Nebraska man was injured during a two-vehicle crash late Monday morning, southeast of Shenandoah. Douglas E. Metcalf, of Waverly, NE, suffered incapacitating injuries, and was flown by helicopter to Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha, following the crash, which happened at around 11:30-a.m., near the intersection of Highway 2 and E Avenue. The driver of the other vehicle, 43-year old Steve Allen Harris, of Shenandoah, was not injured.
Officials say Harris was northbound on E Avenue at the intersection of Highway 2, and failed to notice an eastbound motorcycle driven by Metcalf. When Harris’ vehicle pulled into the path of the cycle, the bike clipped the left front bumper of Harris’ vehicle. The motorcycle went out of control across Highway 2 and tipped over, tossing Metcalf off. The bike came to rest on it’s left side, on the north shoulder of Highway 2.
The accident remains under investigation.
U.S. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack says farmers should not accept another one-year extension of the Farm Bill. Congress was unable to pass a new Farm Bill last year and the legislation’s current one-year extension is set to expire September 30th. “Honestly, an extension removes an impetus for getting a Farm Bill done and the challenge and the risk of not getting it done this year is that you’re not likely to get it done in an election year, as we saw in 2012,” Vilsack says. “If you don’t get it done in election year then you have a new congress that begins in 2015 and you start the process over again and the chances of getting it done in the latter part of the second term of a president (are) equally problematic, so if we don’t get it done now, the chances are that we won’t get it done.”
The U.S. Senate has passed its own version of the Farm Bill, but the House split the bill in two and has only passed one part. Vilsack says he’s not sure what path the House intends to take. “I’m not sure whether what they’ve done up to now is for real or for show,” Vilsack says. House leaders have said they’re not ready yet to begin negotiating with senators to find a compromise until the other half of the Farm Bill — the part that deals with federal food and nutrition programs — passes the House.
“It does raise the concern that what’s happened up to this point is not necessarily going to lead to a Farm Bill and I think time’s running out to get it done by September 30th,” Vilsack says.
Without a new, five-year Farm Bill, Vilsack says there’s no disaster assistance for livestock producers, no assistance for beginning farmers, no reform of commodity programs and “no savings to speak of” for taxpayers. Vilsack delivered a luncheon speech at the Iowa Farm Bureau’s “Economic Summit” on Monday and spoke with reporters afterwards.
(Radio Iowa)
Rain fell in parts of Iowa this weekend providing some much needed moisture to Iowa corn and soybean fields, but the showers were isolated, for soil that has been drying back out. Iowa State Extension Agronomist Clark McGrath covers the counties from Carroll to the Missouri border. He says it’s dry, but conditions are better than last year. “Last year at this time, it was entire fields, and this year, luckily, it’s portions of fields. So, yeah, we could us moisture,” McGrath says. “But after talking to people from across the state — actually RAGBRAI just came through and I talked to farmers from southeast Iowa and east-central Iowa — and they said that they felt like southwest Iowa here was some of the best stuff they’d seen, and I kinda agree with that.”
Joel DeJong is another extension agronomist who covers nine-western-Iowa counties from Sibley to Missouri Valley. He says the rain is important as the corn crop hits a critical stage.
“We’re entering that time period when it’s the most critical time period. It’s at pollination where we really determine where how many kernels we end up with on those ears. The next five weeks after that, it’s kernel fill, but the next four weeks determines what our ultimate potential is,” Dejong explains. “And so, if we can’t get rainfall we would like to bring our average daily temperatures down into that highs into the lower to mid-80s rather than the lower to mid 90s because, that drops daily moisture demand almost in half.”
Dejong says the crops are showing moisture stress. “We haven’t had but a half inch of rain in the last three, four weeks, so we’re starting to see more and more on a daily basis, those plants curling, particularly in the corn fields — and in the lighter soils — the corn is basically turning white,” according to DeJong. He says the plants need an inch of rain daily at this stage of their growth.
(Radio Iowa)
Iowa students who will be starting seventh grade next month have to be vaccinated for whooping cough, or pertussis. Dr. Patty Quinlisk, the state’s chief epidemiologist, says it’s a new requirement this year. Dr. Quinlisk says, “Kids need a booster shot just to keep them safe from this disease and to keep them from spreading it to other people.” The chemistry in the shots was changed about 15 years ago, allowing for an upturn in the number of cases. Because of that, she says a whooping cough booster is now mandatory for Iowa middle schoolers.
“That’s about the time the shots they got before they started kindergarten are waning,” Quinlisk says. “In other words, that immunity starts to not be as strong and makes the kid susceptible to this disease again.” When you take your child in for the booster, she recommends checking with your health care professional to see what other shots might be a good idea, too.
“For example, there’s the new papilloma virus vaccine, there’s some other recommended ones, like the meningococcal vaccine,” Quinlisk says. “There’s others that may not be required but they’re strongly recommended and as long as you’re there, it’s a good time just to make sure your kid’s up to date for everything.” Last year, Iowa reported nearly one-thousand cases of whooping cough, though the numbers have fallen dramatically this year to about 150 cases so far.
(Radio Iowa)