Lincoln speeches, with all the duplicate words removed

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we engaged great civil war, testing whether, or any so, can long endure. Met here on battlefield of. Have come portion it as final resting place those who gave their lives might live. Is altogether fitting proper should do.

But larger sense not - consecrate - hallow ground. brave, living dead, struggled,, consecrated far above poor power add detract. World will little note, nor remember, what say, never forget they did.

Us,, rather be unfinished work which, thus nobly carried. Task remaining before from these honored take increased devotion cause last full measure highly resolve shall died vain; birth freedom; government people, perish earth.

Big River

The news about the Mississippi River flooding has been, well, overflowing. I've been following it closely... the Iowa River floods, and everyone in town seems to be talking about the 500 year flood that happened in 2008, worried it will happen again. On top of that, I'm working on a project for Northern Spark, a one night festival happening in Minneapolis-St. Paul. The project I'm working on, Mississippi Megalops, is aboard a steamboat in St. Paul, on the Mississippi river.

My last of my infrequent posts on here showed the source image for this flag, a 1944 Army Corp of Engineers image of the various paths the lower Mississippi has taken over the centuries. It is an incredible image, and it was made in the wake of the Army Corp's work to create a flood plan for the Mississippi following the great flood of 1927. In that flood, the river was over 100 miles wide in parts (that's almost 1/2 the distance between Iowa City and Chicago, if you can imagine. I always thought it was incredible that this river is a mile wide in parts.

My interest in making this flag, a flag for a fictitious nation or state of the Mississippi River, came in part from listening to this incredible podcast with Lisa Brooks, who spoke about the place of rivers for Native Americans, at the center of territories instead of as borders. Imagine if I-80 was a border rather than a corridor....

Sugar Shack: End of Phase 1

The end of sugaring season came a few weeks ago. And this is what we have to show for it.

The spiles are worn, but will be able to be used again next year, and we ended up with 3 1/2 pints of walnut syrup. We also taught 20+ people how to tap. Now we're planning the next phase: sugar beet planting. Out at Walnut Farms, we hope to have a planting pancake breakfast, letting folks come and try walnut syrup in exchange for a bit of help laying in the rows of sugar beets.

Neither of us have planted SBs before, and we've heard they can get to be the size of a basketball. We're also planning on getting working on making the Sugar Shack livable/usable with a boil down stove, ventilation, storage for our materials, and a library. It'll be great, we hope.

Shadow States of States

My MA show, Shadow States of States, is installed and ready to go. I sorta love and hate it right now, but either way, here is a photo of the best part.

Ebb and Flow

After a week long lull, the sap is running again. I tapped five trees this morning. If you want to do your own tree, now is the time, at least Iowa City (and anywhere else that temps are above freezing during the day and below freezing at night). The season is already longer than last year.

Wanna know what that fine print says? Oh, just that in 2005, a mysterious syrup smell invaded Manhattan, leading some to cry "terrorism." In reality, it was a leak of fenugreek from a fake maple syrup manufacturing plant in NJ. It wafted across state lines making people think, "leggo my eggo." Terrorism and table syrup? Avoid it all and make your own.