Iowa
They’re back: Japanese Beetles
We returned from our three-week sojourn to Alaska to find our property overrun by Japanese Beetles. Dang! Just what I didn’t need, along with everything else that required immediate post-vacation attention: a weedy garden, a tub full of mail, plants to water, bills to pay, laundry to warsh, groceries to buy because there was nothing to eat in the house, Buddy and Stormy to pick up at the vet boarder, phone calls to return, sleep to catch up on, and an Alaska high to come down from. Japanese Beetles pulled me back to reality real quick.
The beetles seem to be a little early this year. I thought they were more of a mid-July nuisance. It must be the weather. And I thought that maybe I had gotten rid of the annual Japanese Beetle infestation by spreading grub control on our yard, since they come up out of the ground near by. Guess not.
I decided this year I would spray them. Last year I set up these Japanese Beetle traps around the property, and they were effective. I must have captured 10 jillion Japanese Beetles, and gave them to a neighbor to feed her chickens. However, I ran into another neighbor who thanked me for keeping the Japanese Beetles away from his property.
He told me that the pheromone the traps use attracts beetles in a 5 mile radius. I didn’t want to do that again. But I hate using insecticide because it also kills the insects you don’t want killed, like butterflies, bees and praying mantises. Then birds eat the dead insects. Hmm. The dilemma. But I had to do something fast. Literally, a major chunk of our vegetation was being destroyed before our eyes: the aronia bushes, grape vines, fruit trees, rose bushes, hydrangeas, even our rhubarb, asparagus, and pin-oak tree. I went for the insecticide.
This year, I have a sprayer that attaches to the rear of the tractor. I use it for spraying weeds and fertilizing the lawn. It’s a lot faster than using a water-hose sprayer that I have to drag all over our yard. The tractor sprayer made short work of the Japanese beetles.
It got me to thinking about locusts. Where are the locusts? This was supposed to be the year of the two different kinds hatching at once. I have seen or heard nary a locust on the Empty Nest farm. I’ve seen a few in past years, but none this year. I know other areas of the state are seeing the swarm (ha, ha) of locusts. Pictures are all over Facebook, I mean, Meta, excuse me. I have fond memories of locusts as a kid.
We lived on a tree-lined street, and the evening air would be filled with the buzzing of locusts. It was a comforting sound, one that I remember going to sleep to, in the days before air conditioning, when we left windows open at night. Some of the locusts would even visit during the night, and be clinging to the screen when I woke in the morning.“Wake up, sleepy head!” I collected their empty shells and stuck them on my finger like a ring.
The field across the road from us has something green and grassy looking growing in it. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what it was. Finally, while getting the mail, I walked over to the field and had a look-see. What in tarnation? I pulled a stem of the plant, laden with bearded heads pointing down. It was something I didn’t recognize. I took it into the house and showed Ginnie.
She has an app on her phone that identifies plants, flowers, shrubs and trees. She held the plant up to her phone. Voila, it’s oats! Gee willickers, I haven’t seen oats since I was a kid. Back in my day, most of the farmers raised oats. There was what we called, “Kennedy Oats.”
It was part of the Soil Bank program (a forerunner of CRP). But oats have taken the back seat to the dual powers of corn and beans. I’m wondering what the farmer is going to do with these oats, sell’m, feed’m or seed’m? Hmm.
Japanese Beetles, locusts and oats. More rain and we’ll all float boats.
Have a good story? Call or text Curt Swarm in Mt. Pleasant at 319-217-0526, or email him curtswarm@yahoo.com. Curt is available for public speaking.
DES MOINES, Iowa (Gray Media Iowa State Capitol Bureau) — U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson told Gray Media Iowa that he got briefed late Thursday afternoon, a few hours before President Donald Trump gave a prime-time speech to make his latest claims about election fraud.
“Yeah, I just got off of a telephone call literally in the motorcade as we were driving here,” Johnson said after arriving at a campaign appearance with U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R – 1st District, Ottumwa) at a Pella bakery.
Miller-Meeks is running for re-election in what is again considered a competitive race with Democrat Christina Bohannan, a University of Iowa law professor from Iowa City.
This is the third straight election that the two will meet in a general election.
Johnson said the “off the record” intelligence briefing to leaders in the U.S. House and Senate previewed Trump’s new election fraud claims. He called it “blockbuster information.”
“It’s the result of an investigation that’s been ongoing for some time now about fraud and irregularity in in federal elections, American elections around the country,” Johnson said.
Gray Media Iowa asked Johnson whether he believes congressional colleagues were elected because of fraud.
He did not directly answer that question.
“…everybody’s going to be able to evaluate all that information on their own, and it will lead to other investigations, I’m certain,” Johnson said of the briefing.
He added, “we’ll have to see where all this goes.”
For years, Trump has alleged widespread fraud that cost him the 2020 election. Trump has lost dozens of court cases on the matter.
On January 7, 2021, Congress certified his defeat to Democrat Joe Biden, a day after Trump supporters rushed the U.S. Capitol Building. Some attacked law enforcement officers and damaged the outside and inside of the building.
After returning to office in 2025, President Trump pardoned supporters for their crimes.
Copyright 2026 Gray Media Iowa State Capitol Bureau. All rights reserved.
With the college football season right around the corner, the Iowa State Cyclones will be hoping to have a strong campaign with a new regime coming in. However, a lot of their success might depend on one key player.
Following the departure of Matt Campbell to the Penn State Nittany Lions, the Cyclones saw their roster get completely gutted. Most of their players entered the transfer portal, leaving new head coach Jimmy Rogers with plenty of work to do.
Fortunately, Rogers and the coaching staff were able to get out there and bring in a lot of new players from all over the country. While Iowa State might be lacking star power and aren’t going to be as talented as they were last year, they do have a good amount of depth.
There should be quite a bit of competition for spots in camp, but there are some players who should clearly be starters that transferred in.
Pete Nakos of On3 recently predicted who would be the starting quarterback for every team in the Big 12. Unsurprisingly for the Cyclones, it was Jaylen Raynor who was the choice.
Raynor an Easy Pick
After bringing in the three-year starter from the Arkansas State Red Wolves, Raynor instantly became the favorite to be the starter for the Cyclones in Week 1. Him being predicted as that guy should come as no surprise, and his ability to play against elevated competition on a weekly basis will be key.
There is a lot to like about Raynor’s game, and he could certainly help Iowa State exceed expectations next year.
Last season with the Red Wolves, he totaled 3,361 passing yards, 19 passing touchdowns, and a 66.5 completion percentage. It was career-highs for him in all three of those categories, showing some nice improvement in his junior season.
As a dual-threat player, he also totaled a career-high in rushing yards and rushing touchdowns. The junior recorded 423 yards on the ground to go along with seven rushing scores.
Overall, the numbers for Raynor were really solid, and there is reason to believe he might be even better in his senior season. For the Cyclones, with all of the new players on the roster, there will undoubtedly be some competition for starting spots around the field. However, it should certainly be Raynor who is under center to start.
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CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – Syringes from injectable weight loss medications are turning up in drug drop-off boxes across eastern Iowa, creating a safety hazard for law enforcement officers who handle the containers.
Sgt. Erich Lear of the Linn County Sheriff’s Office said emptying the drug drop-off box is part of his daily routine — and the box fills fast.
“It’s probably a 30-gallon tote, and I’d say 3 out of the five days of the week it’s completely full,” Lear said.
Needles found mixed in with other medications
Lear said he has noticed over the past five years that people are placing medicine, nasal sprays and syringes in the bin. He said many of the syringes come from people discarding GLP-1 medications such as Ozempic and Wegovy.
“That tote that I pull out — there’s nothing that protects me from needles other than my observation and using gloves when I sort through things,” Lear said.
The Hiawatha Police Department said it is also seeing an increase in improperly discarded syringes.
Where syringes should go
The Cedar Rapids Linn County Solid Waste Agency is the proper disposal site for sharps. The agency said it has seen syringe intake increase by more than a ton in recent years.
“We’re talking about two thousand pounds of sharps and syringes coming in,” said Joe Horaney of the solid waste agency. “Before 2021 we were around 1.9, maybe 2 tons a year — now we are over 3 tons a year.”
Horaney said any Linn County resident can bring syringes to the facility, provided they are contained properly.
“We just ask that you have it in a heavy plastic container — so one of those medically certified red biohazard containers,” Horaney said. “If you don’t have that, it can be a heavy plastic container like an old laundry detergent [bottle].”
A third-party company picks up the sharps from the facility and incinerates them.
Some drop-off programs discontinued
Lear said another reason sharps are appearing at drop-off locations is that some agencies have ended their disposal programs. The Marion Police Department said it stopped offering the service after people continued to place broken glass, liquids and other garbage inside the box.
Copyright 2026 KCRG. All rights reserved.
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