Silvia Secchi

@profsecchi

Natural resource economist, geographer, meanderer, informed agitator, immigrant Trans rights are human rights Landback 💧Dall’acqua salata a quella dolce e zozza💧 Personal account - these are my views, not my employer’s

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Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· 21d

Monarchs and a heron on our walk - I’ll take it any day

A blue heron by the water, hanging by the rip rap.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· 21d

Always good to see a monarch about town

A monarch butterfly feeding from an orange milkweed.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· 22d

I am finishing this excellent book. It reports the text of a 1914 petition by Red Lake Anishinaabe opposing the draining of their peatlands: “These swamps contemplated to be drained readily catches fire and it is almost impossible to put such a fire out”. How prescient - particularly rn.

Perilous Waters: Settlers, swamp and the state 1775-1920 by Anthony E Carlson.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· 23d

Well these practices protect 1.46% of the tiled acres - after well over a decade of subsidies and hype. However, note how the tiled acres DECREASED between 2022 and 2017. This is b/c farmers did not report numbers correctly - I've heard this referred to as the Des Moines Water Works effect iykyk. 2/

Bioreactors, Saturated Buffers, Multi-Purpose Oxbows, and Water Quality Wetlands - acres protected 1/1/2024 190,620
Harvested acres in 2022 23,520,694 of acres protected 0.81%
Tiled acres in 2022 13,016,679 Percent of acres protected 1.46%
Tiled acres in 2017 14,107,098 Percent of acres protected 1.35%

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· 23d

The sky over Iowa City is equal parts beautiful and scary at the moment - we do have amazing sunsets, but the storms and the haze are making things really weird today.

The sky to the west with pink clods and the fading light.

The sky to the South all pink and yellow.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· 23d

Amanda Whitlow, an AMAZING Mvskoke beader, is not here so I just must post her Jimothy earrings. omg @hoktebb on Insta.

Photo of two Jimothy raccoon 🦝 beaded earrings with read fur tales and freshwater pearls at the bottom.

Close up of one of the Jimothy earrings.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· 25d

Definitely smelling and feeling the fires in Iowa City today

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· Jul 12

We were not at the Coralville dam to fish but to take out our blind and deaf dog Freya who gets her own stroller because she is old and gets tired. The Devonian gorge was looking green and wet, lots of families out there

Freya, a Catahoula dog, in her stroller.

A view of the Devonian gorge from the lookout point, quite a few people in the distance.

View of the Devonian gorge from the south with the dam visible on the North.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· Jul 12

So many RVs and people fishing on the Iowa River today - I always wonder when I am out by our streams and lakes what recreation could be like if Iowa’s waters were clean. People use the resource even when it is in such bad state! BTW shifting baselines are an issue so thank goodness for MN and WI.

A bunch of TVs by the Iowa River at the Coralville dam.

The Iowa River carrying topsoil and pollutants to the Gulf of Mexico.

A view of the Iowa River just past the Coralville dam.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· Jul 8

Here we go @chaseprairie.bsky.social ! My door properly decorated with your Prairie Peninsula plant stickers, including pollinators! 🥰😍😘🥰😍😘🥰😍😘

A brown wood door with a name tag and a big sticker of the Prairie Peninsula region both surrounded by stickers of prairie plants, bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· Jul 7

Hot dog

Freya, a white Catahoula dog, laying on a wood floor by the wall after having been made to walk to the mailbox.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· Jul 5

Alas, I’ve reached the life stage in which one needs a magnifying glass to read a map. CC @potamologist.bsky.social

A book page open at a map of the Illinois River with a magnifying glass in the middle of it.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· Jul 2

I wonder how many people at Iowa State University know that the Grant Wood murals were actually painted at the University of Iowa! (Other Arts Follow Agriculture Panel, the finished version on the right photo)

Students painting on scaffolding; Grant Wood in foreground talking with visitors of his makeshift studio set up in an empty swimming pool in Halsey Hall on the University of Iowa campus. These murals were painted with Wood's direction as part of the Public Works of Art Project in the 1930s, and are now displayed at the Iowa State University Library.

From: https://grantwood.uiowa.edu/life-at-iowa

Location: Other Arts Follow is located in the stairwell leading from the Grant Wood Mural Lobby to the Upper Rotunda on the second floor.

The eight panels of Grant Wood's Other Arts Follow mural reflect the divisions of Iowa State College at the time: Veterinary Medicine, Farm Crops, Animal Husbandry, Home Economics, Ceramics and Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Aeronautical and Civil Engineering. The agriculture panels on the west side of the stairwell were the first ones completed, and were displayed in Washington, D.C. before coming to Ames. A haywagon and barn unify the murals with carefully balanced groupings of men and animals engaged in inter-related activities in upper and lower sections of each panel. Horses have just been unhitched from the wagon, hogs are being vaccinated, and hay is being put in the haymow. The scene is spotlessly clean, not a straw of hay is out of place, and not a wrinkle is to be seen in the men's overalls. Decorative touches may be seen in the nails in the barn and hayrack, and stitching and buttons of the overalls.

Known models for some of the figures in the murals include: Bertrand Adams, project artist, for the veterinarian vaccinating the hog, and Lowell Houser, project artist, for one of the men in the haymow. Houser later taught free-hand drawing at Iowa State and painted the corn mural in the Ames Post Office.

From: https://www.lib.iastate.edu/visit-and-study/art-in-library/murals

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· Jun 25

Here we go. But now I do think I need ALL your plant stickers to have a complete collection @chaseprairie.bsky.social, brb!

Stickers of prairie plants and butterflies surround a large sticker of the prairie peninsula region and my name on the door.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· Jun 24

A little summer project: meaningful beautification of my office door. These stickers are the work of the multitalented Dr. Kozik, @chaseprairie.bsky.social , by way of Redbubble. Will post the finished door!

A large sticker of the prairie peninsula region is surrounded by stickers of individual plants from the area plus two butterflies . Clockwise from the bottom left: prairie lily, milkweed and monarch, pawpaw, burr oak, brown-eyed Susan, purple pitcher plant, mayapple, two black swallowtails, Ohio spider worth, bloodroot and narrow-leaved purple coneflower.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· Jun 22

This is how the war with Canada starts

Photo of Canada geese at the Reflecting Pool. Yes there’s plenty of poop too.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· Jun 20

Post one photo of a painting that you took with your very own hands.

At the Figge in Davenport- I thought it would be apt

Unititled (Landscape with cow and stream)

Maker
Helene Toerring (American, b.1870, d.1949)
Production date
Early 20th Century
Description
In this painting, two cows are drinking from a pond in the foreground. The pond is surrounded by trees, and a house is in the background partially hidden by the foliage.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· Jun 13

I think these are all our pawpaws for this year - super happy we have evidence that pollination is happening though we only have two trees and only one flowered.

A cluster of 3-4 pawpaws hiding in the foliage of their tree.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· Jun 7

Godspeed my darling Pippo. I will see you on the other side. You were the bonus cat 20 years ago at the Ames shelter, what a gift that was for our lives.

Pippo, a tabby cat, looking up while lounging on a kanta cloth quilt.

Pippo, a tabby cat, traying to swat a white moth on a window sill. A vintage baby bathtub is outside with lettuce growing in it on the right and pots on the left.

Two tabby cats, Pippo on the front and his brother EP on the back, sitting on a black metal chair with a white cushion.

On a futon with a white sheet, two kittens. Pippo, a tabby, in the front and Lando, a ginger cat, in the back.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· Jun 3

I have to say - I thought Feenstra was easily going to be the nominee - no context. I was (likely) wrong. I bet potus is a bit more peeved about this than I am lol.

NYT graph showing Zach Lahn ahead in the R Iowa gubernatorial primary by over 1% with over 50% of the votes counted.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· Jun 3

Holy mackerel

NYT graphic showing Zach Lahn way ahead of Feenstra with 14% of the votes for the R gubernatorial primary in.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· May 31

Today’s harvest

A little blue bowl with juneberries on the left and a similar one with mulberries on the right.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· May 30

The first juneberries are ripe in May.

Photo of a hand holding a handful of ripe juneberries.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· May 29

It will be juneberry picking time soon - already the tree is buzzing with all sorts of birds and squirrels 🐿️

Close up photo of a juneberry tree with the berries getting ripe.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· May 25

This ain’t no fake peace deal

A white Catahoula dog on the left (Freya) asleep on the day bed while a tabby cat (EP) snoozes on the right.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· May 24

After a prairie burn - at Waterworks Park in Iowa City.

The prairie on the south west side of the park after the burn.

A barn swallow peeking out of a constructed nest.

Another view of the prairie after the burn with some surviving trees and bushes in the foreground.

A water intake on the Iowa River right at the edge of the park.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· May 20

If you are in Eastern Iowa before mid June you should absolutely visit the Stanley museum in Iowa City - the Black Gold Tapestry reconstructing the history of oil extraction by Sandra Sawatzky is amazing. I really love the though line of dinosaurs 🦖🦕 at the bottom- in the end panel it’s people 😬😬😬😬😬

The introduction to the Black Gold Tapestry Exhibition.

Panel 14 showing Greek fire used in battle.

Panels 25 to 27 showing the massive use of oil and coal during the Industrial Revolution.

The final two panels, 51 and 52, showing climate change and oil spills.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· May 16

She is so excited I’m home!

Freya - a white Catahoula dog - asleep on the couch on a gold and white quilt and surrounded by pillows.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· May 15

At the Shaw museum at the Missouri Botanical Garden - the Jessica Palmer exhibition on the left then the two story gallery with the literary garden exhibit.

Jessica Palmer’s Missouri Wildflower Florilegium - all on paper in a black background.

Tudor 1200s gown with peach and quince - all made with paper.

View of the two story galley at the Shaw museum - the skylight and the painted ceiling plus the bookcases on two stories.

At the Shaw museum - the literary garden exhibit with a coast live oak specimen on the left and Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower book on the right.

Silvia Secchi@profsecchi· May 15

Last day at the Missouri Botanical Garden- saying goodbye to the ducks that seem to have nested by the entrance.