Kurt Ullrich

1 week ago | telegraphherald.com | Kurt Ullrich

RURAL AMERICA — At dusk a few nights ago, a thunk at the window 18 inches from my head took me by surprise. A bird thought he could fly through my sunroom in back to the yard in front of the house, clearly not understanding the concept of glass. We have so much in common, that bird and I. Heck, I’ve never understood radio waves, like the ones called FM (frequency modulation) currently bringing a jazz station out of Cedar Rapids to the same room the bird tried to enter.

2 weeks ago | thegazette.com | Kurt Ullrich

The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced. A few weeks ago, I wrote about a small turkey I was seeing most days up the road. Once again, I misidentified it, as I see now that it’s a guinea hen. Since that time the county’s secondary roads department has done some work on the road, disrupting the young bird’s habitat, which totally annoys this old man.

3 weeks ago | desmoinesregister.com | Kurt Ullrich

Kurt Ullrich lives in rural Jackson County. His book “The Iowa State Fair” is available from the University of Iowa Press. The other night, at dusk, a male deer sporting small velvet antlers grazed in my backyard, just a few feet from where I sat inside. When his antlers are fully grown in late summer or early autumn, the velvet will be gone. Science has shown that what looks like velvet is actually skin with hair, blood vessels, and nerve endings to nourish the growing antlers.

1 month ago | thegazette.com | Kurt Ullrich

The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced. The other night, at dusk, a male deer sporting small velvet antlers grazed in my backyard, just a few feet from where I sat inside. When his antlers are fully grown in late summer or early autumn, the velvet will be gone. Science has shown that what looks like velvet is actually skin with hair, blood vessels, and nerve endings to nourish the growing antlers.

1 month ago | thegazette.com | Kurt Ullrich

The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced. It’s more silhouette than photo, the one I took last week of my pure-black senior cat, Pippa. She is on a windowsill in the guest bedroom, looking at a quilted cat given to us many years ago.