• The Red Delicious Apple originated in Iowa when in 1868, a chance seedling sprouted on James (Jesse) Hiatt’s apple orchard near Peru, in Madison County in central Iowa.

• Sarah Busse is a native born Iowan -- an emerging poet who has authored a collection of original poems in a modern day chapbook, A Blue Like Milk.

• Blueberries are not grown in Iowa for commercial markets but there are about 100 locations where customers may pick their own buckets of blueberries.  Download a brochure about growing blueberries in Iowa if you'd like more information.
  

• In 1933, the Iowa Legislature designated the Eastern Goldfinch, also known as the Wild Canary or American Goldfinch, as the official state bird.  Goldfinchs (Carduelis tristis) feed on seeds: dandelions, sunflowers, evening primrose, and thistle.

• On May 6, 1897, at the suggestion of members of the State Federation of Women's Clubs in Dubuque Iowa's state legislature designated the wild rose as the state flower of Iowa. Although the state legislature did not designate any particular wild rose, the Wild Prairie Rose (Rosa Pratincola) is most often cited as the official flower.

• The 7 spotted ladybug is one of the most common ladybugs. Gardeners love them because, like all ladybugs, they eat a lot of insects that hurt gardens and crops. They will eat aphids, mealybugs, spider mites and the eggs of other insects.  Several  states do have a state insect but Iowa has NOT designated one.   In the early 1990s there was a grass roots campaign to try to convince the state legislature to name the ladybug as the state insect but that has not come about.  Join our campaign to designate a state insect -- the lady bug.  

• Wildflowers are a beautiful and important part of nature in Iowa. The prairie grasses that once covered most of Iowa's rolling hills were intermingled with a variety of colorful wildflowers, including the Wild Rose – the state flower of Iowa. Most of the prairie lands have been plowed under and cultivated but small plots of prairie flowers are still to be found. Violets of various species are common wild-flowers of woodlands, grasslands, lawns. 

Reading for fun:

•  The Three Little Pigs retold by Steven Kellogg
•  If You Give a Pig a Pancake by Laura Numeroff.
•  The Water Gift and the Pig of the Pig by Jacqueline Briggs Martin

For more books about pigs (and more) go to:
www.pampetty.com/pigs.htm  or www.porkopolis.org on the WWW.