Hello, CALS,
As you may have noted in my agricultural photo on Monday last week, and will see in the agricultural photos below, I have been vacationing in the Czech Republic. As part of the trip, we have been finding the places that my wife’s family emigrated from to get to Howard and Winneshiek counties in northeast Iowa in 1877. Gaining initial clues from the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library in Cedar Rapids (worth a visit), we have found the four (still very small) villages and farm fields in southern Bohemia the family was associated with, back as far as the 1780s, including the exact house locations. We even met a fourth/fifth cousin who had been wondering what happened to the family that left, just as we had been wondering where we came from!
I hope you, too, are having a great and safe summer, including work, travel and fun. Please let me know what you’re thinking, and always happy to receive your photos to post in this Monday message, as well! My best - Dan
Scenes from CALS
While in the Czech Republic and visiting in southern Bohemia with the family that now lives in the home where my wife, Julie's, third great-grandmother and fourth great-grandfather were both born (1815 and ~1780), we also visited their livestock operation. The farmer, Gabriela Valente, produces pigs, broiler chickens and beef cattle for the local market. The pigs and chickens are common breeds. The beef, all bulls, are varieties we don’t see very much in the U.S. - Belgian Blues and Czech Pied Cattle (for short, called Cestr).
