Ferida Wolff’s Backyard: Corn Rows and Hurricane Ida

By Ferida Wolff

Corn Rows

I love sweet corn. I remember munching on the kernels when I was a kid and then sucking out the juicy sweetness left on the cob. It was one of my favorite things to eat.

During the growing season, fields are bursting with corn! New Jersey has lots of farms that grow corn. The stalks cover acres of fields but they only produce one or two cobs each so it’s understandable why so much land is needed.  

Now, traveling by local farms reminds me that Autumn is here. The cornstalks, so plentiful during growing season, are turning brown and wilting. Farmers are cutting them down, leaving the fields covered with the remains of summer’s corn crop. It’s nature’s reminder that all things flourish for a time and then release their energy. We need to enjoy life in its many forms while we can.

Lots of facts about corn:  http://justfunfacts.com/interesting-facts-about-corn/

Corn facts and activities for kids: https://www.blowingspringsfarm.com/images/uploads/homepage/Lets_Talk_about_Corn_K-3.pdf

Hurricane Ida                                                                                                                

The cleanup from Hurricane Ida continues. Residents of a New Jersey town put out broken chairs and toys, damaged kitchen appliances, split tables, soaked mattresses, wooden slats from porches and shingles off houses. It wasn’t every house that experienced such devastation but enough to emphasize how strong the hurricane was.

Another New Jersey town was hit by an Ida-created tornado that whipped through the town, causing houses and farms to be stripped or even flattened! Sometimes one side of a street was effected while the other side was left alone.  

Ida hit lots of places along the eastern coast hard and like all such storms, it was erratic. Some towns were flooded, others just wet from the rain. We were lucky in our area. There were downed trees but nothing disastrous.

Climate change is definitely happening. What we need now is a new way to look at our environment. Perhaps by changing our interference with nature we can modify the strength and number of storms in the future.

Climate change and hurricanes: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/do-changes-our-climate-mean-more-hurricanes/

Editor’s Note: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a part of the U.S. Department of Commerce posted a recent article:   US Hit By 18-Billion Dollar Disasters So Far This Year