Jeff Ewoldt grew up in northwest Iowa, currently practices law in Des Moines, and has always had a keen interest in nature and conservation.
On the first day of June, I headed out on my trusty mountain bike for a ride around Spencer, Iowa, intending to get some exercise and investigate wildflower activity in the northwest Iowa town where I grew up.
My primary destination was Oneota Park, located on the southeastern edge of town, not far from Spencer High School and my old neighborhood. Named for a prehistoric Native American culture that existed in the Upper Midwest from about 900 to 1700 A.D., Oneota consists of more than 220 acres of prairie and river bottom woods through which the Little Sioux River runs. It’s a place I’ve enjoyed exploring since it first became a county park in the late 1970s or early ‘80s, and the spring flowers on the expansive prairieland are particularly interesting to me.
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