Sept. 5, 5-8 p.m., Calmar Campus
Fun Family Event!

Food, Games & Music

Bring the whole family to a night of fun! Enjoy food, music, inflatables, rides and carnival games for kids of all ages. It’s the kick-off to fall you don’t want to miss!

Learn More. www.nicc.edu/fallfest

Get Connected. @neiowacc

Named after the Chosen Bean Coffeehouse once located on Main Street in Chatfield, the Chosen Bean Concerts Series has garnered a reputation for presenting the best in live original acoustic music performed by regional and national musicians who stretch the gamut from legendary icons to emerging talents. Originally launched in 2011, the Series is now heading into its 17th run and continues to be presented in Southeast Minnesota's premier listening room, the American Legion Room at Chatfield Center for the Arts.

Dragonfly Books welcomes Luther College professor of English Amy Weldon for an author talk featuring her debut novel, Eldorado, Iowa. Weldon will talk about writing her book and sign books on Monday, September 9 at 7:00 p.m. at Dragonfly Books.

Weldon’s novel features a young physician’s wife, Sarah Archer, who in 1875 is settling into a new life on the Iowa frontier while expecting her first child. A survivor of the Civil War, she wrestles with troubling memories of her childhood on her family’s Alabama plantation, including her father’s suicide, her brother’s death, and the deprivations and dangers of war. Exploring the ties of love, anger, silence, and misunderstanding between women, the novel asks: how do we grow through and beyond what we think we know of our pasts in order to discover our true homes, our true lives, and our true paths into the future?

An Alabama native, Amy Weldon is professor of English at Luther College and the author of The Hands-On Life: How to Wake Yourself Up and Save the World (Cascade Books, 2018) and The Writer’s Eye: Observation and Inspiration for Creative Writers (Bloomsbury, 2018). Eldorado, Iowa (Bowen Press) is her first novel.

Everyone is invited to join Dragonfly Books for this free event on Monday, September 9 at 7:00 p.m. If you can't attend but would like a book, please call Dragonfly Books at 563-382-4275 to reserve a copy and have it autographed for you.    

What can we learn from the patterns in nature to cultivate meaningful and mutually beneficial relationships in our lives? What roles do humans play in both the internal and external landscapes? How can we start tending the earth where we’re at, with tangible solutions to create a greater depth of connection to the communities that we are a part of?

Join us for a three day all-inclusive weekend as we explore these questions together at the Pepperfield Project, a living ecological sanctuary that weaves together resilient strategies for the future generations while embodying holistic wellness and quality of life. In reviving the old ways and traditions of those that have gone before us, we’ll experience the transformative power of growing food, crafting medicine, raising animals, tending the wild, fostering artistic expression and celebrating community life as a living prayer for these times.

Tending Legacy is a retreat rooted in celebrating an intergenerational community with energetics around personal development. We invite people of all ages, backgrounds, stages and phases of exploring the trajectories of legacy and this place as we know it today.

Vesterheim Museum is excited to welcome the guest curator of the exhibit, Tattoo: Identity Thru Ink , Dr. Lars Krutak, to Decorah and you're invited to join us!

How can  Winneshiek County residents live more sustainably and better protect the environment for today and tomorrow? Learn more about how to tap into solar energy and reduce landfill waste at the next meeting of the Luther College Woman’s Club. 

Joel Zook will present “Power from the Sun,” and John Logsdon will speak on “Recycling Our Resources” at the group’s September meeting, to be held Tuesday, September 17, at 1:30 p.m. in Peace Dining Room, Dahl Centennial Union, on the Luther campus. Zook will talk about opportunities for installing solar, focusing on the economics of solar for residences. (This year, 2019, is the last year to claim the full 30 percent federal solar tax credit, with the tax credit scheduled to phase out over the next two years.) Logsdon’s presentation will cover the history of Winneshiek County’s recycling efforts, including how recycling helps reduce waste in the county landfill. 

Dragonfly Books welcomes the public to a free author talk by J. Ryan Stradal for his second appearance in Decorah with his latest novel The Lager Queen of Minnesota. Stradal will talk about writing his novel and sign books on Tuesday, September 17 at 7:00 p.m. at Pulpit Rock Brewery, 207 College Drive in Decorah.

Stradal’s latest character-driven novel focuses on three women from the same family set during the decades that saw the transition from traditional large breweries into the craft brewing market in this deeply affecting family saga filled with Midwestern charm.

J. Ryan Stradal was born and raised in Hastings, Minnesota and now lives in Los Angeles. He previously visited Dragonfly Books with his debut novel Kitchens of the Great Midwest (Pamela Dorman Books/Viking 2015), which appeared on several bestseller lists and was named the 2016 American Booksellers’ Association Indies' Choice Award for Adult Debut Book of the Year and the 2016 Midwest Booksellers’ Choice Award for Debut Fiction.

Everyone is invited to join Dragonfly Books for this free event at Pulpit Rock Brewery at 207 College Drive in Decorah on Tuesday, September 17 at 7:00 p.m. If you can't attend but would like a book, please call Dragonfly Books at 563-382-4275 to reserve a copy and have it autographed for you.

The Winneshiek Energy District and PIVO Brewery invite you to a free outdoor screening of the National Geographic documentary Paris to Pittsburgh on Saturday, September 21st at PIVO Brewery in Calmar. 

Get there at 7:30 PM to grab a beer, cider, or refreshments from PIVO's extensive menu, peruse art at Blepta Studios, and learn about the clean, local energy work lead by your local energy district. The film starts at 8 PM (running time: 73 minutes). Attendees are encouraged to bring a blanket or lawn chair to sit on.

About the film: From coastal cities to America’s heartland, Americans are demanding and developing real solutions in the face of climate change. As the weather grows more deadly and destructive, citizens aren’t waiting on their political leaders to act. Learn about their incredible stories in Paris to Pittsburgh, and be inspired to create change in your own community!

The Winneshiek Energy District is a non-profit organization working to accelerate the transition toward clean, local energy in Winneshiek County through energy planning services, education, advocacy, and movement building.  Find tools for clean, local energy and learn more about the Winneshiek Energy District at energydistrict.org.

 

Stop by from 1:00 – 3:00 p.m. in Vesterheim’s Bruening Visitor Center, 502 W. Water Street, to learn a tune, share a tune, jam with us, or just come to listen.

Bring any instrument you play and join in. This informal music collaboration is great fun for all levels and happens the fourth Sunday of each month.

Drop in whenever it works in your schedule. No charge. Recording device advised.

PROGRESSIVE DINNER & BREW

Please join us for our biggest event of the year! Eat It, Cancer! is a progressive dinner and brew event supporting the American Cancer Society sponsored by PIVO Brewery, Pulpit Rock Brewery, Toppling Goliath Brewery, & Rubaiyat Restaurant. 

The Board and Officers of the Barthell O.E.S. Home invite you to help us celebrate 50 years in Decorah.

The celebration will be held on Sunday, September 22, 2019 from 1:00-4:00 p.m. A short program will be held at 1:15 p.m. in the Multi-Purpose Room at Arlin Falck Assisted Living. Live music and tours of campus areas, start at 2pm.

“Extreme Salad Man” Stephen Barstow will deliver the presentation “Around the World in 80 Plants: An Edible Perennial Vegetable Adventure” at the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum on September 26 at 6:30 pm.

Barstow, the author of Around the World in 80 Plants: An Edible Perennial Vegetable Adventure for Temperate Climates and a blogger at edimentals.com, has devoted more than 35 years to trialing 6,000 vegetables from around the world, mostly perennials described by him as “edimentals” (or edible ornamentals).

Leader of the Norwegian Seed Savers organization (KVANN), Barstow is also the developer of  a vegetable sanctuary garden in Trondheim, Norway, and a visiting researcher at the Ringve Botanical Gardens. Barstow will tell his story and discuss the benefits of planting perennial vegetables (permaveggies), the importance of eating seasonally (for climate, health, and soul), and the rewards of foraging in the wild.

Presented by Seed Savers Exchange and Vesterheim, the event is free and open to the public. 

Editor Frank Bures and contributor Ahmed Ismail Yusuf return to Dragonfly Books for an author talk featuring the collection, Under Purple Skies: The Minneapolis Anthology (Belt Publishing, 2019). Bures will talk about the anthology he edited and Yusuf will read his poetry included in the collection, followed by a book signing Friday, September 27 at 7:00 p.m.

In recent years, Minneapolis has become a literary powerhouse. Under Purple Skies: The Minneapolis Anthology collects some of the most exciting work being done in, or about, Minneapolis and the Twin Cities area, with narrative threads that stretch back not just to Scandinavia, but across the world. The writers included have won, or been shortlisted for, the Newbery Award, the Man Booker prize, the Pulitzer, the Caldecott Award, the National Book Award, the Minnesota Book Award and others. Kelly Barnhill, Marlon James, Kao Kalia Yang, Michael Perry, Bao Phi, Danez Smith, Shannon Gibney and many more, including new and first-time writers, are featured in the anthology.

Everyone is invited to join Dragonfly Books for this free event on Friday, September 27 at 7:00 p.m. If you can't attend but would like a book, please call Dragonfly Books at 563-382-4275 to reserve a copy and have it autographed for you.

The annual self-guided barn tour sponsored by the Iowa Barn Foundation will be held Saturday, September 28, and Sunday, September 29 from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

The annual self-guided barn tour sponsored by the Iowa Barn Foundation will be held Saturday, September 28, and Sunday, September 29 from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.