Last summer as I drove around Grand River Township, SW of Winterset in Madison County it occured to me that parts of the county are actually going back in time! Many of the family farms there have disappeared over the last 30 years. Many of the gravel roads are now marked as "Minimal Maintainance Road"s meaning they have stopped adding gravel and rarely if ever grade them. In some cases bridges have been removed over the waterways. It doesn't take nature long to reclaim what was once hers. I remembered reading Willa Cather's beautiful descriptions of the early settlers taming the land (in her novels O Pioneers and One of Ours)and the feeling that I was witnessing the process in reverse! Best regards, Doug in MN