News
   Valley Center
   Park City
   Kechi
   Bel Aire
   School
   Sheriff
   Police & Fire
   Deaths
   Looking Back
   Heard on Main Street
Municipal Court
Sports
   School Sports
   Rec League
People
   General
   Birthdays
   Engagements & Weddings
Opinions
   Editorials
   Letters
   Commentary
Columns
Church
Advertising
   Classified
   Legal

The View from Sunflower Gardens
By Marilyn Bentley
Last Updated: October 01, 2015

Variety in land, birds, industry

Did you know Wichita is home to three well-known businesses? Born in Kansas was the White Castle hamburger in the 1920s. Pizza Hut also started in Wichita by Italians. The salve of mentholatum was started by a Wichita man. The building is now used by the Spice Merchant. The salve for colds, aches and pains was created in the 1890s. All of these helped to promote industry in Wichita and in Kansas.

Among unusual buildings in Kansas are the statehouse in Topeka, and Victorian style homes in Atchison, Abilene, Topeka, Salina and Olathe, Kansas City and Wichita.

We still have buildings kept in good repair at military forts from the 1800s. We have many great old barns and silos in Kansas.

There are historic theaters in Kansas, some restored to use.

There is the prairie style of homes and even a preserved stagecoach inn. The oldest military building in Kansas is the Rookery at Fort Leavenworth.

Buildings at Fort Scott were constructed of nearby trees: walnut, ash and oak.

There are limestone one-room schoolhouses built in Kansas in use from the 1880s to the 1930s.

Meanwhile, we enjoy our Monday coffee chats, Tuesday Bible study, game nights, music concerts and potluck dinners.

Welcome, welcome, new residents.

Remember to keep our troops and their families in your prayers.

Kansas weather is shown by our wind. Large open areas and expanses of the Great Plains show effects of wind in waving wheat, the turning windmills, the leaves blowing in trees and many cottonwoods.

In Kansas, we have a variety of clouds. Cirrus are high wispy clouds like a small lock of hair. Stratus, which means layer, are sheet clouds which seem to cover the entire sky. Cumulus are big fluffy clouds like cotton balls seen on warm summer nights. Cumulonimbus contain rain or ice and produce lightening and thunder. They can cause damaging winds and storms.

We remember Kansas is part of Tornado Alley. Also Texas, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma. All bring record storms.

Some prairie trails are found in western Kansas at Ulysses, Syracuse, Hugoton, Sublette and Tribune.

Verse of the week: "It is by grace, you are saved through faith. It is the gift of God." (Ephesians 2:8)

Many Kansas birds are wire sitters or flockers. Songbirds perch on fences or power lines. Locally we see red cardinals on tree branches. We like the songbirds — a brown thrasher, even a sparrow, and the Western Meadowlark, the Kansas state bird.

In winter, flocks of wild turkeys band together. They look for grain or insects around hayfields or pastures.

We still have plenty of crows and blue jays. The number of bald eagles is increasing.

So we have variety in Kansas in our land, our birds, and industry and in our people.

"The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings." — Robert Louis Stevenson.

Remember, "Be kind, anyway." — Mother Teresa.




Trending Stories
Legals SEDGWICK COUNTY PUBLIC NOTICE

Valley Center Contact The Ark Valley News

Valley Center Wrapped in love

Valley Center City trims street projects

Valley Center Student enrollment sees a small dip

Other Sections
News

Sports

People

Columns

Opinion

Contact Ark Valley News | Archives