Mary Swander's Buggy Land

Mary Swander's Buggy Land

Mary Swander's Buggy Land, hosted by Mary Swander, explores life among the Amish and the arts and agriculture in the wider rural community.

Episodes

April 28, 2025 • 61 mins

Farmers tell stories about their ecxperiences with soil and livestock. Sean Dengler nurtured a lamb in childhood who made all the messy work of farming worth it. For six days, Meghan Filbert chased an escaped ram that made her life a royal mess. Josh Anderson in North Dakota and Austen Camille in Maryland dialogue about soil, how it has changed their attitudes toward landscape and how it has shaped their own creative work....

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Host Mary Swander interviews local historian Roger Duffey about the early settlement of Buggy Land, the Irish becoming neighbors and inter-marrying with the Amish. Swander recites her poem "Quay," and her monologue "Craic and a Jug of Poitin." Sean Fitzgerald lilts, plays Irish pipes, and tin whistle. John Corless sings "The Rose of Tralee" and "Down by the Salley Gardens" by William Butler Yeats.


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Host Mary Swander interviews Liese Greensfelder about her new memoir Accidental Shepherd. Music by Bettie Swarts and Dan Pease, including a Scandinavian schottische and Dubuque. Swander monologue: 150 Pairs of Boots.


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Mary Swander's Buggy Land

And Mary Swander's Emerging Voices, showcasing young, diverse writers on curr...

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November 14, 2024 • 49 mins

A harvest issue showcasing Rick Exner's new CD called Occasional Music. Farmer Sean Dengler tells a tale of bringing in the soybean harvest with Old Hoss. Host Mary Swander interviews Amy Kolen with her new book Inside Voices (Ice Cube Press) about singing in a prison choir at the same time she cares for her dying mother. And Swander delivers a monologue about Stingy Jack.


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September 10, 2024 • 39 mins

Host Mary Swander takes a spin around Freemartin Town and reads the notes Paul, the Egg Man, has put into his cartons. Swander interviews Aidan Yoder, a Mennonite student and peace activist, home from his 11-day march for Gaza. Swander reads about sacrifice and service from Plain Interests, then concludes with her own monologue called Bring Back the Bluebirds. Music: Cluck Old Hen and Motherless Child.


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June 14, 2024 • 37 mins

Farmer Sean Dengler describes his 90 minute commute to his farm. One day the drive became difficult. The Call-In Catastrophe processes recent storms and the plague of loneliness. Host Mary Swander reads her poem Scheherazade, and delivers her monologue about morel hunting.


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Mary Swander's Buggy Land

And Mary Swander's E...

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April 3, 2024 • 32 mins

Listen to host Mary Swander interview author and agricultural antitrust expert Austin Frerick about his book called Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of American's Food Industry (Island Press.) Frerick tells the story of seven corporate titans, how they accumulated their wealth and rose to power to control most everything that we put in our mouths-from grain to dairy, coffee to berries, pork and slaughtering to groc...

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February 1, 2024 • 33 mins

The podcast explores spirits, the kind you want to lift in the winter, and the kind you want to drink year-round. And the kind that comes back to haunt you. Host Mary Swander explores the history of two bootlegged whiskeys: poitín in Ireland, and Templeton Rye in Iowa, and her connection to both. Readings from Plain Interest. And John K. Corless singing Noreen Bawn.

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December 20, 2023 • 21 mins

Host Mary Swander reads her story Adeste Fideles in Chinese with musical accompaniment. Adeste Fideles in Chinese is the third in a series of handmade books published by Timothy Fay of Route 3 Press in Anamosa, Iowa, depicting the author's interactions with her Amish neighbors. This book captures a poignant Christmas story of multicultural exchange. More about Swander's books here.)

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Ruby, our local chef and grossmommie, voices her concern about her grandchildren picking up new ideas in Indiana, and not enjoying Christmas dinner. Jane Yoder Short recounts how she grew up Mennonite, gardening and constructing bean tipis with a deep love of the dirt (or soil). Host Mary Swander tells stories about raising turkeys for the season and how the year comes to an end at the Bontrager's sorghum press down the ro...

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November 9, 2023 • 38 mins

Mary Swander tells the story of buying her own tombstone. She reads from Plain Interests and The Budget about the proper conduct at funerals and wakes, and a deer hunting incident. Then she recites "May I Sleep in your Barn, Mister?" In the second half of the show, she tells about the Amish custom of singing hymns to ill and dying people. Ashokan Farewell by Annie Chapman Brewer (French horn) and her grandfather Keith (dob...

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Host Mary Swander interviews two writers with new memoirs: Monica Leo (Hand, Shadow, Rod: The Story of Eulenspiegal Puppet Theatre. Ice Cube Press) and Lori Erickson (Every Step is Home: A Spiritual Geography. Westminister John Knox Press.) Both writers portray their travels-one with puppets, the other with spiritual exploration, to find excitement, fun, solace, and fulfilling careers on the road. Leo writes of her beginni...

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September 25, 2023 • 32 mins

Host Mary Swander interviews agronomists Russ Mullen and Jill Mortenson about creating a bio-sanctuary movement of undisturbed places of refuge, shelter, and food for wildlife. Mullen reads from his non-fiction piece about exploring a wetland on his family farm during childhood, then reflects on the disappearance of such environments in an age of industrial agriculture. Mortenson suggests ideas for urban sanctuaries and ho...

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August 3, 2023 • 35 mins

Host Mary Swander reflects upon the wedding customs in her Amish neighborhood-from the difficulties of finidng a mate, to the services in the barn, to the reception for 500 people under the tent. Wedding stories and jokes by Duffy de France and Monica Leo. Music: What Shall I Wear to the Wedding, John? by Aunt Fanny Rumble and Albert Collins.

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Host Mary Swander interviews Environmental Historian Professor Heather Roller from Colgate University with her student assistants Anna Miksis and Katie Moser. Roller discusses her research in the Amazon and award-winning books on the region, then turns to her current project A Social and Environmental History of Agrichemicals. She travelled to Iowa to interview farmers, to take their oral histories and discover the reasons...

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Host Mary Swander provides background on the research and production of her new play Squatters on Red Earth, a peaceful encounter in the middle of the white settler land grab. Swander details her interactions with both the people of the Amana Colonies and the Meskwaki Settlement. These two groups, wanting nothing more than to remain hidden from the outside world, had a positive experience together in the early settlement d...

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Mary Swander announces a new logo and name for the podcast to coordinate with her Substaack page: Mary Swander's Buggy Land.

Reflections on Amish elections and "The Lot." Comments on raw milk and a gardening adventure burying art objects.


Connect with us on our new Substack pages where you will see photos and extras from the podcast:

Mary Swander's Buggy Land

maryswander.substack.com

And Mary Swander's Emerg...

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Host Mary Swander interviews Christopher Weatherly, a licensed social worker and Ph.D. candidate at Washington University in St. Louis. Weatherley discusses his research on mental health issues for farmers and others in the rural environment. He details the social, economic, and atmospheric challenges farmers and rural youth face, and the availability of care they receive. Includes a discussion of the arts and how they ser...

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Spring returns to Freemartin on the wings of purple martins. Host Mary Swander describes the birds' behavior and habitats, their houses and the ways the Amish feed these birds. A neighbor traces the journey of a button from an old factory on the Mississippi River to the beak of a purple martin, to South America and back. Scenes from an Amish reunion in a one-room school house and a Mennonite child's discovery of a book on ...

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Two Practical Farmers of Iowa storytellers are featured-Arlyn Kauffman and DaQuan Campbell. Kauffman, from an Amish/Mennonite community, tells of crashing the manure tank on his Uncle Morris' farm. And Campbell, from Waterloo, IA, tells how a regular customer gave him the confidence to start an urban cooperate vegetable production venture.


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