The 2017 Castalia Tractor Days parade grand marhals are Dale and Karen Green of rural Castalia. (Zakary Kriener photo)
Greens are grand marshals at 25th Tractor Days
Zakary Kriener
News Writer
zkriener@fayettepublishing.com
With the small community of Castalia celebrating a big milestone this year, the 25th Annual Tractor Days, it seems only appropriate that a couple with deep local roots serve as the parade’s grand marshals.
Dale and Karen Green of rural Castalia have roots that run quite deep in the northeast Iowa soil they call home.
“My great-grandfather came to the Midwest from upstate New York in the 1850s,” recalled Dale. “He stopped in Michigan for a year, as well as Wisconsin, before finally finding this farm to claim in 1851.”
He went on to say that the nearby spring and the abundant timbers were likely his ancestors’ reason for choosing such a location. They established what is today considered to be one of the oldest industries in the entire state of Iowa.
“Ever since they came to Iowa back in 1851, my family has been making maple syrup with the sap collected from the trees,” explained Dale and Karen, who are the current operators of Greens’ Sugarbush. “It’s a process that we keep doing as a hobby and to honor the tradition. It’s also a great social event, as many of our neighbors pitch in and help out every spring.”
The Greens, who at one point in history collected sap from over 2,200 trees, are now at approximately 1,250 trees. They use the sap to create tasty maple syrup that they sell out of their over-160-year-old farm house.
For Dale and Karen, however, the story starts more recently in the 1960s.