Sunday, August 29, 2010

Threshing Days

Can you believe it? E-mails and even phone calls from those wanting to share with me the “proper” way to shock grain, the subject of last week's blog. Lots of memories associated with grain harvesting in yesteryear.

Someone asked me what happened after the grain was shocked. Threshing (separating the grain from the straw) came next, a highlight of the year for a farm kid. A threshing machine worked its way though the neighborhood, spending a day or more at each farm. All the neighbors helped with the threshing task, and for a kid, what fun it was. As an eight or nine year old, you shoveled the oats to the back of the oat bin. One task for three or four sturdy neighbors was to carry bag after bag of the freshly threshed oats from the threshing machine to the granary’s oat bins, so the shoveling job was never ending.

By the time you were twelve, you’d earned the dubious honor of sitting on the shaking and shuddering and very dusty threshing machine, working the handles and ropes to steer the straw blower so that a decent straw stack resulted. An important job, for a properly made straw stack would shed water.

By age 13, you graduated to spike pitching, meaning you helped load the oat bundles from the shocks onto horse-drawn wagons that toted the unthreshed grain to the threshing machine.

And if you did all of these previous jobs to satisfaction, by age 14 you moved up to the most glorious of all jobs, driving a team of horses on a bundle wagon and pitching off the load of bundles into the ever hungry maw of the machine. Anyone who could pitch off a load of bundles without missing a beat, and without plugging the threshing machine because you didn’t space the bundles properly had moved from childhood to manhood. A right of passage for a farm kid of my generation.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Remember when work was fun?


CHECK THIS OUT: CRANBERRY RED is appearing in the bookstores. Learn all about cranberry growing, county agent work, and what happens when research goes amuck. UW Press is the publisher of this, my fourth novel, in the Ames County series.

WRITING WORKSHOPS:

Saturday, October 30. There is still room in my day-long workshop. Contact: The Clearing Folk School www.theclearing.org P.O. Box 65 | 12171 Garrett Bay Road | Ellison Bay, Wisconsin 54210 Toll Free: 877.854.3225 | clearing@theclearing.org Monday - Friday 8-4

UPCOMING EVENTS:

August 6-10, Research trip, Boundary Waters Canoe Area, Northern Minnesota.

September 13, 10:00 a.m., Attic Angels Retirement Center, Madison. Horse Drawn Days.

September 14, noon, Waupaca Library, Waupaca, WI. Ames County Novels.

September 18-19, Creekside Books, Cedarburg, WI. Barns and Horse Drawn Days.

September 21, 7:00 p.m., Barnes and Noble, Madison, Launch of Cranberry Red.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Shocking Grain

At Stonefield Village, a Wisconsin Historical site near Cassville, I was talking to a group about the early history of farming last Saturday. Several retired farmers were in the audience and the questions got around to shocking grain and the proper way to do it.

Shocking grain does not mean attempting to scare it or holding an electrified wire to it, as one young person said to me recently. Shocking grain means standing the recently cut grain bundles on end so they will dry and withstand any rain showers that may come by before threshing day, when the grain is hauled to the threshing machine and the kernels and the straw are separated from each other.

It seems in different parts of the Midwest, shocking grain was done differently, enough so that when a group of farmers gathered, they argued about the proper way to do it. Arguments similar to those where a farmer would proclaim the virtues of an International tractor and his neighbor would do the same for John Deere, with neither backing down one engine pop.

In my neighborhood, the shocks contained five pairs of bundles, with no bundle placed across the top. In other parts of the state, shocks included seven pairs of bundles with a bundle or two on top.

What was important, as it turned out, was that no matter how a shock was constructed, it should stand against the wind, and shed water if necessary. Grain shocks should also be things of beauty—to look at when the work was done, and allow one to say “Don’t those grain shocks look nice.”

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Do it right the first time.


CHECK THIS OUT: A revised edition (all new photos, about 25 percent new and updated material) of BARNS OF WISCONSIN is now available in book stores. My son, Steve, did the photo work.

WRITING WORKSHOPS:

Saturday, October 30. There is still room in my day-long workshop. Contact: The Clearing Folk School www.theclearing.org P.O. Box 65 | 12171 Garrett Bay Road | Ellison Bay, Wisconsin 54210 Toll Free: 877.854.3225 | clearing@theclearing.org Monday - Friday 8-4

UPCOMING EVENTS:

August 25, 7:00 p.m. Bailey’s Harbor Town Hall, Door County Environmental Council. Ames County Novels plus Old Farm and Barns of Wisconsin.

September 13, 10:00 a.m., Attic Angels Retirement Center, Madison. Horse Drawn Days.

September 14, noon, Waupaca Library, Waupaca, WI. Ames County Novels.

September 18-19, Creekside Books, Cedarburg, WI. Barns and Horse Drawn Days.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Writing Workshop

I spent a delightful week teaching a writing workshop at The Clearing in Door County. People attended from Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois and Wisconsin, all interested in turning their memories into memoirs. Seventeen writers gathered each morning to write stories from such prompts as: “I wish someone had told me . . .” and “Ten things that annoy me. . .” They drew house plans for homes where they grew up, triggering memories of smells, sights, and sounds.

They listened to country music that told a story. They wrote about people who made a difference in their lives and turning points that sent in them in new directions. They discussed journaling and how to do research for their stories. They laughed; they hugged and sometimes there were tears as not all memories are pleasant ones. But at week’s end, in the midst of the hottest and most humid seven days that Door County remembered in some time, they wrote their stories—wonderful stories that came from the heart.


THE OLD TIMER SAYS: If an idea does not first sound absurd, then there is no hope for it. Source--Albert Einstein.



CHECK THIS OUT: Just received an advance copy of CRANBERRY RED, the fourth novel in my Ames County Series. Should be in bookstores in a week or so. Go to www.uwpress.wisc.edu, and click on Fall 2010 Catalog for details. Amazon.com also has a cover photo and description.

WRITING WORKSHOPS

Saturday, October 30. There is still room in my day-long workshop. Contact: The Clearing Folk School www.theclearing.org P.O. Box 65 | 12171 Garrett Bay Road | Ellison Bay, Wisconsin 54210 Toll Free: 877.854.3225 | clearing@theclearing.org Monday - Friday 8-4

UPCOMING EVENTS

August 21, 1:00 p.m & 3:00 p.m. R.R, Days, Stonefield Village, Cassville. Horse Drawn Days and Barns of Wisconsin.

August 22, 11:00-3:00, Barnes and Noble, Racine, WI. Horse Drawn Days, Barns of Wisconsin and more.

August 25, 7:00 p.m. Bailey’s Harbor Town Hall, Door County Environmental Council. Ames County Novels plus Old Farm and Barns of Wisconsin.

September 13, 10:00 a.m., Attic Angels Retirement Center, Madison. Horse Drawn Days.

September 14, noon, Waupaca Library, Waupaca, WI. Ames County Novels.

September 18-19, Creekside Books, Cedarburg, WI. Barns and Horse Drawn Days.

Thursday, August 05, 2010

August Three Sisters Report

Reconciliation? Accommodation? Sister love? No matter. The three sisters in my garden are finally learning to live together and to depend on each other. For those who may have forgotten about the tiff going among my corn, pole beans and squash—the three sisters of Native American garden lore—all seems to have been forgiven.

The corn is now shoulder high, tasseled out and allowing (maybe even encouraging) the pole beans to shinny up its stalk. The squash although suffering from too much rain—can you even imagine too much rain on our sandy garden soil—is doing a reasonable job of shading out the weeds. But alas, there is still no sign of any edible squash developing.
The pole beans are first with produce, long skinny pods hanging everywhere. Corn ears are forming as well. My three sisters experiment may amount to something yet.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Try to do more for others than they do for you.

CHECK THIS OUT: IN A PICKLE (second novel in Ames County Series) now available in audio format. Got to www.uwpress.wisc.edu, and click on Fall 2010 Catalog for details.

WRITING WORKSHOPS

Saturday, October 30. There is still room in my day-long workshop. Contact: The Clearing Folk School www.theclearing.org P.O. Box 65 | 12171 Garrett Bay Road | Ellison Bay, Wisconsin 54210 Toll Free: 877.854.3225 | clearing@theclearing.org Monday - Friday 8-4

UPCOMING EVENTS


August 8-14, The Clearing, Ellison Bay, WI. Writing Class.

August 21, 1:00 p.m & 3:00 p.m. R.R, Days, Stonefield Village, Cassville. Horse Drawn Days.

August 22, 11:00-3:00, Barnes and Noble, Racine, WI. Horse Drawn Days and more.

August 25, 7:00 p.m. Bailey’s Harbor Town Hall, Door County Environmental Council. Ames County Novels plus Old Farm.

September 13, 10:00 a.m., Attic Angels Retirement Center, Madison. Horse Drawn Days.

September 14, noon, Waupaca Library, Waupaca, WI. Ames County Novels.