Monday, May 30, 2011

Old Apple Tree

The old apple tree at my farm is twisted and gnarled and bent and broken, but it is still alive. I don’t know the tree’s exact age, but I do know the first settler on my farm, Tom Stewart, arrived on these acres in 1867, and I’m assuming started an apple orchard shortly after he came. He was from New York State, and many early settlers brought apple trees with them to plant in this new place.

We have owned our farm since 1964 and have marveled at this old apple tree from the day when we first saw it in full bloom. A few years ago we thought it was on its last tracks, it had but a few blossoms, a major limb had smashed to the ground, and it was a pathetic sight. But as it turns out, this was only a setback, a brief unhappy experience, as the tree developed new growth and continued on.

This year the old apple tree is covered with blossoms, more than I ever remember. The tree is making a point. Just because you’re old doesn’t mean you can’t show off a little.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Some trips are two steps forward and one back. Better this arrangement than the opposite.

June 2, 7:00 p.m. Luck Library. Campfires and Loon Calls.

June 7, 7:00 p.m. Galesville Library. Horses and Barns.

June 24, 6:30 p.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose, WI. Fundraiser featuring Campfires and Loon calls.

June 28, 5-7 p.m. Fitger’s Bookstore, Duluth, MN. Book signing, Campfires and Loon Calls.

June 29, 2-4 p.m. Cherry St. Books, Alexandria, MN. Book signing, Campfires and Loon Calls.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Lilacs

The lilacs are opening in our neck of the words. Beautiful purple flowers with a smell filled with memories. Lilac bushes graced the south side of our one-room school yard, tall gangly bushes most of the year, but for a few days, a couple of weeks sometimes, the schoolyard was filled with the smell of lilac. When the lilacs first opened, we’d cut a big bouquet and give them to our teacher who would put them in a vase on the corner of her desk. And now the schoolroom, too, its long winter, musty smell with lingering smells of oak smoke was replaced with one more smell of spring.

We didn’t have lilacs at home. Pa didn’t like them. Said their smell was too strong. Here was one place I disagreed with him for I enjoyed the smell of lilacs, then and now. I prefer the smell of real lilac, not that created in a laboratory to become part of a strong smelling perfume that is supposed to smell like lilacs but doesn’t make it, not for my country smelling nose anyway.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: The road home is often the longest.

UPCOMING EVENTS:
May 23, 7:30 p.m. Brodhead Historical Society. Brodhead High School. History of Wisconsin Agriculture.

May 26, 7:00 p.m. Eagle River Library. Campfires and Loon Calls.

June 2, 7:00 p.m. Luck Library. Campfires and Loon Calls.

June 7, 7:00 p.m. Galesville Library. Horses and Barns.

June 24, 6:30 p.m. Patterson Memorial Library, fundraiser featuring Campfires and Loon calls.

June 28, 5-7 p.m. Fitger’s Bookstore, Duluth, MN. Book signing, Campfires and Loon Calls.

June 29, 2-4 p.m. Cherry Street Books, Alexandria, MN. Book signing, Campfires and Loon Calls.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

The Many Greens of Spring

After a few days of dreary, bleak and mostly colorless days in April, a few warm days in May changed the landscape to a world of green. We celebrate fall for its palette of vivid colors, but if we want to see green—early spring is the season to do it.

From the light greens of the aspen trees, to the dark greens of the white and red pine. From the reddish green of the maples to the yellowish green of the little nubs of oak leaves just pushing forth.

Alfalfa fields, winter wheat, rye, and pasture grass just waking up from a long winter. All green in various shades. Green is clearly the color of spring, the color of revival and new growth. The color of optimism and looking forward.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: The shortest distance between two points is often not the point.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

May 18, 7:00 p.m., Beloit Library. Ames County Novels.

May 23, 7:30 p.m. Brodhead Historical Society. Brodhead High School. History of Wisconsin Agriculture.

May 26, 7:00 p.m. Eagle River Library. Campfires and Loon Calls.

June 2, 7:00 p.m. Luck Library. Campfires and Loon Calls.

June 7, 7:00 p.m. Galesville Library. Horses and Barns.

June 24, 6:30 p.m. Patterson Memorial Library, fundraiser featuring Campfires and Loon calls.

June 28, 5-7 p.m. Fitger’s Bookstore, Duluth, MN. Book signing, Campfires and Loon Calls.

June 29, 2-4 p.m. Cherry St. Books, Alexandria, MN. Book signing, Campfires and Loon Calls.

Friday, May 06, 2011

Mother's Day

A twenty acre woodlot backed up to our farm house. It provided firewood for our ever hungry wood stoves. In fall it offered a steady supply of squirrels and rabbits for our supper table. It was a place to explore, to hike and watch the birds, to find peace and quiet. And when you did something wrong, a place to run to while you waited for Pa to cool off and reconsider the punishment you knew was coming if you’d not escaped to this wonderful hiding place.

On Mother’s Day, the woods was an especially important place for on a hillside on the north side of the woodlot, in a little clearing, grew a big patch of purple violets, light purple, some a dark velvety purple. My brothers and I would pick bouquets of these beautiful spring flowers and give them to our mother for Mother’s Day. She put the fragile flowers in a jelly glass and then place them in the middle of the kitchen table where we’d all enjoy them. For several years, this was our Mother’s Day gift, and one that Mother seemed always to enjoy when she saw her three little boys, each holding a fist full of the purple flowers emerge from the woods with big smiles on their faces.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: It’s not the size of the gift, but the size of the thought that counts.

May 14, 10 a.m.-2:00 p.m. Books signing. Dregni’s, Westby.

May 18, 7:00 p.m., Beloit Library. Ames County Novels.

May 23, 7:30 p.m. Brodhead Historical Society. History of Wisconsin Agriculture.

May 26, 7:00 p.m. Eagle River Library. Campfires and Loon Calls.

June 2, 7:00 p.m. Luck Library. Campfires and Loon Calls.