Hunting for the Perfect Christmas Tree

After three days of clouds and rain, Saturday the skies cleared, the sun came out, and we went hunting for the perfect Christmas tree at our farm.  Our intrepid tree hunting crew included son, Steve, Natasha, two boys that she cares for on occasion, daughter Sue, and me, the guide.

One would think it would be easy.  At Roshara we have several thousand trees from which to choose.  We prune none of them so finding the perfect tree always proves a bit of a challenge.  Further, a tree in the wild is always taller than a tree in one’s living room.  Outdoors, the tree is compared to those fifty feet tall standing around it.  In your living room there is a ceiling to contend with.

So the crew runs through the trees, looking here and there: “This one’s too short. This one’s too tall.  This one is too skinny.  This one is too fat.  This one has a bad side” and so on.  I’ve long learned to stay quiet, letting the decision making evolve.

 For me, and I think it would hold for everyone in the tree hunting crew, the hunt is as important as the results.  Three generations outdoors on a sunny late fall day, enjoying the fun of it all, a quiet day in the out-of-doors, and a chance to be with each other.

For those wondering, we did find three decent looking Christmas trees.  But it took a while.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Cut your own Christmas tree.  And bring the family along.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

December 2, 12:00 to 1:00 p.m.  Book Signing, Wisconsin Historical Society Headquarters building lobby.  Books on sale.

December 2, 7:00 p.m. All Wisconsin Public TV stations.  The Land With Jerry Apps. Hour-long documentary based on my book WHISPERS AND SHADOWS.  See grandsons, Josh and Ben in action, and with a lot to say.

December 19, McFarlane’s, 780 Caroline St., Sauk City, Wisconsin.  1:00 p.m. Discussion and signing of Wisconsin Agriculture: A History.

Purchase Jerry’s DVDS and his Books from the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose, Wisconsin (a fund raiser for them):

The library now has available signed copies of Jerry’s DVDs, Emmy Winner, A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps and Jerry Apps a Farm Story.

Also available are several of Jerry’s signed books including The Quiet Season (on which the DVD A Farm Winter is based), as well as Rural Wit and Wisdom and Old Farm, (which are related to the DVD Jerry Apps a Farm Story). Also available is Jerry’s new novel, The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County as well as Whispers and Shadows and his newest nonfiction book, Wisconsin Agriculture: A History.

Contact the library for prices and special package deals.

Patterson Memorial Library

500 Division Street

Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.org
www.wildroselibrary.org
920-622-3835

Deer Season: Tradition and Family

Opening day of deer season.  No snow at Roshara, but a cold damp wind digs through my many layers of clothing.  No deer to be seen.  A good time for thinking and relaxing, and a little shivering.

I’ve not missed deer hunting since I was 12 years old when I hunted with my dad in Adams County.  In 1946 there were no deer in Waushara County.  Now my son, Steve hunts with me and he has done so since he was 12, not missing a year.

Why do I do it?  Why do I get up at 5:15 on a dark, dank cold November morning and sit under a tree at my farm and wait for daylight?

For two main reasons: Tradition and Family.  Other reasons, such as being outdoors, watching wildlife—I saw two chickadees and a gray squirrel on Saturday morning—listening to the quiet, oh, and sometimes bagging a deer, come in second place.

This year Steve and I hunted with my brother, Don, and his sons, Marc, Eric and Matt, as we have for many years.  It’s a family tradition with many stories, and catching up with jobs, and news of kids and grand kids.

And for more than 40 years, we all gather for a chili supper with more stories, kidding, and smart talk.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Tradition and Family define deer hunting.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

December 2, 12:00 to 1:00 p.m.  Book Signing, Wisconsin Historical Society Headquarters building lobby.  Books at reduced prices.

December 2, 7:00 p.m. All Wisconsin Public TV stations.  The Land With Jerry Apps. Hour-long documentary based on my book WHISPERS AND SHADOWS.

Purchase Jerry’s DVDS and his Books from the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose, Wisconsin (a fund raiser for them):

The library now has available signed copies of Jerry’s DVDs, Emmy Winner, A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps and Jerry Apps a Farm Story.

Also available are several of Jerry’s signed books including The Quiet Season (on which the DVD A Farm Winter is based), as well as Rural Wit and Wisdom and Old Farm, (which are related to the DVD Jerry Apps a Farm Story). Also available is Jerry’s new novel, The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County as well as Whispers and Shadows and his newest nonfiction book, Wisconsin Agriculture: A History.

Contact the library for prices and special package deals.

Patterson Memorial Library

500 Division Street

Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.org
www.wildroselibrary.org
920-622-3835

Wood Piles and Piles of Wood

By this time in November, when I was growing up on the farm, the haymows were filled with hay, the silo was filled with silage, and the corn cribs ran over with cob corn.  

One major task remained.  Making wood.  Well, we didn’t actually make it.  Mother Nature took care of that for us.  What we did was find a dead oak tree or two in the woodlot back of the farm house, cut it down, haul the limbs and trunks to the house, and hold a wood sawing bee. 

A wood sawing bee was when the neighbors gathered to help each  other saw wood (with a huge circle saw) into manageable pieces, most of which we still had to split.  Oh, I should mention that in those days of the latter years of the Great Depression and into World War II, everyone in the neighborhood heated their farm houses with wood stoves.

Now as strange as this may sound today, one way we judged the quality of a neighbor’s work was the size of his woodpile and especially how well it was stacked.   We all knew and knew well the difference between a mere pile of wood, and a wood pile.  A wood pile had elegance, had a sense of art to it, was something to behold and even brag about, although it was not becoming of farmer to do much bragging.  A pile of wood was just that, an unattractive pile.  Awarded a zero on the elegance scale of 0 to 10.

We still make wood at my farm.  For a few weeks we had a rather elegant wood pile.  About an 8 on the wood pile elegance scale.  Then it fell over.  From an 8 to a pile of wood, and a zero.   Thanks to my brother Don, the pile of wood has once become a woodpile, and right close to a 9 on the elegance scale as well.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS:  Always remember the difference between a pile of wood and a wood pile.

UPCOMING EVENTS;

November 17, 7:00 p.m. Hotel Red (1501 Monroe Street- corner of Regent and Monroe, Madison.)  A discussion with Doug Moe. Sponsored by Mystery to me Bookstore.  Book signing to follow. (Whispers and Shadows and more.)

November 18, Preview of TV Documentary, “The Land With Jerry Apps” Wild Rose High School Auditorium.  Whispers and Shadows book signing. 6:00 p.m.  Refreshments.  Presentation starting at 6:30.

December 2, 7:00 p.m. All Wisconsin Public TV stations.  The Land With Jerry Apps. Hour-long documentary based on my book WHISPERS AND SHADOWS.

Purchase Jerry’s DVDS and his Books from the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose, Wisconsin (a fund raiser for them):

The library now has available signed copies of Jerry’s DVDs, Emmy Winner, A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps and Jerry Apps a Farm Story.

Also available are several of Jerry’s signed books including The Quiet Season (on which the DVD A Farm Winter is based), as well as Rural Wit and Wisdom and Old Farm, (which are related to the DVD Jerry Apps a Farm Story). Also available is Jerry’s new novel, The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County as well as Whispers and Shadows and his newest nonfiction book, Wisconsin Agriculture: A History.

Contact the library for prices and special package deals.

Patterson Memorial Library

500 Division Street

Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.org
www.wildroselibrary.org
920-622-3835

The Demise of the School of the Arts

An old friend left us this past week.  The more than 50-year old School of the Arts held each year in Rhinelander, WI and sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is no more.  Robert E. Gard was largely responsible for starting the school.  Bob’s philosophy was—the arts are for everyone.  No matter what your income level, where you lived, or how much formal education you had.

 I attended classes there in the 1960s when I had the opportunity to learn from Bob Gard. I participated in a fiction writing workshop with August Derleth, and learned basic skills about writing a novel that have proved invaluable.  And much more.

Then in 1971, Bob Gard asked me to teach at the School of the Arts.  I did this for 32 years. It was there that I met such national writing figures as Archibald McLeash (three Pulitzer prizes), Dale Wasserman, Henry Mark Petrakis, Studs Terkel, Robert  Bly and Jesse Stuart, all writers of considerable note. All of whom taught workshops.  

But now the School of the Arts is dead.  Many of us are mourning. 

Mark Lefebvre, longtime friend of Robert Gard, said this about the School’s passing:

Learning about the demise of the School of the Arts is hard.  I broke down and cried.  I thought of the many summers I spent with Bob at the School of the Arts.  I think of all the people whose lives were awakened.  I think of the extraordinary faculty who in that very special place made real magic happen.  Bob taught me so much, most of all, how the unexpected can happen through simple belief.  I am so disappointed these days with the University of Wisconsin.  Belief is no longer part of its vocabulary.  No greater writer than Archibald MacLeish came to Rhinelander one summer.  A sophisticated guy.  He could not believe the world he had entered.  Imagine these "students" being exposed to this man who could not thank Robert E. Gard enough for putting him so close to the creative process.  Long may the banner of SoA wave over the battlefields of ignorance!  

THE OLD TIMER SAYS:     The arts make a life worth living.

UPCOMING EVENTS;

November 10, 6:00 p.m. Wausau Public Library, Wisconsin Agriculture: A History.

November 12, 7:00 p.m. Bellville High School Auditorium with Bellville Public Library.  Wisconsin Agriculture: A History

November 14, 9:30 -11:30 a.m. Sheboygan County Historical Research Center.  Wisconsin Agriculture: A History.

November 15, 9:15 Midvale Lutheran Church,  4329 Tokay Blvd., Madison, WI.The Land (TV documentary)  plus discussion of Whispers and Shadows. The community is invited.

November 17, 7:00 p.m. Hotel Red (1501 Monroe Street- corner of Regent and Monroe, Madison.)  “Wisconsin Agriculture: A History, a discussion with Doug Moe. Sponsored by Mystery to me Bookstore.  Book signing to follow.

November 18, Preview of TV Documentary, “The Land With Jerry Apps” Wild Rose High School Auditorium.  Whispers and Shadows book signing. 6:00 p.m. Refreshments.  Presentation starting at 6:30.

Purchase Jerry’s DVDS and his Books from the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose, Wisconsin (a fund raiser for them):

The library now has available signed copies of Jerry’s DVDs, Emmy Winner, A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps and Jerry Apps a Farm Story.

Also available are several of Jerry’s signed books including The Quiet Season (on which the DVD A Farm Winter is based), as well as Rural Wit and Wisdom and Old Farm, (which are related to the DVD Jerry Apps a Farm Story). Also available is Jerry’s new novel, The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County as well as Whispers and Shadows and his newest nonfiction book, Wisconsin Agriculture: A History.

Contact the library for prices and special package deals.

Patterson Memorial Library

500 Division Street

Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.org
www.wildroselibrary.org
920-622-3835