The Madness of March

March was rolling right along,  Temperatures above freezing every day, grass greening up, neighbors raking their lawns—some days shirt sleeve weather.  Nice.  Dependable .  Not like March, but we’ll take it.

Then the weather forecast:  Winter Storm Warning for much of the central part of the country.  How could that be?  It’s spring.  Says so right on the March calendar.   Must be a mistake.  Maybe an April Fool’s trick a few days early.

This was last Tuesday, when the temperature was in the 50s. 

We all chuckled.  They sure got it wrong this time.  Never could depend on those weather people.  Always wanting to turn a few snowflakes into a blizzard—that’s what they said.  Blizzard warnings for some counties.  We didn’t have one of those in January—what’s going on?  Weather people should stick their noses outside more often, see how the weather on the computer screen doesn’t compare with what’s really out there.

But, But, I’m eating crow, the weather people were right.  Right on the button right.  First the rain, then some ice, some places lots of ice, and then the snow, heavy snow, blowing snow, slippery snow, winter snow—but it’s spring for heaven’s sake.

Today, a couple days later, the snow in southern Wisconsin is gone, the grass is green, the neighbors are raking their lawns, spring flowers are beginning to bloom.  Was mid-last week just a bad dream?  Or has March made sure that we didn’t forget its madness—which goes beyond basketball.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: So it’s March, get over it.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Writing Workshops for 2016

Telling Your Story Workshop at Wild Rose Library, Saturday June 11, 9-4. Call 920-622-3835 to get your name on the list as enrollment is limited.

Telling Your Story Workshop at The Clearing in Door County.  Friday, August 12, 9-4.  Call 920-854-4088 to get your name on the list.

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UPCOMING EVENTS.

April 2, 1:30 Soldier’s Grove Library.  One-Room Schools

April 5, 6:30 Heritage Hill State Park, Green Bay.  Wisconsin Agriculture: A History.

April 9, Fort Atkinson Library, 1-3:00 p.m.  Whispers and Shadows. 

April 14, 12:00 p.m. Wild Rose Hospital Auxiliary Luncheon speaker. Farm Stories

April 17,   7:00 p.m. Lebanon Historical Society and Dodge County Geological Group, Watertown Senior and Community Center, 514 South First Street, Watertown. Whispers and Shadows. 

April 19, 6:00 p.m.  Union Grove Library.  Wisconsin Agriculture: A History

May 26, 7:00 p.m. Richfield Historical Society, 4128 Hubertus Road, Richfield, WI  Whispers and Shadows.

June 7, Cambria Library. 

June 11, 9-4 Writing Workshop, Wild Rose Library.  Telling Your Story

June 14.9:00 a.m. Keynote speech. Country Heritage Day, St. John the Baptist Church, Montello. Barns of Wisconsin.

August 9, 6:30 p.m.. Evening. Winnebago County Historical Society.  Oshkosh Library.  Ag. History

August 12 9-4, Writing Workshop, The Clearing, Door County.

August 20, 10:30-11:30 am.  Waupaca Annual Arts on the Square. 

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

The library now has available signed copies of Jerry’s DVDs:

 Emmy Winner, A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps (based on The Quiet Season book.)

 Jerry Apps a Farm Story (based on Rural Wit and Wisdom and Old Farm books.)

 The Land with Jerry Apps, (based on the book Whispers and Shadows.)

Also available are several of Jerry’s signed books including: Jerry’s newest novel, The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County. and 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

Gathering of the Green

“It’s not easy being green,” sang Kermit the Frog of Muppets fame.  But really, it is, especially if it’s a John Deere tractor.

Kristin Gilpatrick, Marketing Manager for the Wisconsin Historical Society Press and I trekked off Saturday to the capitol of green for a week—Davenport, Iowa. We attended the 2016 “Gathering of the Green” convention along with about 3,000 others from 40 states, Canada, England and Sweden

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The convention was dedicated to John Deere antique tractor restorers, collectors, and those who, as kids on the farm, had fallen in love with a green John Deere Tractor and never got over it.

Lovers of Green spent last week attending historical and technical workshops where they could learn some of the skills necessary to make an old two-cylinder green tractor run once more, or merely stand looking at a John Deere, high wheeled wagon filled with ear corn, and remember picking corn by hand and filling one of those wagons.  Countless exhibits of antique John Deere tractors, plows, corn pickers, combines, and more brought back tears, memories and stories.  Oh, so many stories.

Saturday night, 600 of these green lovers  listened to me talk about the first tractor on the Apps farm.   It wasn’t green, but a bright, shiny red, Farmall H.  I got a polite “boo” for that story.

I went on to talk about the values gained from growing up on a farm, and how they never leave a farm kid. I even got a round of applause when I stated one of my dad’s favorite sayings: “Just because you have a lot of education doesn’t mean you know anything.”

It was a great evening—I must say I haven’t seen so much green in one place in a long while.

THE OLD TIMER ASKS:  If you grew up on farm, what was the color of your first tractor?

 SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Writing Workshops for 2016

Telling Your Story Workshop at Wild Rose Library, Saturday June 11, 9-4. Call 920-622-3835 to get your name on the list as enrollment is limited.

Telling Your Story Workshop at The Clearing in Door County.  Friday, August 12, 9-4.  Call 920-854-4088 to get your name on the list.

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UPCOMING EVENTS.

March 22: 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.  Writing Wisconsin Waterways, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. Lecture Hall, 227 State Street. 

April 2, 1:30 Soldier’s Grove Library.

April 5, 6:30 Heritage Hill State Park, Green Bay.  Wisconsin Agriculture: A History.

April 9, Fort Atkinson Library, 1-3:00 p.m.  Whispers and Shadows. 

April 14, 12:00 p.m. Wild Rose Hospital Auxiliary Luncheon speaker. Farm Stories

April 17,   7:00 p.m. Lebanon Historical Society and Dodge County Geological Group, Watertown Senior and Community Center, 514 South First Street, Watertown. Whispers and Shadows. 

April 19, 6:00 p.m.  Union Grove Library.  Wisconsin Agriculture: A History

May 26, 7:00 p.m. Richfield Historical Society, 4128 Hubertus Road, Richfield, WI  Whispers and Shadows.

June 7, Cambria Library. 

June 11, 9-4 Writing Workshop, Wild Rose Library.  Telling Your Story

June 14.9:00 a.m. Keynote speech. Country Heritage Day, St. John the Baptist Church, Montello. Barns of Wisconsin.

August 9, 6:30 p.m.. Evening. Winnebago County Historical Society.  Oshkosh Library.  Ag. History

August 12 9-4, Writing Workshop, The Clearing, Door County.

August 20, 10:30-11:30 am.  Waupaca Annual Arts on the Square. 

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

The library now has available signed copies of Jerry’s DVDs:

 Emmy Winner, A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps (based on The Quiet Season book.)

 Jerry Apps a Farm Story (based on Rural Wit and Wisdom and Old Farm books.)

 The Land with Jerry Apps, (based on the book Whispers and Shadows.)

Also available are several of Jerry’s signed books including: Jerry’s newest novel, The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County. and 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

Rag-Doll Seed Germinator

I asked my wife, Ruth, what memories she had of the first signs of spring.  She grew up on a farm, as I did.  She told me that about this time of the year, in mid-March, her dad would find a large glass jar, and an old woolen sock.  Then he located the sack of corn seeds he had saved from the previous fall harvest and counted out 50 kernels.

He’d moisten the sock, and then place the kernels on the sock, rolling the sock as he did this.  With the kernels all rolled up in the sock, he put the sock in the jar, screwed tight the lid and put the jar in a warm place.

After three or four days, he’d open the jar, take out the sock and count the seeds that didn’t germinate.  He put the sock back together again , stuffed it into the jar, and opened it again at seven days.  And he once more counted the seeds that did not germinate.  What he learned was how many seeds he should  plant, now knowing what percentage of the seeds would not grow.

He was using what was popularly known as a rag-doll germinator.  Go to https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ag182 if you are interested in learning more about this old-fashioned, but still popular way of doing a germination test for saved seeds.

With most farmers growing hybrid corn these days, they don’t save seeds, as the seeds saved from hybrid kernels will not replicate the parent crop.  But the test continues to work with the heritage, (not hybrid varieties) of most seeds, garden seeds included.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Doing a rag-doll germination seed test is a fun thing to do with the kids.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Writing Workshops for 2016

Telling Your Story Workshop at Wild Rose Library, Saturday June 11, 9-4. Call 920-622-3835 to get your name on the list as enrollment is limited.

Telling Your Story Workshop at The Clearing in Door County.  Friday, August 12, 9-4.  Call 920-854-4088 to get your name on the list.

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UPCOMING EVENTS.

March 19: Banquet, Gathering of the Green, Davenport, IA. John Deere Tractors.

March 22: 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.  Writing Wisconsin Waterways, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. Lecture Hall, 227 State Street. 

April 2, 1:30 Soldier’s Grove Library.

April 5, 6:30 Heritage Hill State Park, Green Bay.  Wisconsin Agriculture: A History.

April 9, Fort Atkinson Library, 1-3:00 p.m.  Whispers and Shadows. 

April 14, 12:00 p.m. Wild Rose Hospital Auxiliary Luncheon speaker. Stories from the Land.

April 17,   7:00 p.m. Lebanon Historical Society and Dodge County Geological Group, Watertown Senior and Community Center, 514 South First Street, Watertown. Whispers and Shadows. 

April 19, 6:00 p.m.  Union Grove Library. 

May 26, 7:00 p.m. Richfield Historical Society, 4128 Hubertus Road, Richfield, WI  Whispers and Shadows.

June 7, Cambria Library. 

June 11, 9-4 Writing Workshop, Wild Rose Library.  Telling Your Story

June 14.9:00 a.m. Keynote speech. Country Heritage Day, St. John the Baptist Church, Montello. Barns of Wisconsin.

August 9, 6:30 p.m.. Evening. Winnebago County Historical Society.  Oshkosh Library.  Ag. History

August 12 9-4, Writing Workshop, The Clearing, Door County.

August 20, 10:30-11:30 am.  Waupaca Annual Arts on the Square. 

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

The library now has available signed copies of Jerry’s DVDs:

 Emmy Winner, A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps (based on The Quiet Season book.)

 Jerry Apps a Farm Story (based on Rural Wit and Wisdom and Old Farm books.)

 The Land with Jerry Apps, (based on the book Whispers and Shadows.)

Also available are several of Jerry’s signed books including: Jerry’s newest novel, The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County. and 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

Visiting a Public School

It’s been a few years since I’ve spoken to school children.  But I did last week, at the Necedah Public School in which elementary, middle-school and high school students are all in one building.

I didn’t quite know what to expect, but soon I was sitting in front of 134 third through fifth graders all sitting on the floor in the band room.  My task was to talk about what farm life was like when I was a kid.  I brought along an old cow bell and a barn lantern.

I asked how many of them lived on farms. Three or four hands went up.  I talked about milking cows by lantern  light.  I talked about doing chores and walking to a one room school. They had unending questions. How many animals did you have? What did you like most about growing up on a farm.  Good questions.  How old are you?  I told them. 

Soon I was talking with a small group of high school students interesting in writing.  They had read several of my books and had seen my TV shows.  I talked about the value of keeping a journal.  I told them to write about what they knew, and also to write about what they didn’t know, which required doing research—reading, interviewing people, sorting out what was true and what wasn’t.

And then I was escorted into the gym where I talked to 162 middle school kids, plus teachers and a few adults from the community.  I talked about writing and how I started doing it.  I talked about storytelling and how important it was.  And I shared a few stories to illustrate my points.

Prior to my coming, my guide for the day, Middle School teacher, Mary Alice Laswell, and her students had visited the classrooms and talked about me, my books and TV shows, and asked  students to have questions prepared for me.  And they did.  Good questions.  What was your worst job on the farm?  What was the best?  What did you do for fun? And many more.

I was most impressed with the students.  They were courteous, respectful, smart, thoughtful and they read books.  I talked with several teachers and administrators as well.  Committed, hardworking people.  Anyone questioning the importance of the public schools should spend some time in one.  Under sometimes trying circumstances they are doing a great job in educating the next generation of citizens.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Visit your public school.  You’ll be impressed

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Writing Workshops for 2016

Telling Your Story Workshop at Wild Rose Library, Saturday June 11, 9-4. Call 920-622-3835 to get your name on the list as enrollment is limited.

Telling Your Story Workshop at The Clearing in Door County.  Friday, August 12, 9-4.  Call 920-854-4088 to get your name on the list.

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UPCOMING EVENTS.

March 9, 7:00 p.m.  THE LAND WITH JERRY APPS, hour-long documentary to be aired on Wisconsin Public TV stations throughout Wisconsin.

March 10, 7:30 p.m., Wisconsin agricultural consultants. Keynote talk, Wis Dells. Wisconsin Agriculture: A History.

March 12, 11:00-2:00, McFarlane’s Sauk City.  Book Signing.

March 19, Gathering of the Green, Davenport, IA.  Banquet keynote speaker. Lessons from the Land.

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

The library now has available signed copies of Jerry’s DVDs:

 Emmy Winner, A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps (based on The Quiet Season book.)

 Jerry Apps a Farm Story (based on Rural Wit and Wisdom and Old Farm books.)

 The Land with Jerry Apps, (based on the book Whispers and Shadows.)

Also available are several of Jerry’s signed books including: Jerry’s newest novel, The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County. and 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