Christmas Trees and Birch Wood

Sunday was the day.  Dark, gloomy, chilly. No bird song.  Quiet.  The day for the annual Christmas tree hunt at Roshara, our farm.  This year’s crew, Sue, Natasha, Dylan, Cory and I set out with a saw and lots of enthusiasm to find the perfect tree.  Really three trees for three families depending on this crew to find three perfect trees.

The problem is we have too many trees from which to choose.  Red pine, white pine, jack pine, Scotch pine, some Norway spruce and even a few Fraser fir.  The Fraser firs need a few more years to grow, so they were immediately eliminated.

I suspect we have planted around 20,000 trees in the 50 years we’ve owned Roshara.  Some are fifty feet tall, some are six inches tall.  But hundreds, maybe thousands are about the right size for a Christmas tree.

“How about this one?”  “Too skinny.”

“How about that one?”  “Too tall.”

“This one?”  “Few limbs on one side.”

In addition to the Christmas trees, Sue wanted some birch wood.  She had seen a display using birch wood, and it sold for $50.00.  We have a fair number of birch trees scattered around Roshara, so off we were on a search for some “perfect” pieces of birch wood.  Finally, after passing by several birch trees that did not pass muster with Sue’s discerning eye, we found just what she wanted.  Enough birch wood for a $50.00 display without any price tag at all.

And so the morning went until decisions were made and trees were cut, and birch wood was found.  When the morning’s hard work was loaded in the back of my truck, we all retreated to the cabin to warm up by the kitchen stove.

It was a great day, one to tuck away in the memory bank.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Something special about cutting a Christmas tree that you know you planted, and finding the "perfect" pieces of birch wood.

Upcoming Events:

November 29.7:00 p.m. Sequoia Public Library, Madison.  Roshara Journal with Jerry and Steve Apps

December 6, 1:30 to 3:00 p.m. Writers, Creativity & Aging  Fitchburg Senior Center,5510 Lacy Road Fitchburg, WI 53711   I’ll be talking about Telling Your Story. Sponsored by Retiree Rebels.

December 7, 11:00 to 1:00, Headquarters Bldg. Wisconsin Historical Society, (816 State Street, Madison).  Holiday book sale—book signing.

December 10, 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. McFarlane’s Sauk City.

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

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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.

Jerry’s newest books, Roshara Journal (with photos by Steve Apps) and Telling Your Story—a guide book for those who want to write their stories—are also available.

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 Big Hunt

 I’d planned it as kind of a mini-celebration.  A nod to good health and unchanging—mostly unchanging—interest in hunting deer.  I must confess that as the years have flown by bagging a deer is of less interest than being out in the woods on a quiet November morning, enjoying the quiet and the beauty, and appreciating being with my son, and my brother and his three sons as we have hunted together for many years.

It was my 70^th year hunting deer without missing a single year.  Even when I was on active duty in the army I did not miss opening day of deer season.  Opening day of deer season took precedent over everything including attending a wedding for a couple so foolish as to plan a wedding on that day or even paying my respects to someone so unfortunate that a funeral was set on that Saturday before Thanksgiving.

The Friday before opening day this year was warm and beautiful, in the mid-60s.  Shirt sleeve weather.  I went to bed looking forward to Saturday morning with warm temps and the possibility of a ten-point buck walking by my place in the woods.

Alas.  It was not to be.  I woke up at 5:30 on Saturday morning to an inch of snow on the ground, the temperature in the low 20s and a roaring wind out of the north.  I put on all the warm clothing I could find at the cabin, and found my way to my special place in the woods.  But there was no peace and quiet, only the roar of the wind through the tops of the bare maples and oaks.  No sign of wildlife.  No crows, no woodpeckers.  No deer.  Just the menacing, mean sound of the north wind that successfully had chased a warm fall away and was now introducing me once more to winter. 

I sat listening to the wind, and thinking about my first deer hunt.  The year was 1946 and I, along with my father and neighbor, Bill Miller, drove to Adams County, about 20 miles west of our Waushara County farm looking for deer, as there were none in our county.  I carried a double-barrel 12-gauge shotgun that weighed a ton and kicked like a wild bronco.  I shot at a deer and missed.  I remember it as a dreary, dark November Saturday but not near as snowy and chilly as my 70^th outing.   I have never forgotten that day so many years ago, when deer hunting was one of those events that helped change a farm boy into a man.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Deer hunting is much more than hunting deer.

Upcoming Events:

November 29.7:00 p.m. Sequoia Public Library, Madison.  Roshara Journal with Jerry and Steve Apps.

December 6, 1:30 to 3:00 p.m.

Writers, Creativity & Aging  Fitchburg Senior Center, 5510 Lacy Road Fitchburg, WI 53711   I'll be talking about Telling Your Story. Sponsored by Retiree Rebels.

December 7, 11:00 to 1:00, Headquarters Bldg. Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison.  Holiday book sale—book signing.

December 10, (Time to announced) McFarlane’s Sauk City.

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.

Jerry’s newest books, Roshara Journal (with photos by Steve Apps) and Telling Your Story—a guide book for those who want to write their stories—are also available.

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

Sheboygan County Historical Research Center

Seventeen years ago the Sheboygan County Historical Research Center (offices in Sheboygan Falls) began offering a series of local history programs.  Second Saturdays they named the series—one a month on a second Saturday from September to May.  Beth Dippel, Executive Director of the Research Center, has done a wonderful job of organizing and promoting these programs.

I was privileged to be one of those who offered a program seventeen years ago (it was about Wisconsin Barns) and I have done so every year since.  For this, my seventeen year, my program was titled “Farm Memories from Yesterday.”

One-hundred-thirty people heard me share stories about farm life before electricity, stories about the party-line telephone and old-time radio.  Stories about the one-room country school and importance of neighbors and more.

I also shared some words of wisdom that I had picked up over the years from rural old-timers. 

            “Don’t go outside without wearing your shirt.  If God had meant for you to run around naked, you’d have been born that way.”

            “If you must hurry, do it slowly”

            “No matter what direction a north wind blows, it always blows cold.”

            “There is less mud on the top of the hill.”

I encouraged people to write down their own stories, and share them with their families.

I talked a bit about the importance of reflecting on one’s personal histories.  I said we can’t return to an earlier day, but we can learn from what we did and didn’t do.  I left people with these two questions:

            What of the past is worthy of bringing forward and applying, and what of it should be left behind?

            What of the new that we face nearly everyday is worthy of accepting and what should be ignored?

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Take time to recall about your past, and then reflect on it.

Upcoming Events:

November 29.7:00 p.m. Sequoia Public Library, Madison.  Roshara Journal with Jerry and Steve Apps

December 7, 10:00 to 2:00, Headquarters Bldg. Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison.  Holiday book sale—book signing.

December 10, (Time to announced) McFarlane’s Sauk City,

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.

Jerry’s newest books, Roshara Journal (with photos by Steve Apps) and Telling Your Story—a guide book for those who want to write their stories—are also available.

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

In Celebration of Community Libraries

What a rare treat it was on a sunny, not November-like Saturday morning when I parked my truck in front of the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose.  Steve heard the geese first and when we looked up a huge flock, more than a one-hundred I would estimate, winged over the library, and then proceeded to land on the millpond.  Then there was the sycamore tree, dropping its enormous yellowish brown leaves on the walkway to the library.  And finally the rose bushes, still in bloom on this weekend morning in early November.

Steve and I were at the library to discuss our new book, Roshara Journal, a book about our Wild Rose farm, which we have now owned for 50 years.  A book that included journal entries that I made when we first acquired the place and continue to write as the years passed.  A book that is filled with Steve’s four-color photos, taken in all seasons of the year, telling the story of the farm, in photographs.

Some 40 people turned out, many of them old friends, my brother, Darrel and his wife Marilyn, some cousins, and even one or two who attended Wild Rose High School when I was there many years ago.  I have spoken many times at the Patterson, my hometown library with Kent Barnard its able director. 

This past week, my major publisher, Wisconsin Historical Society Press, surprised me with a special celebration of my 125^th library appearance. The celebration took place at the Rock Springs Library where I spoke last Thursday evening.  It is a small library in a small town with wonderful people who support their library and know its importance to their community.

I turn down many speaking requests, but over the years, I have always tried to include as many libraries as possible.  Public libraries are special places.  May they continue to be so.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Support your community library.  

Upcoming Events:

November 10, 7:00 p.m. Menomonie Falls Public Library. One-Room Schools

November 12: 9:30-11:30 a.m. Second Saturdays Plymouth Art Center, 520 East Mill Street, Plymouth.  Farm Memories From Yesterday. Sponsored by Sheboygan County Historical Research Center.

November 29.7:00 p.m. Sequoia Public Library, Madison.  Roshara Journal with Jerry and Steve Apps

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.

Jerry’s newest books, Roshara Journal (with photos by Steve Apps) and Telling Your Story—a guide book for those who want to write their stories—are also available.

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