Mystery Rock

It was back in the 1940s when I was cultivating potatoes with a one-horse, handheld cultivator. One of those jobs where you had to pay attention or you’d cultivate out a potato plant. It was tricky guiding Dick with leather lines wrapped around your shoulders, as both hands were on the cultivator handles. It was a bright and glorious day in June, as I recall. I was enjoying the sights and sounds of an early morning in the potato field. And not to forget the smells, of horse sweat and leather harness, and the smell of freshly turned soil.

All of our fields were stony—little stones, big stones, black stones, red stones. I spotted a green looking, odd shaped stone. And because my hands were busy steering the cultivator, I kicked at the stone. It hardly moved.

“Whoa,” I said to Dick. I picked up the strange stone and noticed it was several times heavier than stones of a similar size. I showed the strange stone to Pa when I came home at dinner time. “What is it?” I asked. “Maybe it’s gold?” Pa said, smiling.

A professor of geology spent his summers at his home place near Wild Rose. We took the mystery stone to him. “Is it gold?” Pa asked. “No, it is pure copper,” the professor answered.

We wondered how it had gotten into our potato field. The professor offered two theories. It could have come with the glacier, or an Indian had lost it. I still have it. The hunk of copper is pictured above.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: You never know what you’ll find when cultivating potatoes.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: My writing class at The Clearing in Door County is scheduled: Friday, July 27, 9-4. Call 920-854-4088 to register. A few openings remain.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

--July 27, 9-4, Writing Workshop, The Clearing, Door County

--August 3, 1:00 p.m. Chilton Library. With Sue. Old Farm Country Cookbook.

--August 7, 5:30 p.m. Downtown Madison Historical Museum. With Sue. Old Farm County Cookbook.

--Sept 8. 10 a.m. Mt. Horeb Library, Once a Professor.

Purchase Jerry’s signed DVDs and books from the Library in Wild Rose, Wisconsin (a fundraiser for them):

Patterson Memorial Library
500 Division Street
Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.org
www.wildroselibrary.org
Phone: 920-622-3835

DVDs: His latest Public TV show, One-Room Country School is now available. It’s based on his book, One-Room Country Schools (also available).
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,)
Never Curse the Rain, (based on his book with the same title)
The library has several of Jerry’s signed books for sale including Jerry’s newest nonfiction books, Once a Professor, Every Farm Tells a Story, Living a County Year (reprints), One-Room Country Schools, Never Curse the Rain and Old Farm Country Cookbook, and his novel, The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County. Also Wisconsin Agriculture: A History, Roshara Journal (with photos by Steve Apps) and Telling Your Story—a guidebook for those who want to write their own stories.

Contact the library for prices and special package deals.