Remembering Lamps and Lanterns

I recently spoke to a group of mostly retired people, about 300 of them. I asked how many of them had grown up without electricity. Ten people raised their hands. I expected more, as many in the group were of my generation. Electricity didn’t come to our farm until the spring of 1947 when I was in eighth grade. By that time, I had grown quite accustomed to lamps and lanterns. Before electricity arrived, we lighted out home with kerosene lamps. We used lanterns to light our way in the barn and other outbuildings.

The people in Wild Rose, our nearest town, got electricity in1908. Wild Rose had a water-powered grist mill, which not only ground grain for cattle feed but also powered a generator that provided the electricity. In those days, the village people had electricity from sundown until eleven o’ clock in the evening. The miller said he needed the waterpower for grinding grain at the mill during the daylight hours. Besides, why would anyone want electricity in the daytime

Electricity surely made life easier on the farm. We enjoyed electric lights, but electric motors where even more appreciated than light bulbs.

Thinking back to those pre-electricity days. I remember the cold, clear nights in winter and seeing a sky filled with stars, from one horizon to the other. I also, remember the quiet. There was no hum of motors in the background, no blaring TV, only quiet.

My newest book is titled: SIMPLE THINGS: LESSONS FROM THE FAMILY FARM.
In the book, I talk about the simple things including life on the farm with lamps and lanterns

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Sometimes we forget how important the simple things such as darkness and quiet can be.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

November 9, 2-4 p.m. Plymouth Cheese Counter and Dairy Heritage Center, Plymouth, WI Book Signing.

November 10: 9:30-11:30, Plymouth Art Center, Second Saturday. ONE ROOM SCHOOL.

November 13, 6:30 p.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose. Central Wisconsin launch of SIMPLE THINGS, LESSONS FROM THE FAMILY FARM.

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.

October Snow

I’m mowing one of my prairie patches with my tractor and rotary mower. The temperature is in the low 40s and all is going well. Earlier in the morning it had rained a bit, but with a stiff westerly wind, the field is dry and mowing is easy.

I’ve always enjoyed mowing. One thing about it. You can see what you’ve accomplished. Immediately. Sometimes it takes weeks, months and or even years before I learn whether I’ve accomplished anything with what I mostly do (writing, teaching, TV work). Not so with mowing. Feedback is immediate. The grass is cut.

About one-fourth into the project I glimpsed some white specks flying on the wind. Could they be snowflakes? Can’t be I told myself. It is October 20. Way too early for snowflakes.

I continued on. More snowflakes. The temperature seemed to be dropping as well. More than half done. Heavy snow falling. Heavy snow in October. My mind said not possible. The hood of my tractor said otherwise. It was snowing. Big time snowing. The kind where you have trouble seeing where you are going and where you have been.

Never before in my many years of mowing have I cut grass in a snowstorm. But we Germans can be stubborn. I had to finish the job. Snow or no. And I did. I don’t know why I am writing about this. People will think I’ve lost a few marbles. ‘That guy mows hay in a snowstorm.” But the field is mowed.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: When it comes to weather, expect the unexpected.

October 27, 4:00 p.m. Edgerton Book Festival, showing of the film, ONE ROOM SCHOOL, with discussion and stories to follow.

November 9, 2-4 p.m. Plymouth Cheese Counter and Dairy Heritage Center, Plymouth, WI Book Signing.

November 10: 9:30-11:30, Plymouth Art Center, Second Saturday. ONE ROOM SCHOOL.

November 13, 6:30 p.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose. Central Wisconsin launch of SIMPLE THINGS, LESSONS FROM THE FAMILY FARM.

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.

The Beauty of Fall

As a farm boy, I allotted one-word descriptions to each of the seasons:
Spring: Planting, Summer: Growing, Fall: Harvesting, and Winter: Resting.

Each season is much more than can be described in one word. Take my favorite season, fall. Of course, it involved harvesting. I remember so well when I was a kid. Pa cut our 20-acre cornfield with a one-row, McCormick corn binder, pulled by our trusty team of horses. The binder spewed out bundles of corn stalks, neatly wrapped with binder-twine. It was my job, and when the corn was all cut, Pa joined me, to stand the bundles into corn shocks. What a sight to see at day’s end when the cornfield had become an Indian encampment, with teepees standing in neat rows—or so it appeared.

It was hard work, but it also had its high points. By this time in the fall, the trees were in full fall color. The maples brilliant red and yellow. The aspens had turned to yellow, and the oaks announced a soft, natural brown.

And the smells, oh how I enjoyed and still do, the smells of fall. The subtle smell of drying cornstalks, the clear, clean smell of an early morning when frost coated the grass and caused the last geranium and other flowers still alive to wither and die.

With the corn in shocks, it was off to the woods for the first round of wood cutting, making wood we called it. Hard work, but also filled with the smells of drying oak leaves, the sight of a clear blue sky, and the feeling that summer had become a memory as we moved deeper into fall.


THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Appreciate the beauty of fall, wrapped around the hard work of the harvest.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

--October 20, 6-8:00 pm. American Legion Post 306, 518 Water Street, Green Lake. Fund Raiser for Princeton Public Library. Phone 920-295-6777 for ticket information. Simple Things book.

--October 21, 1:00 pm. Readers Realm Bookstore, Montello. Simple Things book.

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.

Garden to Bed For Winter

Once more we’ve put our garden to bed. The fence keeping out the deer/turkeys/raccoon is lifted and tucked away in the shed for the winter. The late crops: cabbage, carrots, kale, squash and pumpkins are harvested. The sweet corn stalks are cut into little pieces. The tomato racks removed and stacked. The blighted tomato and potato plants are removed to keep ground contamination at a minimum. My son, Steve did all this work last weekend.

As I ate breakfast on Tuesday, I watched a six-point buck eating what garden remnants remained. He dined for nearly half an hour in the garden, and because of the fence, all summer he was not allowed to enter. But the fence is gone.

Later in the morning I hooked the tractor to my brother’s disc and I worked up the soil, burying whatever garden trash that remained, and preparing the ground for its annual winter cover crop—this year it is winter rye.

Then I broadcast the rye seed by hand. Broadcasting means flinging the seeds in such a way that the entire garden plot is covered by seed. I learned how to do this many years ago from my father.

A final discing buried the seed, and the “putting to bed” procedure was completed. Within a few days, the rye seeds will germinate, turning the brown soil to a blanket of green. The deer and turkeys will enjoy this spot of green until next spring. In April, we will disc up the rye and the garden season will begin once more, the winter rye providing what is called “green manure.”

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Every gardener knows the importance of taking care of the soil.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

--October 8, 7:00 p.m. Launch of my new book, SIMPLE THINGS: LESSON FROM THE FAMILY FARM, at Middleton Library. Ruth is baking cookies.
--October 13, Wisconsin Book Festival, 3:00 pm. Wis Historical Society Museum on the Square. Once a Professor book.
--October 20, 6-8:00 pm. American Legion Post 306, 518 Water Street, Green Lake. Fund Raiser for Princeton Public Library. Phone 920-295-6777 for ticket information. Simple Things book.

--October 21, 1:00 pm. Readers Realm Bookstore, Montello. Simple Things book.

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.