Window on Nature. Steve Apps Photo

 

On these cold, snowy, often dreary days of midwinter, cabin fever, enhanced by fears of COVID, comes visiting.  Ruth has discovered a remedy for this problem. A simply remedy.  Look out the window.  In front of our bedroom window is a bush about five feet tall.  On a sunny morning, little birds gather there. A bunch of them.  Ruth watches them and listens to their chipping, which is loud enough to hear through the window. She imagines they are talking to each other. 

“Did you hear about Charlie, he rammed into a window the other day.  He was a bit dazed,” says loud chipping, Ethel.

“Charlie is usually dazed,” says Joyce who continues, “I found just the best bird feed. Only a few doors down, too.”  Just as each bird seems to be talking at once, a pair of cardinals, a male and a female appears.  The little birds fly off, and now Ruth listens in on the Cardinal talk. “Just about time to start whistling in the morning,” says Clarence, the bright red male.  “Days are getting longer.”

“Do you have to whistle so loud?” asks Clarence’s mate. “You are such a show-off.”

And then there are squirrels, what fun they seem to be having on these cold snowy days.  Chasing after each other through the snow.  Climbing up the maple trees and leaping from snowy branch to snowy branch.  Digging in the snow for some food stored away last fall.  Climbing on the empty bird houses.  Curious.  Never resting it seems.  Not bothered by the snow one bit. Or the cold.

A pair of rabbits sits by the woodpile, watching the squirrels, one squirrel says to the other, “Don’t those squirrels ever get tired?”

When you tire of looking at the four walls of your house, look out the Window.  You might be surprised what you see.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: What would we do without windows?  A joy to see nature in winter.

WHERE TO BUY MY BOOKS:

You can buy my books at your local bookstore, order online from bookshop.org, or purchase from the Friends of the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose—a fundraiser for them. Phone: 920-622-3835 for prices and ordering, or contact the librarian: barnard@wildroselibrary.
Patterson Memorial Library
500 Division Street
Wild Rose, WI 54984.
www.wildroselibrary.org

If you live in the western part of the state, stop at Ruth’s home town, Westby, visit Dregne’s.  and look at their great selection of my books. Order a book from them by calling 1-877-634-4414. They will be happy to help you.  If you live in northcentral Wisconsin, stop at the Janke bookstore in Wausau (phone 715-845-9648).  They have a large selection of my books. 

 

 

Winter Nights

 

  Steve Apps Photo

The winter nights on the farm, when I was a kid were long, cold, and dark.  No one in our farm community had electricity until after World War II.  So, there were no yard lights piercing the darkness, only lamps and lanterns creating slivers of light in farm homes and barns. And there were no flashlights.

We didn’t let the darkness prevent us from having winter fun.  One thing we did fairly often was walk to Chain O’ Lake, which was about a mile and half from our farm and have a skating party.  There might be a dozen of us, all schoolmates from our nearby country school.

First thing we’d do upon arriving at the lake was to build a good size fire on the shore of the lake, which provided enough light so could see to clamp on our skates.  The fire also warmed u if the night happened to be one of those that was below zero.

One of us would bring a shovel from home, and we’d clear a goodly size area on the ice.  And then we’d skate, forward and backward. Fast and slow. We raced each other across the ice.  We played crack the whip.  We’d stop when we would hear a loud bang.  We knew what it was, it was ice contracting, creating long cracks.  We said this was the lake talking to us.

As dark as the night might be, especially if there was no moon, we could see quite well.  It was walking by starlight, something that few people can or would want to experience these days.  Maybe it was because our eyes were accustomed to dim lighting—that which a kerosene lamp or lantern might provide.  Or maybe it was because that’s all the light there was.  Stay home or walk by starlight—and be thrilled when there was full moon, and more light, much more light as the moonlight bounced from the snow-covered fields.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Don’t let a dark night prevent you from having fun.

WHERE TO BUY MY BOOKS:

You can buy my books at your local bookstore, order online from bookshop.org, or purchase from the Friends of the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose—a fundraiser for them. Phone: 920-622-3835 for prices and ordering, or contact the librarian: barnard@wildroselibrary.
Patterson Memorial Library
500 Division Street
Wild Rose, WI 54984.
www.wildroselibrary.org

If you live in the western part of the state, stop at Ruth’s home town, Westby, visit Dregne’s.  and look at their great selection of my books. Order a book from them by calling 1-877-634-4414. They will be happy to help you.  If you live in northcentral Wisconsin, stop at the Janke bookstore in Wausau (phone 715-845-9648).  They have a large selection of my books. 

 Tracks in the snow.  

    Steve Apps Photo

“Just tracks in the snow,” the person said when glancing at this photo.  For some people that’s all they are.  Merely tracks.  But to my dad, tracks in the snow were much more.  They were nature lessons.

            By the time I was able to walk and wallow along in the snow, I would tag along when Pa went for a winter walk.  When we’d see a track in the snow, he’d say, “Look close. That’s a cottontail rabbit track.  Or that’s a fox track, or a squirrel track, or maybe a tiny field mouse track.  Or maybe a huge jack rabbit track—jack rabbits were commonly seen at the farm back in the 1930s and 40s.  But that’s not all Pa wanted me to see and learn.  Not only did he want me to identify what kind of critter made the track, but he wanted me to figure out what they were doing when they made the track.

            “See this squirrel track,” he would say.  “See what the squirrel was doing, where it was going.  We’d follow the track and see where the squirrel did some digging in the snow.  “Looking for something to eat,” Pa would say.  “Looking for some acorns it buried last fall.”

            We might follow a rabbit track, and then see some strange looking marking along side the track and then see the rabbit track no more.  “Hawk got the rabbit and flew off with it,” Pa would say. Or, we might follow a fox track for a bit and see where the fox dug in the snow, looking for something to eat.  Maybe a field mouse.

            Tracks in the snow are nature’s history lessons, who was doing what, and how.  Lessons that I never forgot.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: So much to learn from an animal track in the snow.

WHERE TO BUY MY BOOKS:

See my book Whispers and Shadows for more about nature’s lessons. You can buy my books at your local bookstore, order online from bookshop.org, or purchase from the Friends of the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose—a fundraiser for them. Phone: 920-622-3835 for prices and ordering, or contact the librarian: barnard@wildroselibrary.
Patterson Memorial Library
500 Division Street
Wild Rose, WI 54984.
www.wildroselibrary.org

If you live in the western part of the state, stop at Ruth’s home town, Westby, visit Dregne’s.  and look at their great selection of my books. Order a book from them by calling 1-877-634-4414. They will be happy to help you.  If you live in north central Wisconsin, stop at the Janke bookstore in Wausau (phone 715-845-9648).  They have a large selection of my books. 

 

 

 ICE SKATING SURPRISE

Pond ready for skating. Steve Apps photo.

            As we moved into the depths of winter on the farm when I was a kid, the barn chores seemed never ending, as did snow shoveling.  Walking to our country school when the temperature was minus twenty-five was no treat either.  Nor was waking up in a frigid bedroom each morning.

            On the plus side we did a lot of sliding down the hill just back of the school, and having our choice of several hills at the farm.  Same with skiing.  We even skied to school on occasion.

            One winter something special happened.  Around mid-January the temperature rose above freezing for several days, creating a pond in the field just east of the farmhouse.  Then winter returned and the pond froze.  On a Saturday morning at breakfast, Pa said, “You boys—I have younger twin brothers—should try ice skating on that pond.  We knew nothing about ice skating, and had no skates, which we reminded Pa.

            “Tell you what,” Pa said. “When we finish the barn chores, let’s drive down to Wild Rose.  I think Hotz’s Hardware might have some skates.”

            And they did.  They had skates that fastened on the bottom of your shoes.  Fifty cents a pair.  Pa bought three pair.  Not long after we returned home, we three boys, with our new skates were at the pond, attempting to ice skate. Pa came along with us. We spent more time sprawled out on the ice than skating.  We discovered that ice skating was a whole lot more difficult than sledding or even skiing.

            After a few minutes of doing more falling than skating, Pa said, “Let me give it a try.”  I took off my skates, and he clamped them on his shoes.  I was a bit worried that he might fall and hurt himself and then we’d have even more chores to do. But that didn’t happen.  He sailed around the pond with nary a stumble. “This is how you do it,” he said with a big smile on his face.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Never underestimate what your dad could do.

WHERE TO BUY MY BOOKS:

  If you want to learn more about my Polio experience, see my book, Limping Through Life.  You can buy my books at your local bookstore, order online from bookshop.org, or purchase from the Friends of the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose—a fundraiser for them. Phone: 920-622-3835 for prices and ordering, or contact the librarian: barnard@wildroselibrary.
Patterson Memorial Library
500 Division Street
Wild Rose, WI 54984.
www.wildroselibrary.org

If you live in the western part of the state, stop at Ruth’s home town, Westby, visit Dregne’s.  and look at their great selection of my books. Order a book from them by calling 1-877-634-4414. They will be happy to help you.  If you live in northcentral Wisconsin, stop at the Janke bookstore in Wausau (phone 715-845-9648).  They have a large selection of my books.