Jerry Apps

More Weather Predictors

2012-01-29T14:27:00.002-06:00

My last week’s discussion of old time weather forecasting caught the attention of several people who replied to my blog. One writer asked, in regard to wild bird behavior, “If birds crowded together on an electric wire, does that mean cold weather is on the way, and are they cuddling for warmth?” Could be. I must pay more attention to cuddling birds on a wire to affirm the suggestion.

Other weather predictors: red sky at night, sailor’s delight, red sky in the morning—bad weather within 24 hours. A ring around the moon usually means a major storm is on the way. Another weather predictor I learned from my father: watch the smoke coming from the chimney. If it rises, good weather at hand. If it trails downward, a storm is on the way. Last week, when I returned to the cabin from a short hike I smelled oak smoke and noticed the smoke from the kitchen chimney was hanging near the ground. Yup, it snowed that evening.

Send me your tried and true weather predictors, and I’ll share them.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Find some time to read a book. You might be surprised what you’ll learn.

CHECK THIS OUT: Steve Henry wrote a review of my Boundary Waters book for the Chippewa Herald. http://chippewa.com/news/opinion/columns/henry-outdoors-provides-an-invaluable-education/article_fa6a7830-46be-11e1-9692-001871e3ce6c.html

A REQUEST: Got any good family stories about early farming history in Wisconsin? I’m working on a new book about Wisconsin agricultural history. Contact me at jwapps@tds.net.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

February 10, Garden Expo, Alliant Center, Madison. 6-8 p.m. Wisconsin Historical Society Press booth, signing copies of Garden Wisdom.

February 11. Janesville, Holiday Inn, noon luncheon speaker, FFA Alumni meeting.

February 12, Garden Expo, Alliant Center, Madison, 1-4 p.m. Wisconsin Historical Society Press booth, signing copies of Garden Wisdom.

March 6, 7:00 p.m. Barnes and Noble-West, Madison. Launch of Garden Wisdom.

March 9-11. Canoecopia, Alliant Center, Madison. (Trade show for all things canoeing) I am speaking at 4:30 on Friday, March 9 and at 2:30 on Saturday, March 10. Steve will share Boundary Waters photos as part of Saturday’s presentation.

March 24. Six p.m. Launch of Garden Wisdom book at Patterson Memorial Library Wild Rose. Details coming.

March 31-April 1. Morton Arboretum (Thornhill Education Center), Chicago area. Presentation on vegetable gardening, 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. on March 31. Sunday, April 1, 1:30-3:30 features a vegetable gardening workshop, with tips on planting and caring for a vegetable garden. Additionally, Ruth will discuss preparing vegetables and fruits for canning and freezing.

Predicting The Weather

2012-01-22T10:15:00.002-06:00

My dad, a life-long farmer, had an uncanny ability to predict the weather. After the evening chores were done in summer, he’d watch the sunset, note the direction of the wind, and proclaim what kind of weather we’d have for the next couple days. Quite important to know when you’re a farmer.

During the winter, he often predicted snowstorms and cold weather using even more subtle techniques than wind direction or the sunset. He’d say something like, “Big storm is coming, I can feel it in my bones.” I don’t know what he was feeling, but he was usually correct.

Dad has been gone for nearly twenty years, so I’m stuck with figuring out the coming weather on my own. Of course I could listen to radio weather reports and watch the fancy radar clouds march across the TV weather map while someone, with an overly confident voice predicts future weather. I do that of course.

But these days my surefire way to predict winter snowstorms is to watch my backyard bird feeder. Take last Thursday, the day before four inches of snow fell in our part of the world. The cardinals were especially busy, competing with each other, crowding each other away from the little trough of sunflower and other cardinal delectables.

Today, with the storm in the past, the bird feeder is quiet—except for a nosy squirrel trying to figure out why the birdfeeder closes when it crawls on the perch bar. But I keep watching the feeder. This time of the year another snowstorm is usually not too far in the future.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: The best thing to do when it snows is to let it snow.

CHECK THIS OUT: My website is updated. www.jerryapps.com

A REQUEST: Got any good family stories about early farming history in Wisconsin? I’m working on a new book about Wisconsin agricultural history. Contact me at jwapps@tds.net.

UPCOMING EVENTS:
February 10, Garden Expo, Alliant Center, Madison. 6-8 p.m. Wisconsin Historical Society Press booth, signing copies of Garden Wisdom.

February 11. Janesville, noon luncheon speaker, FFA Alumni meeting.

February 12, Garden Expo, Alliant Center, Madison, 1-4 p.m. Wisconsin Historical Society Press booth, signing copies of Garden Wisdom.

March 6, 7:00 p.m. Barnes and Noble-West, Madison. Launch of Garden Wisdom.

March 9-11. Canoecopia, Alliant Center, Madison. (Trade show for all things canoeing) I am speaking at 4:30 on Friday, March 9 and at 2:30 on Saturday, March 10. Steve will share Boundary Waters photos as part of Saturday’s presentation.

March 24. Six p.m. Launch of Garden Wisdom book at Patterson Memorial Library Wild Rose. Details coming.

March 31-April 1. Morton Arboretum (Thornhill Education Center), Chicago area. Presentation on vegetable gardening, 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. on March 31. Sunday, April 1, 1:30-3:30 features a vegetable gardening workshop, with tips on planting and caring for a vegetable garden. Additionally, Ruth will discuss plus preparing vegetables and fruits for canning and freezing.

Midwest Farm Show

2012-01-15T09:35:00.002-06:00

They came from the north and from the south, from the east and from across the Mississippi River to the west. Farm people mostly. Those who had spent their years tilling the land and were now taking it a little easy. Those younger and actively farming. Kids and grand kids. Lots of kids and grandkids; trying to crawl up on the huge tractors and sneaking a peek behind the curtains. All coming to LaCrosse, to the Midwest Farm Show, one of the first of the season.
The 34th annual Farm Show held January 11-12 at the beautiful LaCrosse Center on the banks of the Mississippi.

They came to kick the tires of giant tractors, see modern milking equipment, talk with the dealers and the salespeople, learn about new farm buildings, and chat with friends and neighbors. If they arrived on Wednesday, they basked in 57 degree temperatures; if they came on Thursday, they drove in a snowstorm with temperatures struggling to reach the high teens.

A goodly number gathered each day to hear me remind them of what farming was like in an earlier day, before electricity and indoor plumbing when we milked cows by hand and lighted the barn with a kerosene lantern, talked on a party-line telephone and listened to a battery-powered radio.

A couple of days of contrasts—old and new ways of farming, and warm, near spring like weather abruptly replaced with a January snowstorm.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Try not to get ahead of yourself. And never forget where you’ve been.

CHECK THIS OUT: My website is updated. www.jerryapps.com

UPCOMING EVENTS:
February 10, Garden Expo, Alliant Center, Madison. 6-8 p.m.
Wisconsin Historical Society Press booth, signing copies of Garden Wisdom.

February 11. Janesville, noon luncheon speaker, FFA Alumni meeting.

February 12, Garden Expo, Alliant Center, Madison, 1-4 p.m. Wisconsin Historical Society Press booth, signing copies of Garden Wisdom.

March 6, 7:00 p.m. Barnes and Noble-West, Madison. Launch of Garden Wisdom.

March 9-11. Canoecopia, Madison. (Trade show for all things canoeing) Scheduled speaking time not yet determined.

March 24. Six p.m. Launch of Garden Wisdom book at Patterson Memorial Library Wild Rose. Details coming.

March 31-April 1. Morton Arboretum, Chicago area. Talk and workshop. Details coming.

January

2012-01-08T14:22:00.002-06:00

January is:
A time for endings, and a time for beginnings.
A time to regroup and a time to reconsider.
A time to reflect and a time to revise.
A time to evaluate and a time to plan for the morrow.

January is a quiet month, when all of nature rests—
the trees and the grasses,
the wildflowers and the birds,
the animals and the pond creatures.

January is a month of great beauty,
of blacks and whites, and grays
and a sprinkling of green from the pines,
the firs and the spruces that dot the northern regions.

January is a time to listen for the silence,
when the cold tightens its grip,
turning breath into clouds and thickening the ice on the lakes,
When snow cover muffles all sound.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Take time to appreciate January.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

January 11 and 12. 12:30 each day. Midwest Farm Show, LaCrosse Center, LaCrosse, WI. Stories from the land.

February 10, Garden Expo, Alliant Center, Madison. 6-8 p.m. Wisconsin Historical Society Press booth, signing copies of Garden Wisdom.

February 11. Janesville, noon luncheon speaker, FFA Alumni meeting.

February 12, Garden Expo, Alliant Center, Madison, 1-4 p.m. Wisconsin Historical Society Press booth, signing copies of Garden Wisdom.

March 9-11. Canoecopia, Madison. (Trade show for all things canoeing) Scheduled speaking time not yet determined.

March 24. Six p.m. Launch of Garden Wisdom book at Patterson Memorial Library Wild Rose. Details coming.

March 31-April 1. Morton Arboretum, Chicago area. Presentaton and workshop. Details coming.

New Year Thoughts

2012-01-01T13:58:00.004-06:00

Did you know that the Romans named the first month of the year after Janus? Janus was the god of beginnings and was depicted with two faces. One looked forward into the future; the other looked backward to the past. The Romans believed that on New Year’s Eve, Janus looked back at the old year and forward to the new.

Did you know that the Babylonians were believed to be the first to make New Year’s resolutions? Early Christians believed the first day of the new year should be spent reflecting on past mistakes and resolving to improve oneself in the coming new year.

Did you know that the traditional dropping of the ball on New Year’s eve in New York's Times Square started in 1907 with a ball made of iron and wood.

THE OLD TIMER remembers an oft spoken farmer phrase, “This year will be better.”

UPCOMING EVENTS:

January 11 and 12. 12:30 each day. Midwest Farm Show, LaCrosse Center, LaCrosse, WI. Stories from the land.

February 11. Janesville, noon luncheon speaker, FFA Alumni meeting.

March 9-11. Canoecopia, Madison. (Trade show for all things canoeing) Scheduled speaking time not yet determined.

March 24. Six p.m. Launch of Garden Wisdom book at Patterson Memorial Library Wild Rose. Details coming.

March 31-April 1. Morton Arboretum, Chicago area. Talk and workshop. Details coming.

Christmas and Remembering

2011-12-25T10:44:00.002-06:00

Christmas is for remembering.

I remember Christmas morning when I was a kid, with a stack of presents under the tree that couldn’t be opened until the morning milking was done. Of receiving new wool socks and mittens that Grandmother Witt had knitted, and a new pair of skates, the type that clamped onto the bottoms of your shoes and were tightened with a key.

I remember Christmas dinner with aunts and uncles and cousins all gathered around the big dining room table in our farm house, enjoying a meal comparable to what we saw when the threshing crews came. Roast turkey or duck. A heaping bowl of mashed potatoes. Home-made dill pickles. Apple and mincemeat pie. Christmas cookies of many shapes and flavors.

I remember walking a mile with my brothers to the neighbor’s farm with a small present and a freshly baked pie, because we knew that the neighbor’s wife had recently died and his grown children had left home and moved to the cities, and he was there alone on Christmas day.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Take time in your busy life to remember.

CHECK THIS OUT: My newest book, Garden Wisdom (Wisconsin Historical Society Press) is out. It’s all about vegetable gardening from seed selection to keeping away the critters. Included are a number of Ruth’s favorite fruit and vegetable recipes. Check at your local bookstore.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

January 11 and 12. 12:30 each day. Midwest Farm Show, LaCrosse Center, LaCrosse, WI. Stories from the land.

February 11. Janesville, noon luncheon speaker, FFA Alumni meeting.

March 9-11. Canoecopia, Madison. (Trade show for all things canoeing) Scheduled speaking time not yet determined.

March 24. Six p.m. Launch of Garden Wisdom book at Patterson Memorial Library Wild Rose. Details coming.

March 31-April 1. Morton Arboretum, Chicago area. Talk and workshop. Details coming.

Christmas 1946

2011-12-17T19:57:00.002-06:00

The Christmas season brings back many memories, especially those when I was a kid. I fondly remember Christmas, 1946. We were all happy that World War II was over and that my several cousins who fought overseas had returned home safely. Mother was happy that she could once more buy sugar and return to her much beloved Christmas baking (sugar was one of many items rationed during the war).

And the entire family was especially thankful that come the next spring we would have electricity on our farm. In looking forward to the 1946 Christmas, my brothers and I spent hours paging through the Sears Christmas catalog, looking for toys that required electricity. Battery operated toys had not yet appeared.

We found an erector set and together agreed (a rare moment among my brothers and me) that we wanted it for Christmas. An erector set was one where you built cranes and other such important machines. A tiny electric motor came with the set.

On Christmas morning, we found the erector set under the tree, complete with electric motor. We assembled a first rate crane, but, alas, we had to wait until the following April before we could operate it with our little electric motor. That’s when we got electricity for the first time, and how things changed after that. But that’s a story for another time.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: A most Merry Christmas to all.

CHECK THIS OUT: My newest book, Garden Wisdom (Wisconsin Historical Society Press) is out. It’s all about vegetable gardening from seed selection to keeping away the critters. Included are a number of Ruth’s favorite fruit and vegetable recipes. Check at your local bookstore.

UPCOMING EVENTS:
January 11 and 12, Midwest Farm Show, LaCrosse Center, LaCrosse, WI. Details to come. Speaking on both days.

Sheboygan Co. Historical Research Ctr.

2011-12-11T14:08:00.002-06:00

For ten years the Sheboygan County Historical Research Center in Sheboygan Falls has sponsored a series of programs called “Second Saturdays.” The programs, held at the Sheboygan Falls Library, are free and attract a sizeable audience from throughout the area.

I’ve been privileged to have been part of this interesting contribution to the Sheboygan County Community for each of the ten years. This past Saturday, on a chilly, frosty morning, more than 100 people gathered to learn about agricultural history and share stores of farm life from an earlier time.

Tales of growing up without electricity, stories about party-line telephones and battery operated radios—and the early radio programs such as Fibber McGee and Mollie, The Life of Riley, Jack Armstrong, The Lone Ranger, The Shadow and Captain Midnight. Stories of hard work and perseverance. Stories of “making do” when times were tough. Stories about kerosene lanterns and cow bells. Stories about the history of Wisconsin from the earliest settlement days to the present time.

At times there was laughter, at other times serious quiet as people thought about their own histories, many of them having grown up on farms.

The Sheboygan County Historical Research Center, with Beth Dipple as Director, is located at 518 Water Street, Sheboygan Falls. Check their website for information on program activities including “Second Saturdays” but also much, much more. www.schrc.org.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: When we forget our histories, we forget who we are.

CHECK THIS OUT: My newest book, Garden Wisdom (Wisconsin Historical Society Press) is coming off the presses this week. It’s all about vegetable gardening from seed selection to keeping out the critters. Ruth has included a number of her favorite fruit and vegetable recipes as well. Check at your local bookstore.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

January 11 and 12, Midwest Farm Show, LaCrosse Center, LaCrosse, WI. Details to come. Speaking on both days.

Fireside Books and Gifts

2011-12-04T12:59:00.002-06:00

Visiting an independent book store is like going home. The clerks greet you by name; they stand ready to help you find a particular book of interest; they chat with you about books they like and have recently read, and they ask you how things are going in your life. Sometimes they even offer you a free cup of coffee.

Fireside Books & Gifts in West Bend is such a store. I was there this past Saturday, when the weather was wet and cold, and the day more than a little dreary. I was giving a talk and signing books. Ruth was along, and as I signed books, she browsed and sought out Christmas presents.

This was my 12th consecutive year at the store, and what a pleasure it was. Dennis Uhlig, bookseller and event organizer extraordinaire, asked people to reserve seats ahead of time for my presentation—and they did.

The chairs were filled with more folks standing in the back—thanks to Dennis’s promotional efforts. We stuck around until two-thirty, talking with people, talking about books—and chatting about how important it was to have a bookstore such as Fireside in their community.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Hard to think of anything more pleasant on a dreary day than spending time in a bookstore.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

December 7, Memorial Union, University of Wisconsin-Madison. 7:00 p.m. Max Kade Institute. Stories from Wisconsin: Germans, Beer and Prohibition.

December 10, Sheboygan Falls Library, 9:30 a.m.: A brief history of Wisconsin Agriculture.

January 11 and 12, Midwest Farm Show, LaCrosse Center, LaCrosse, WI. Details to come. Speaking on both days.

Ups and Downs

2011-11-26T09:11:00.002-06:00

This is an up and down story, or better said, a wet and dry story. It involves the pond at our farm as well as the neighboring lakes and ponds such as Chain O’ Lake and Wagner’s Lake (Lake Wautoma it’s called today).

In 1966, our pond was nearly not a pond, but merely a wet marshy area. Then each year a little more water returned and the pond filled. I should point out that it’s a “water table pond,” which means it goes up and down as the water table fluctuates.

By the late 1980s and into the early 1990s our pond was a fine body of water, higher than we had ever known it to be. A place for canoeing and fishing, and even swimming. Same for the other lakes and pond in the area.

By the early 2000s the water began disappearing, a little more each year until last year, our once about three to four acre pond was about the size of a football field. Most of the pond had once more become a marsh.

But starting last fall and continuing throughout the summer and into this fall, the pond is once more filling with water. Each month it is a few more inches deep. The marsh is disappearing and the pond is on the rise. For the first time in several years, we have muskrat houses scattered about—I counted eight of them the other day. The deer and the turkeys are happy, as well as all the other wildlife that depend on our pond and enjoy its existence.

How large will the pond become on this current cycle? I have no idea, but different from lakes and ponds to our west such as Plainfield Lake and Twin Lakes near Almond, both of which are now dry, former lakes, our pond is coming back. At least it appears so.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Everything appears to have its ups and downs.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

December 3, Fireside Books, West Bend. 10:30-2:00. Speaking at 11:00 a.m. Celebrating 12 years of speaking/signing at Fireside books. Campfires and Loon Calls—travels in the Boundary Waters of Northern Minnesota. Also featuring Agriculture history books: fiction and nonfiction.

December 7, Memorial Union, University of Wisconsin-Madison. 7:00 p.m. Max Kade Institute. Stories from Wisconsin: Germans, Beer and Prohibition.

December 10, Sheboygan Falls Library, 9:30 a.m.: A brief history of Wisconsin Agriculture.

The Hunt Is On

2011-11-17T20:35:00.002-06:00

The highest of the high Wisconsin celebrations begins at the break of dawn on Saturday. It is opening day of deer season, a day scratched on new calendars in January. A day when nothing, absolutely nothing takes precedence over trekking into the woods. The opening day of fishing season approaches, but really is no competition for the opening day of deer season. This one is the biggie.

To brag for a moment—this will be my 65th consecutive year of participating in the hunt—I didn’t even miss when I was in the army. I’m not much of a hunter anymore, these days my hunting companions ask if I remembered to put bullets in my rifle.

Of course deer season is much more than bagging a deer. It’s about families getting together, grandfathers and grandmothers, sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters. Swapping stories. In most families the deer hunting stories, told over and over again, have become the stuff of legends as a little embellishment each year adds to their flavor and fun.

For me, it is one more excuse for being outdoors, walking in the woods, enjoying the sights and smells of late autumn. I’ve been known to nap on warm afternoons in the woods; and I’m often caught reading a book—but I am out there. I am deer hunting—my way of course.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: There are no shortcuts to important places.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

December 3, Fireside Books, West Bend. 11:00 a.m. Celebrating 12 years of speaking/signing at Fireside books. Campfires and Loon Calls—travels in the Boundary Waters of Northern Minnesota. Also featuring Agriculture history books: fiction and nonfiction.

December 7, Memorial Union, University of Wisconsin-Madison. 7:00 p.m. Max Kade Institute. Stories from Wisconsin: Germans, Beer and Prohibition.

December 10, Sheboygan Falls Library, 9:30 a.m.: A brief history of Wisconsin Agriculture.

November Snow

2011-11-13T09:42:00.002-06:00

In Wisconsin we don’t count on the calendar to tell us when winter arrives, because if we did we’d have to wait until late December. November is our “beginning of winter” month. If we’re lucky, this happens toward the end of the month, around Thanksgiving time.

Not this year. Winter came roaring out of the north on November 9th, early and mostly unwelcomed. On that day I crawled out of bed, started the fire in the wood burning cook stove, and noticed a few flakes of snow flying on the wind. Only a dusting I hoped, because I had wood to cut and other outside chores to do. With breakfast finished, the snow continued, lots of it, big flakes, heavy flakes. I watched a parade of turkey gobblers walking a few yards from the cabin, one after the other, five of them stepping high in the ever deeper snow. Not too much bothered by the snow.

By mid-morning it was snowing so hard I couldn’t see the end of my driveway. The heavy snow gathered on the big spruce tree by the woodshed, its lower branches nearly touching the ground. I pulled on my boots and trudged to the woodshed for more wood. Three or four inches of heavy snow to waddle through and it continued falling.

A little after noon, the lights flickered a couple times and then clicked off. No power. I rounded up a flashlight, kept the wood stove going, and decided to enjoy the day. These early snowstorms can be dangerous and at minimum, inconvenient. But oh how beautiful the landscape had become as the drabness of fall had become pure white.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: When it snows, the best thing to do is let it snow.

UPCOMING EVENTS:
November 14, Elmbrook Historical Society annual meeting and dinner. 5:45. Horses and Barns (For Elmbrook Historical Society members and guests).

December 3, Fireside Books, West Bend. 11:00 a.m. Celebrating 12 years of speaking/signing at Fireside books. Campfires and Loon Calls—Travels in the Boundary Waters of Northern Minnesota. Also featuring agriculture history books, fiction and nonfiction.

December 7, Memorial Union, University of Wisconsin-Madison. 7:00 p.m. Max Kade Institute. Stories from Wisconsin: Germans, Beer and Prohibition.

December 10, Sheboygan Falls Library, 9:30 a.m.: A brief history of Wisconsin Agriculture.

Dyersville

2011-11-07T09:36:00.002-06:00

Ruth and I spent the past weekend in Dyersville, Iowa, at the National Farm Toy Collector’s convention, where I signed books and talked tractors for three days. Talked mostly about old tractors, Farmall H’s (which I grew up with) and Farmall M’s, John Deere A’s and B’s, and the lesser models-- Oliver and Allis Chambers (Ruth grew up with an Allis), Minneapolis-Moline and Massey-Harris, Case and Cockshutt.

Talked about the days in farming when tractors were small, as were the farms. Talked with a few old guys about driving horses and the transition from horses to tractors, not as easy as one might think.

Lots of grandparents toting grandkids. The grandkids excited to see all the farm toys to play with. And the kids’ parents remembering their childhoods because these farm toys were symbols of their early history on the farm, and triggers for stories.

Lots of stories at the toy show, coming from every direction, from all parts of the country from the north and south, and many from the Midwest, of course. Stories about growing up on a farm. Stories about first tractors. Stories about why the Farmall was better than the John Deere, or the other way around. Lots of friendly joshing about these matters that, at one time, were taken very seriously by farmers proud of their iron horses, as the early tractors were called.

Now it’s back to work, back to writing stories.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: There are never too many stories.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

November 12, Barnes and Noble, Racine, 12 p.m. to 3 p.m.

November 14, Elmbrook Historical Society annual meeting and dinner. 5:45. Horses and Barns (For Elmbrook Historical Society members and guests.)

December 3, Fireside Books, West Bend. 11:00 a.m. Celebrating 12 years of speaking/signing at Fireside books. Campfires and Loon Calls—travels in the Boundary Waters of Northern Minnesota. Also featuring Agriculture history books, fiction and nonfiction.

December 7, Memorial Union, University of Wisconsin-Madison. 7:00 p.m. Max Kade Institute. Stories from Wisconsin: Germans, Beer and Prohibition.

December 10, Sheboygan Falls Library, 9:30 a.m.: A brief history of Wisconsin Agriculture.

Writing Your Story

2011-10-30T20:07:00.002-05:00

Last Saturday was a beautiful fall day at The Clearing in Door County where thirty of us gathered for my annual one-day writing workshop that I call “Writing From Your Life.” Plenty of fall color. The waters of Green Bay were deep slate; the birch still showed some yellow and the sky was clear and blue.

The writers gathered to share stories—stories of early memories, of first toys, of growing up, of first jobs for pay, of joyous moments and many not as joyous as a few tears fell. These writers of several generations filled pages with tales from their lives—stories long forgotten, by some at least.

They shared their tales with each other and laughed and nodded knowingly, for though the details may have been different, the stories of each generation had many similarities as well.

Why do it? Why spend a gorgeous late autumn day writing stories? Because we are each a story, more accurately we are each a collection of little stories contributing to a larger one. Our stories make us human. When we forget our stories, we forget who we are.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: It’s never too late to write down your stories.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

November 2, Cobb Library, 7:00 p.m. Old Farm

November 4-6, Dyersville, Iowa, National Farm Toy Show; Friday (5-8 p.m.), Saturday, (9 a.m. to 6 p.m.) and Sunday, (9 a.m. to 2 p.m.) (Signing various book titles).

November 12, Barnes and Noble, Racine, 12 p.m. to 3 p.m.

November 14, Elmbrook Historical Society annual meeting and dinner. 5:45. Horses and Barns (For Elmbrook Historical Society members and guests.)

December 3, Fireside Books, West Bend. 10-2:00, speaking at 11:00.

Sounds of Fall

2011-10-23T11:56:00.002-05:00

The sounds of fall. Mysterious, interesting, sometimes even mythical. The calling of Canada geese winging south from their summer home in the far north. The “rat-tat-tat” of a Pileated woodpecker chiseling a hole in a dead white pine. The barking of a gray squirrel from the top of a naked black oak. The call of an owl echoing through the darkness on a quiet October evening, then its call returned—a late evening conversation between creatures of the night.

The sound of wind moaning through the tops of bare-branched oak trees on a windy day; the next day, in the same oak woods, the wind has gone down—the sound of silence.

Memories of the sounds of the old Aermotor windmill on the home farm, and how on the nights around Halloween when the wind was up just a bit, the old windmill squeaked and squawked and tried to turn, but its brake would not let it. In my upstairs bedroom I could hear the noise and envisioned ghosts and goblins and creatures of the nether world on their way to visit me.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Occasionally do nothing—and enjoy it.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

October 26, Sheraton Hotel, Madison. Foster Grandparents conference. “Writing From Your Life” workshop, 4:15 to 5:15; Keynote address, 6:30 (Remembering an Earlier Day).

October 27, Richfield Town Hall, Richfield, WI. 7:00 p.m. Horses and barns.

October 29, The Clearing. Writing From Your Life Workshop, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

November 2, Cobb Library, 7:00 p.m. Old Farm

November 4-6, Dyersville, Iowa, National Farm Toy Show; Friday (5-8 p.m.), Saturday, (9 a.m. to 6 p.m.) and Sunday, (9 a.m. to 2 p.m.) (Signing various book titles).

November 12, Barnes and Noble, Racine, 12 p.m. to 3 p.m.

November 14, Elmbrook Historical Society annual meeting and dinner. 5:45. Horses and Barns (For Elmbrook Historical Society members and guests.)

Historic Sites

2011-10-16T11:34:00.001-05:00

If you haven’t made the rounds of the Wisconsin Historical Society sites, you may want to plan such a tour. For the past three weekends, I’ve been speaking and or selling books at three of them. On Sunday, October 2, I was at Old World Wisconsin, near Eagle; on Saturday, October 8, Ruth and I were at Stonefield Village, near Cassville; and on Saturday, October 15 we visited Old Wade House at Green Bush (a few miles from Sheboygan).

All of Wisconsin historic sites are treasures, but these three are especially appealing to those interested in small town and rural history. Old World is a creation of ethnic farmsteads, with the actual buildings gathered from around the state (and much more). Stonefield boasts a re-created pioneer village, and has the largest exhibit of horse-drawn machinery in Wisconsin. Old Wade House, the site of an early stagecoach inn, has a wonderful collection of horse drawn wagons, from old milk delivery wagons to several horse-drawn fire wagons, and much more.

We met lots of interesting people and heard many stories about early farm life—I was talking about farming with horses and the history of farm machinery.

Go to http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/sitesmuseum.asp for more information, and put visiting these sites on your “must do” list.

CHECK THIS OUT: I’m talking about and reading from my book, CAMPFIRES AND LOON CALLS (Fulcrum Press) at The Wisconsin Book Festival on Sunday, October 23 at 4:00 p.m. Here are details:

Voices of the Water, Voices of the Trees: Apps & Andrews
Sunday, October 23 | 4:00PM - 5:30PM
Rotunda Studio/Overture, State Street, Madison.
Sponsor: Wisconsin Historical Society Press
Presenter(s): Candice Gaukel Andrews, Jerry Apps
Whether you are preparing to travel or just want to be temporarily transported to some of the upper Midwest’s unique and precious environments, Andrews and Apps will offer you their deep, personal, and informed appreciations of Wisconsin’s forests (Andrews) and the Boundary Waters (Apps).

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Quoting from Bruce Springsteen, “We’d better start savin’ up for the things that money can’t buy.”

UPCOMING EVENTS:

October 18, New Holstein Library, 1:00 p.m. Book talk featuring Cranberry Red (free). 6:30-8:30 Writer’s workshop. Workshop fee $10.00. Call 920-898-5165 for signup information.

October 22, Toll/Londowski Family Farm, one mile west of Hwy 49/Co. Rd. J. Intersection, Green Lake, WI; “From the Land,” (A gathering of traditional crafts and skills with demonstrations) 11:00 a.m. Horse Drawn Days. 1:00 p.m. Lighter Side of Country Living.

October 23, Madison, WI. Wisconsin Book Festival. 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Campfires and Loon Calls.

October 26, Sheraton Hotel, Madison. Foster Grandparents conference. “Writing From Your Life” workshop, 4:15 to 5:15; Keynote address, 6:30 (Remembering an Earlier Day)

October 27, Richfield Town Hall, Richfield, WI. 7:00 p.m. Horses and barns.

October 29, The Clearing. Writing From Your Life Workshop, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

November 2, Cobb Library, 7:00 p.m. Old Farm

November 4-6, Dyersville, Iowa, National Farm Toy Show; Friday (5-8 p.m.), Saturday, (9 a.m. to 6 p.m.) and Sunday, (9 a.m. to 2 p.m.) (Signing various book titles).

November 12, Barnes and Noble, Racine, 12 p.m. to 3 p.m.

November 14, Elmbrook Historical Society annual meeting and dinner. 5:45. Horses and Barns (For Elmbrook Historical Society members and guests.)

Cranberry Harvest

2011-10-07T09:42:00.002-05:00

Wisconsin is in the midst of its annual cranberry harvest. It reminds me of October, 1955 when my brother, Donald and neighbor boys, David and Jim Kolka and I experienced cranberry harvesting firsthand.

I was waiting to go into the army(not until January); my brother Donald was waiting to attend barber college, and I don’t recall what was up with the Kolka boys. We’d heard they were hiring workers at a cranberry marsh near Wisconsin Rapids—the pay was good ($1.00 an hour),and the four of us enjoyed working outside. Besides, this was something we hadn’t done before.

The cranberry industry at that time was just beginning to shift from hand harvesting (which is what we did) to mechanical harvesting (which is done now). For hand harvesting, we each received a rake, which is a little wooden box with an open end with tines on it and two bow handles, and a pair of hip boots.

The cranberry bog was flooded so that the ripe, red cranberries floated and thus could be more easily gathered with our rakes. The water was knee deep, sometimes a little more, and on chilly October mornings was cold, cold, cold.

In addition to the rake and the hip boots, we each pulled behind us a wooden box tied to our belts with a short rope. When our rake was full we dumped the cranberries in the box. And when the bushel box was full, we carried it to high ground that surrounded each bog. But before we got to the high ground we carefully navigated a narrow wooden plank placed across a water filled ditch. One misstep and we were in water up to our arm pits.

One inaccurate swing with the rake, and a tine would puncture a hip boot and we’d have a wet foot all day. My hip boots had patches upon patches by the end of the season.

We worked in a long line, about eight or ten of us, with the person on the far right setting the pace—we had to keep up with that person, and often times, when our arms felt like they’d come out of our sockets, we considered drowning the guy.

Of all the many jobs I’d had, from working in a pea cannery, picking cucumbers, traveling with a threshing crew, working in a pickle factory, and doing all sorts of farm work, this proved one of the most difficult—and physically challenging. Of course quitting was never an option, so we all four toughed it out until the season ended. Army life proved a breeze compared to harvesting cranberries.

CHECK THIS OUT: See my book, CRANBERRY RED (University of Wisconsin Press, 2010) and learn all about the cranberry industry in Wisconsin, and much more.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: We often learn more from miserable experiences than those more pleasurable.

October 15, Wade House, Green Bush, WI. 1:00 p.m. Horse Drawn Days.

October 18, New Holstein Library, 1:00 p.m. Book talk featuring Cranberry Red (free). 6:30-8:30 Writer’s workshop. Workshop fee $10.00. Call 920-898-5165 for signup information.

October 22, Toll/Londowski Family Farm, one mile west of Hwy 49/Co. Rd. J. Intersection, Green Lake, WI; “From the Land,” (A gathering of traditional crafts and skills with demonstrations) 11:00 a.m. Horse Drawn Days. 1:00 p.m. Lighter Side of Country Living.

October 23, Madison, WI. Wisconsin Book Festival. 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Campfires and Loon Calls.

October 27, Richfield Town Hall, Richfield, WI. 7:00 p.m. Horses and barns.

October 29, The Clearing. Writing From Your Life Workshop, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Garden Assessment

2011-10-01T09:23:00.003-05:00

It’s time for my annual garden assessment. The vegetables are harvested—except for ten rows of potatoes to be a dug and a row of rainbow corn that’s yet to be husked.

One of the great joys of vegetable gardening is not knowing which crops will do well and which will falter. So, for some of the main crops, here are the scores for the 2011 season. A five means great, a one means not so good.

Sweet corn: (5) Best crop in years, harvested a couple bushels of plump ears.

Lettuce (3): Weather too hot too soon; crop likes cool weather.

Onions (3): Okay, but I’ve done better. Big family demand. Must plant more next year.

Cucumbers (5): Rave reviews for my new smooth skinned variety that also yielded well.

Zucchini (5): Kept right on producing right up to and even past the first light frost.

Pumpkins (4): Dry weather in August cut yield—and diminished size.

Green Beans (4): Good yield. High quality. But not quite as good as some year’s.

Squash (3): Dry weather about did in my squash. Have less than a half bushel. Pitiful.

Tomatoes (5): How about this year for tomatoes? Harvested several bushels.

Potatoes (3): Didn’t stop the enormous invasion of Colorado beetles in time—knocked down my yield. So far have dug maybe two bushels. Quality good. Size average.

Concord Grapes (5): Best year ever. Close to a bushel off of one vine.

Cabbage (1): Three scrawny heads. Failure. And I know how to grow cabbage, I thought.

Lesser crops such as beets, radishes, carrots, broccoli, spinach, gourds—average, not terrible, not good.

But as we old farmers grew up saying, “Next year will be better.”

CHECK THIS OUT: There are a few more slots available for my Saturday, October 29 writing workshop at The Clearing in Door County. It’s all about writing stories from your life. Go to The Clearing’s website for more information: www.theclearing.org.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: You are never closer to the land than when you are gardening.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

October 4, Union Grove Library. 1:30 p.m. Horse Drawn Days, 6:30 p.m. History of Cheese Making.

October 8, Stonefield Village, Cassville, WI. 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Speaking at 12:00 and 2:00 p.m. Horse Drawn Days

October 15, Wade House, Green Bush, WI. 1:00 p.m. Horse Drawn Days.

October 18, New Holstein Library, 1:00 p.m. Book talk featuring Cranberry Red. 6:30-8:30 Writer’s workshop.

October 22, Toll/Londowski Family Farm, one mile west of Hwy 49/Co. Rd. J. Intersection, Green Lake, WI; “From the Land,” (A gathering of traditional crafts and skills with demonstrations) 11:00 a.m. Horse Drawn Days. 1:00 p.m. Lighter Side of Country Living.

October 23, Madison, WI. Wisconsin Book Festival. 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Campfires and Loon Calls.

October 27, Richfield Town Hall, Richfield, WI. 7:00 p.m. Horses and barns.

October 29, The Clearing. Writing From Your Life Workshop, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Book Convention

2011-09-25T06:27:00.002-05:00

Books, books and more books. We’ve just returned from the Midwest Independent Booksellers Association 2011 Trade Show in Minneapolis, which was held this year in a delightfully renovated downtown train depot.

For those who believe the book, one with real paper, is dead, recall what Mark Twain once said about his own demise--the information is considerably exaggerated. Books, publishers, independent book store owners, book distribution companies, librarians and authors prowled the aisles of exhibits for new ideas, connected with old friends, discovered new book titles, and generally had a great time, my wife and I included.

I was in Minneapolis promoting my new book, CAMPFIRES AND LOON CALLS, (Fulcrum Press), but I was also introducing two new books that will appear in 2012. The first is GARDEN WISDOM (Wisconsin Historical Society Press), which comes out in January, 2012. The book was a family project. I wrote about my many years of vegetable gardening; Ruth included some of her favorite garden recipes and Steve snapped the photos.

My second new book is RURAL WIT AND WISDOM (Fulcrum Press). This book is a complete re-do of an earlier book, with a third new material, new photos from Steve and lots of wit and wisdom from the country. It’s due out in June 2012.

An unspoken but important theme for the MIBA show: continue to support your independent bookstore and your local library. They are both treasures that we too often take for granted.

CHECK THIS OUT: I learned this past week that there are a few more slots available for my Saturday, October 29 writing workshop at The Clearing in Door County. It’s all about writing stories from your life. Go to The Clearing’s website for more information: www.theclearing.org.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Books do not scold when you blunder, laugh when you are ignorant, or hide when you seek them.

UPCOMING EVENTS:
October 1, Family History Fair, Walworth County Genealogical Society. Faith Christian School, HWY 67, Williams Bay, WI. 9-3. (Speaking at 1:00) Horse Drawn Days.

October 2, Old World Wisconsin, Eagle, WI. Barns of Wisconsin, Horse Drawn Days, Old Farm.

October 4, Union Grove Library. 1:30 p.m. Horse Drawn Days, 6:30 p.m. History of Cheese Making.

October 8, Stonefield Village, Cassville, WI. 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Speaking at 12:00 and 2:00 p.m. Horse Drawn Days.

October 15, Wade House, Green Bush, WI. 1:00 p.m. Horse Drawn Days.

October 18, New Holstein Library, 1:00 p.m. Book talk featuring Cranberry Red. 6:30-8:30 Writer’s Workshop.

Jack Frost

2011-09-17T09:38:00.002-05:00

The other night when the moon was up and the wind was down, he came visiting for the first time this autumn season. When I was kid we called him Jack Frost who, with his magical brush, painted roof tops and grassy areas with a sparkling sheen of white frost. Annoying to some who wanted him to remain north at least until the end of the month, but welcomed by others who have waited for the heat and humidity of summer to sink south and leave us alone for a few months.

As to damage, so far just a grape leaf here and there that is crinkled and dead—and exposing more bunches of Concord grapes that I missed with the first picking.

Now I look forward to one of my favorite times of the year, cool mornings with bright sunny days while I dig my potatoes, discover the onions I previously couldn’t find, load up the pumpkins and squash, husk the Indian corn with its many surprising colors, and enjoy sitting by my old wood stove on a cool, clear evening when the only sound is that of an owl calling far off to the west.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Smell fallen leaves on the forest floor as you search for dead oak trees to cut for the wood stove.

UPCOMING EVENTS:
September 21, Cumberland Library, 5:30 p.m. The Lighter Side of Country Living.

September 22, Midwest Bookseller Convention, Minneapolis

October 1, Family History Fair, Walworth County Genealogical Society. Faith Christian School, HWY 67, Williams Bay, WI. 9-3. (Speaking at 1:00) Horse Drawn Days.

October 2, Old World Wisconsin, Eagle, WI. Barns of Wisconsin, Horse Drawn Days, Old Farm.

October 4, Union Grove Library. 1:30 p.m. Horse Drawn Days, 6:30 p.m. History of Cheese Making.

October 8, Stonefield Village, Cassville, WI. 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Speaking at 12:00 and 2:00 p.m. Horse Drawn Days

October 15, Wade House, Green Bush, WI. 1:00 p.m. Horse Drawn Days.

October 18, New Holstein Library, 1:00 p.m. Book talk featuring Cranberry Red. 6:30-8:30 Writer’s workshop.

Black Locust

2011-09-11T10:34:00.001-05:00

We have black locust trees growing on our farm. Farmers who owned the place back in the 1930s planted them to plug up the gulleys that had formed on several steep hillsides. The black locusts did their job well, way too well, because they, once established, climbed out of the gulleys and marched into the open fields. We must have more than five acres of black locusts now, threatening to take over the place, to become one gigantic black locust forest of trees with long spikes that tear into your skin and crowd out more desirable species.

To keep the marauding locust trees at bay, we mow several of our open fields each year. But the next year they always return, seemingly more vigorous than the previous year. Some will grow five or six feet in one summer. None of my other tree species can begin to compete with the black locusts’ enthusiasm and competitive nature. Except perhaps buckthorn, but that is topic for another time.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Remember 9-11-01. Where were you on that fateful morning? What were you doing?

UPCOMING EVENTS:

September 13, Town Hall Library, North Lake, Wisconsin. 6:00 p.m. Barns of Wisconsin

September 17, Creekside Bookstore, Cedarburg. Book Signing, 1-4.

September 18, Creekside Bookstore, Cedarburg, Book signing, 12-3.

September 21, Cumberland Library, 5:30 p.m. The Lighter Side of Country Living.

September 22, Midwest Bookseller Convention, Minneapolis

October 1, Family History Fair, Walworth County Genealogical Society. Faith Christian School, HWY 67, Williams Bay, WI. 9-3. (Speaking at 1:00) Horse Drawn Days.

October 2, Old World Wisconsin, Eagle, WI.

October 4, Union Grove Library. 1:30 p.m. Horse Drawn Days, 6:30 p.m. History of Cheese Making.

October 8, Stonefield Village, Cassville, WI. 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Speaking at 12:00 and 2:00 p.m. Horse Drawn Days

October 15, Wade House, Green Bush, WI. 1:00 p.m. Horse Drawn Days.

October 18, New Holstein Library, 1:00 p.m. Book talk featuring Cranberry Red. 6:30-8:30 Writer’s workshop.

No Electricity

2011-09-04T15:55:00.002-05:00

The electrical power is out at our Waushara County farm. The entire neighborhood and well beyond lost power last Friday morning when a vicious wind and rain storm tore through the area, uprooting trees and smashing down power lines. At this writing, three days later, the power is still out. The main electric line, torn down by a tree limb is in the ditch, broken. No water. No refrigeration. Considerable inconvenience for those who do not have their own generators.

We weren’t concerned about the electric lines going down when I was a kid, because there were none in our neighborhood. No one had electricity. Kerosene lamps lighted our house; barn lanterns gave us enough light for milking cows. An ice box kept things cool, and a gasoline engine powered our water pump. We were quite self-sufficient.

Today, we’ve become so dependent on electrical power that when it’s not there, we are in trouble, especially if it’s missing for several days. The days of self-sufficiency are gone. For most people, anyway.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Neighbor’s stand alone as they stand together.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

September 7, Noon. Friends of Eagle River Library Banquet. Riverstone Restaurant, Eagle River

September 10, Barnes and Noble, La Crosse. 1:00 p.m. Campfires and Loon Calls.

September 11, Woodland Country School Reunion, 1-4, Speaking at 2:00 p.m. Two miles from Hustisford on Highway R.

September 13, Town Hall Library, North Lake, Wisconsin. 6:00 p.m. Barns of Wisconsin

September 17, Creekside Bookstore, Cedarburg. Book Signing, 1-4.

September 18, Creekside Bookstore, Cedarburg, Book signing, 12-3.

September 21, Cumberland Library, 5:30 p.m. The Lighter Side of Country Living.

September 22, Midwest Bookseller Convention, Minneapolis

October 1, Family History Fair, Walworth County Genealogical Society. Faith Christian School, HWY 67, Williams Bay, WI. 9-3. (Speaking at 1:00) Horse Drawn Days
.
October 2, Old World Wisconsin, Eagle, WI.

October 4, Union Grove Library. 1:30 p.m. Horse Drawn Days, 6:30 p.m. History of Cheese Making.

October 8, Horse Drawn Days, Stonefield Village, Cassville, WI. 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Speaking at 12:00 and 2:00 p.m. Horse Drawn Days.

October 15, Wade House, Green Bush, WI. 1:00 p.m. Horse Drawn Days.

October 18, New Holstein Library, 1:00 p.m. Book talk featuring Cranberry Red. 6:30-8:30 Writer’s workshop.

Canoe Trip

2011-08-27T13:49:00.002-05:00

My son, Steve, and I have just returned from the BWCAW, a long set of initials that mean Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. For those who are unaware, the BWCAW is located in far northeastern Minnesota, snuggled up against the Canadian Border. It’s one of the few true wilderness areas left in our country (outside of Alaska). The BWCAW is more than 100 miles long, some 30 miles wide and includes more than one million acres, with no motorboats allowed on almost all of its 1,000 lakes and streams.

It’s a place for canoes and quiet contemplation, a place for settling down and checking out (no cell-phone access). A place to listen for loon calls, and, if you are lucky, hear a wolf’s lonesome howl in the night. A place to hear waves slapping against ancient rocks. A place to reconnect with nature.

Oh, it’s also a place to fish. In our annual fishing contest, Steve landed an 18-inch small mouth bass, which meant I had to buy him breakfast on Friday morning when we began our long drive home. I won’t get into my fishing success this year—I’ll save that for another day.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: You can’t catch a fish if your line is not in the water.

CHECK THIS OUT: See my new book, Campfires and Loon Calls. It’s all about the Boundary Waters and our adventures there. Publisher: Fulcrum Press, 2011. Check my website, www.jerryapps.com for more information.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

September 7, Noon. Friends of Eagle River Library Banquet.

September 10, Barnes and Noble, La Crosse. 1:00 p.m. Campfires and Loon Calls.

September 11, Woodland Country School Reunion, 1-4, Speaking at 2:00 p.m. Two miles from Hustisford on Highway R.

September 17, Creekside Bookstore, Cedarburg. Book Signing, 1-4.

September 18, Creekside Bookstore, Cedarburg, Book signing, 12-3.

September 21, Cumberland Library, 5:30 p.m. The Lighter Side of Country Living.

September 22, Midwest Bookseller Convention, Minneapolis

October 2, Old World Wisconsin, Eagle, WI.

October 4, Union Grove Library. 1:30 p.m. Horse Drawn Days, 6:30 p.m. History of Cheese Making.

October 8, Horse Drawn Days, Stonefield Village, Cassville, WI. 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

October 15, Horse Drawn Days, Wade House,Green Bush, WI. 1:00 p.m.

October 18, New Holstein Library, 1:00 p.m. Book talk featuring Cranberry Red. 6:30-8:30 Writer’s workshop.

Say Cheese

2011-08-20T11:28:00.002-05:00

The last couple of weeks I’ve been giving presentations about the history of Wisconsin’s cheese industry. For those who have accepted California as the leading dairy state in the nation—remove those thoughts from your mind. Wisconsin continues as the leading cheese producing state in the nation—a honor our state has held since 1910.

In 2010 Wisconsin produced 2.6 billion pounds of cheese. Lots of cheese. Mozzarella, then cheddar lead the pack of cheese varieties produced.

Some additional cheese trivia that you can use to wow your friends:

It takes 10 pounds of milk to make a pound of cheese.

Colby and brick cheese are Wisconsin originals—meaning they were invented here.

There is but one cheese factory in all of North America that manufactures limburger cheese—Chalet Cheese Factory near Monroe in Green County.

In 1950, Wisconsin had 143,000 dairy farms. In 2011 the number of dairy farms is about 12,000 and dropping.

Wisconsin has about 1.3 million cows.

Artisan cheese, small batch handmade cheeses, now make up 16 percent of total cheese produced in Wisconsin. More than 400 different kinds.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: I’m a cheesehead and proud of it.

CHECK THIS OUT: The Wisconsin Historical Press, one of my publishers, has recently produced a “trailer” for my new barn book. You can watch it by going to: http://www.youtube.com/user/whspressvideo.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

September 7, Noon. Friends of Eagle River Library Banquet.

September 10, Barnes and Noble, La Crosse. 1:00 p.m. Campfires and Loon Calls.

September 11, Woodland Country School Reunion, 1-4, Speaking at 2:00 p.m. Two miles from Hustisford on Highway R.

September 17, Creekside Bookstore, Cedarburg. Book Signing, 1-4.

September 18, Creekside Bookstore, Cedarburg, Book signing, 12-3.

September 21, Cumberland Library, 5:30 p.m. The Lighter Side of Country Living.

September 22, Midwest Bookseller Convention, Minneapolis

October 2, Old World Wisconsin, Eagle, WI.

October 4, Union Grove Library. 1:30 p.m. Horse Drawn Days, 6:30 p.m. History of Cheese Making.

October 8, Horse Drawn Days, Stonefield Village, Cassville, WI. 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

October 15, Horse Drawn Days, Wade House,Green Bush, WI. 1:00 p.m.

October 18, New Holstein Library, 1:00 p.m. Book talk featuring Cranberry Red. 6:30-8:30 Writer’s workshop.

Wild Grape Vine

2011-08-13T10:09:00.002-05:00

I have wild grapes on my farm and this has been a banner year for them. They crawl over the lilac bushes by the cabin. They climb nearly to the top of the oak trees that line the trail to the pond. They curl up the red cedar tree by my machine shed. And this year they have succeeded in climbing to the peak of my pump house, nearly completely covering the east wall of the building.

My grape vines are aggressive and exploratory. One mischievous vine snuck through a crack in a pump house window. Once inside the curious vine discovered (can plants discover?) that no sunlight existed in my dark and dreary pump house, now mostly used as a woodshed. Know what? The vine crawled along the south wall inside the building, found a crack above the door and exited to the outside where it was once more treated to the afternoon sun. It appears happy as can be and seems rather proud that it has crawled in and out of my pump house. I must say, I’m impressed.

Anyone with a wild grape story? Love to hear from you.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: The road home is often the longest.

CHECK THIS OUT: The Wisconsin Historical Press, one of my publishers, has recently produced a “trailer” for my new barn book. You can watch it by going to: http://www.youtube.com/user/whspressvideo.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

August 18, 7:00 p.m. Three Lakes Historical Society, Three Lakes Wisconsin. History of cheese making in Wisconsin.

August 21, 4:00 p.m. Arcadia Books, Spring Green, WI. Presentation and Book Signing.

September 7, Noon. Friends of Eagle River Library Banquet.

September 10, Barnes and Noble, La Crosse. 1:00 p.m. Campfires and Loon Calls.

September 11, Woodland Country School Reunion, 1-4, Speaking at 2:00 p.m. Two miles from Hustisford on Highway R.

September 17, Creekside Bookstore, Cedarburg. Book Signing, 1-4.

September 18, Creekside Bookstore, Cedarburg, Book signing, 12-3.

Garden Update

2011-08-07T11:14:00.002-05:00

A few weeks ago, shortly after I wrote about my garden suffering from dry weather, it began raining. Sometimes an inch, occasionally a half an inch, enough to give my sandy soil garden the boost it needed.

Yesterday I picked about ten pounds of snap beans; a half grocery bag of cucumbers, five pounds or so of zucchini and our first three tomatoes of the season. I could have dug more red potatoes—I dug a half sack last week, I could have dug more onions—how well they have developed. And I could have dug more beets—I also did that a week ago. But the day was hot and steamy, hanging just around ninety, so—Ruth and I quit harvesting early.

Two weeks ago the pumpkins showed nothing but blossoms, today they have pumpkins the size of softballs and larger. The pumpkin vines are everywhere, crawling up the sweet corn, snaking over the tops of the tomatoes, and sneaking under the fence on their way to the cabin.

Can you believe it, I have tomato vines five feet tall? Tallest tomato vines I remember for several years. We have 48 tomato plants. If they continue developing as they recently have, we will have tomatoes—lots of tomatoes.

But I know full well the hazards of gardening. This week’s joy can turn into sorrow with one hail storm, another spell of dry weather, a broken deer fence and a critter raid. So I must be careful. When people ask me how my garden is doing, I usually say, “Could be better.”

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Keep things simple. They’ll get complicated enough, soon enough, without you intending that they should.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

August 10. 5 p.m., program at 6 p.m. Red Crown Lodge, 3852 Highway 51 North, Arbor Vitae, WI Preview of Ken Burns’ latest film, Prohibition. Discussion of Prohibition in Wisconsin. Free.

August 13. 5:30 p.m. Manitowoc County Historical Society. Horse Drawn Days

August 18, 7:00 p.m. Three Lakes Historical Society, Three Lakes Wisconsin. History of cheese making in Wisconsin.

August 21, 4:00 p.m. Arcadia Books, Spring Green, WI. Presentation and Book Signing.

September 7, Noon. Friends of Eagle River Library Banquet.

September 10, Barnes and Noble, La Crosse. 1:00 p.m. Campfires and Loon Calls.

September 11, Woodland Country School Reunion, 1-4, Speaking at 2:00 p.m. Two miles from Hustisford on Highway R. One-Room Country Schools.

September 17, Creekside Bookstore, Cedarburg. Book Signing, 1-4.

September 18, Creekside Bookstore, Cedarburg, Book signing, 12-3.

Mosquito Deterrent

2011-07-30T10:52:00.002-05:00

The family is just back from a great week in the Northwoods, in a cabin on a lake where swimming, water skiing and all the rest were wonderful. Great fun for the kids and grand kids, and a relaxing time for those not into being pulled around the lake on a pair of slender slats.

Except for one problem. Mosquitoes. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. As many as the national debt and more. A deep breath resulted in a mouth full of the buggers—not an exaggeration. I slapped my arm and dispatched a half-dozen with one blow.

What to do? Off to the store for mosquito dope. Stuff with DEET in it. Stuff to keep the mosquitoes at bay.

While inspecting the mosquito repellent display—quite an elaborate one I might add—I spotted something new—at least for gullible me. I spotted an ultrasonic mosquito repellent, battery operated and of a size where I could clip it to my belt. No Deet to spray on tender skin. A modern piece of technology. I bought one. Could have bought two spray cans of Deet for the price, but that’s something my wife doesn’t need to know.

I brought it to the cabin, cut the device loose from its plastic bindings, pushed a little button and saw a tiny bulb glow red. It was obviously emitting high frequency sounds that disturbed mosquitoes and sent them away to antagonize someone else. At least that’s what it was supposed to do.

I stood in a shady place where I had previously been unmercifully attacked that morning. I waited to hear the buzzing of mosquitoes, held at bay some six feet from me by my new piece of modern technology—as the advertising claimed would happen.

There was no buzzing at six feet. Squadrons of menacing little beasties tore at me as if my new piece of electronics were a homing device.

Back to Deet. No more mention of my new piece of mosquito deterring equipment. Mosquitoes won again.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: When you find something that works. Stay with it. On the other hand, kind of fun to try something new once in a while.

UPCOMING EVENTS:
July 31-August 6, Writing Workshop, The Clearing, Door County.

August 10. 5 p.m., program at 6 p.m. Red Crown Lodge, 3852 Highway 51 North, Arbor Vitae, WI Preview of Ken Burns’ latest film, Prohibition. Discussion of Prohibition in Wisconsin. Free. Registration required by August 5. Register: UWalumni.com or call 608-263-4508.

August 13. 5:30 p.m. Manitowoc County Historical Society. Horse Drawn Days

August 18, 7:00 p.m. Three Lakes Historical Society, Three Lakes Wisconsin. History of cheese making in Wisconsin.

August 21, 4:00 p.m. Arcadia Books, Spring Green, WI. Presentation and Book Signing.

Bookstore Closings

2011-07-23T20:25:00.002-05:00

I stopped at Brown’s Bookstore in Rhinelander this week and discovered they were closing. After 18 years they are locking their doors and calling it quits. A loss to the community; a loss to publishers, a loss to writers.

I also noticed this week that the Borders' book chain, second only to Barnes and Noble in size, has lost its battle to continue after declaring Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this year.

Little bookstores, big bookstores, independents and chains—closing. Not able to compete with the juggernaut called E-books that are digital and require no paper. Books read on such devices as Kindle and Nook and iPads and Blackberries. Books that cost less, oft times considerably less than their paper printed versions.

What are we losing when we lose a bookstore, whether a little independent such as Brown’s in Rhinelander or the Borders’ chain that had stores scattered across the country? Are bookstores, real ones not virtual, digital versions, important enough so that some will survive? Should some survive?

We appear to be in the midst of a great revolution—an earthshaking reshaping of defining what is a book and how they are made and sold? It’s both an exciting and a depressing time.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: How do we decide what of the past we should keep when something new comes along and threatens to replace it?

CHECK THIS OUT: My friend, Phil Martin, who is a writer, editor, and publisher, has just published a new book: HOW TO WRITE YOUR BEST STORY. It’s advice for writers who want to polish their story writing skills. Great collection of practical tips. Available on Amazon.com, www.itascabooks.com and other booksellers. And only $14.95. What a deal!

UPCOMING EVENTS:
July 26, Noon, Wis Historical Society Museum, on the Square, Madison, WI. Ringling Bros. Circus.

July 31-August 6, Writing Workshop, The Clearing, Door County.

August 10. 5 p.m., program at 6 p.m. Red Crown Lodge, 3852 Highway 51 North, Arbor Vitae, WI Preview of Ken Burns’ latest film, Prohibition. Discussion of Prohibition in Wisconsin. Free. Registration required by August 5. Register: UWalumni.com or call 608-263-4508.

August 13. 5:30 p.m. Manitowoc County Historical Society. Horse Drawn Days.

Bur Oak

2011-07-15T14:51:00.001-05:00

I like trees, all kinds of trees, pine trees and oak trees, trees I’ve planted and trees that have been on my farm for a hundred years and probably more. But of all the trees that grow at Roshara, I am most impressed with the Bur Oak (sometimes spelled Burr).

First off, I respect the Bur Oak’s toughness. They withstand fire, storms, dry weather, wet weather—they come through it all and continue living and growing year after year, sometimes surviving two or three hundred years.

Bur Oaks are not especially attractive when compared to some other trees such as a Balsam Fir (I have but one of these at my farm). But in their own way, with their thick, corky bark and scraggly limbs going this way and that, they have a beauty all their own. Besides, Bur Oak trees are native to my farm. No one hauled them in from somewhere else. They have thrived in much of central and southwestern Wisconsin as long as anything living has been here. I marvel at that.

Some Bur Oak facts: They may grow 80 feet tall, even taller in richer soils, and reach diameters greater than four feet. The Bur Oak roots may reach depths of 20 feet and a lateral spread of 40 feet. The weight of the roots can equal that of the tops. One of the reasons the Bur Oak lives so long and does so well is its tremendous root system—what you see of the tree is only about half of it—the other half is below ground.

Sort of like people. What you don’t see about a person is often more important than what you do see.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: No matter how old you are, plant a tree. And don’t forget to speak up when someone wants to cut a living tree for no good reason.

CHECK THIS OUT: My friend, Phil Martin, who is a writer, editor, and publisher, has just published a new book: HOW TO WRITE YOUR BEST STORY. It’s advice for writers who want to polish their story writing skills. Great collection of practical tips. Available on Amazon.com, www.itascabooks.com and other booksellers. And only $14.95. What a deal!

UPCOMING EVENTS:
July 26, Noon, Wis Historical Society Museum, on the Square, Madison, WI. Ringling Bros. Circus.

July 31-August 6, Writing Workshop, The Clearing, Door County.

August 10. 5 p.m., program at 6 p.m. Red Crown Lodge, 3852 Highway 51 North, Arbor Vitae, WI Preview of Ken Burns’ latest film, Prohibition. Discussion of Prohibition in Wisconsin. Free. Registration required by August 5. Register: UWalumni.com or call 608-263-4508.

August 13. 5:30 p.m. Manitowoc County Historical Society. Horse Drawn Days

Dry Weather

2011-07-10T18:28:00.002-05:00

Dry weather in central Wisconsin. Hot days, cool nights and no rain. Ten days ago the lawn grass in front of my cabin, native grass as I planted no grass seed was green, lush and growing rapidly. This morning it is brown and crunches underfoot when I walk across it. The grass appears dead, but it is not. It is merely waiting for the next rain when it will once more turn green. Tough stuff this centuries old grass that knows the ways of sandy, dry soils.

My garden suffers. Potato vines curl, squash leaves wilt, the bottom leaves of the sweet corn are turning brown, the tomato plants have stopped growing. Even some of the weeds have wilted—but not all as weeds, better than the fancy, hybrid vegetable varieties know dry weather, know how to send their roots ever deeper, searching for life-giving moisture.

Those of us in central Wisconsin look to the western sky and wait for rain as we have for generations as these sandy soils never have enough it seems. The rains in mid-summer make all the difference as to whether a crop will produce well, indeed even survive. Farming sandy soil without irrigation is a gamble, always has been, always will be.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: One of the best ways to solve a problem is to walk. It may take a mile, it may take longer.

July 26, Noon, Wis Historical Society Museum, on the Square, Madison, WI. Ringling Bros. Circus.

July 31-August 6, Writing Workshop, The Clearing, Door County.

August 10. 5 p.m., program at 6 p.m. Red Crown Lodge, 3852 Highway 51 North, Arbor Vitae, WI Preview of Ken Burns’ latest film, Prohibition. Discussion of Prohibition in Wisconsin. Free. Registration required by August 5. Register: UWalumni.com or call 608-263-4508.

Potato Bugs

2011-07-05T10:44:00.000-05:00

Potato bugs we called them when I was a kid, a menace for potato patches. They still are a problem today maybe more so than ever as chemical treatments have toughened them rather than eliminated them.

Their official name is Colorado Potato Beetle; they feast on potato vines and leave most everything else in the garden alone. An age old system for controlling them works –somewhat anyway. We used it when I was a kid; I still use it to today.
You walk down the row of potatoes, and when you spot a potato bug you drop it in a little pail with some water in the bottom. When I was a kid, Pa poured an inch or so of kerosene in the pail. He wanted to make sure that once we picked them they would never ever find another potato plant to chew on.

I saw an ad in a farm paper for a “sure kill “system for eliminating potato bugs. “Mail in five dollars.” I’ll not say who answered the ad, but when the sure kill system arrived, it consisted of two small blocks of wood with some simple instructions. “Place potato bug on block A. Strike smartly with block B.” It worked.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: A good cup of coffee in the morning gives you the gumption to face the day, no matter how many problems and challenges lie in wait.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

July 6, 6:00 p.m. Chilton Library, Chilton, WI Campfires and Loon Calls

July 10, 11-2:00 Pickle Station, Saxeville, WI. Booksigning.

July 26, Noon, Wis Historical Society Museum, on the Square, Madison, WI. Ringling Bros. Circus.

July 31-August 6, Writing Workshop, The Clearing, Door County.

Dairy Breakfast

2011-06-26T17:56:00.002-05:00

If you’ve been wondering how dairy farming—farming in general—has changed the last few decades, attend a dairy breakfast. Ruth and I traveled to the Pionke farm in western Waushara County to see some of these changes while we enjoyed flapjacks, ham, potatoes—a down home country breakfast served in a huge machine shed with live polka music playing in the background.

The Pionke farm, in the family since 1903, is currently owned and managed by Martin, Duane and Cheryl Pionke. When I was a kid, we would have called this a diversified farm because they not only milk cows, about 120 of them, and raise replacement young stock, another 120 head, they also grow cash crops besides feed for their cattle—125 acres of sweet corn, 95 acres of canning peas, 55 acres of snap beans, 40 acres of wheat, 25 acres of soybeans, 200 acres of alfalfa and 340 acres of field corn. Their farm is about 1,000 acres.

Now the comparison. Back in the early 1950s, on our home farm, which was 160 acres, we milked about 15 cows, fed 20 to 30 hogs, raised 30 acres of alfalfa, an acre of snap beans, an acre of cucumbers, and 20-30 acres of corn.

Although the numbers are dramatically different; yesterday’s and today’s farmers had the same purpose: Providing food for a hungry world.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Keep things simple. They’ll get complicated enough, soon enough, without you intending that they should.

UPCOMING EVENTS:
June 28, 5-7 p.m. Fitger’s Bookstore, Duluth, MN. Book signing, Campfires and Loon Calls.

June 29, 2-4 p.m. Cherry St. Books, Alexandria, MN. Book signing, Campfires and Loon Calls.

July 6, 6:00 p.m. Chilton Library, Chilton, WI Campfires and Loon Calls

July 10, 11-2:00 Pickle Station, Saxeville, WI. Booksigning.

July 26, Noon, Wis Historical Society Museum, on the Square, Madison, WI. Ringling Bros. Circus.

July 31-August 6, Writing Workshop, The Clearing, Door County.

Garden Report

2011-06-19T15:46:00.002-05:00

It’s time for a garden report. As all gardeners in Wisconsin know, we started the season with cold and wet and never ending winter-like weather. I usually plant onions, radishes, lettuce, beets, cabbage and especially potatoes by mid-April. As most people remember, we had a major snow storm on April 20 with more than six inches burying my already too wet to work garden.

On May 8th, I finally planted the early vegetables. The last week in May, I planted the late season crops. Two days after I set out my tomato plants, planted green beans, cucumbers, squash, sweet corn and pumpkins—we had a freeze. Cold enough so the grassy areas around the cabin were covered with white frost. But for some unknown reason my little tomato plants survived.

This past week—way late—I replanted green beans, cucumbers, sunflowers, even some lettuce—vegetables that simply didn’t come up or came up with missing areas.
But I have good news. So far, this is one of my best potato seasons. Almost every plant came up and they are already knee high and almost too bushy to rototill. Late planting seemed to make no difference. The tomatoes that miraculously escaped the late May frost are doing quite well, too. I started them from seed and when we set them out the plants were a sorry looking lot, bent stems, scraggly, off color. I set out 45 plants—44 are alive, a few of the early ones are already in blossom.

We have enjoyed radishes for a couple of weeks, the leaf lettuce is ready to cut and the onions are well ahead of most seasons. If the warm weather continues and especially the timely rains, the sweet corn will easily make knee high by the Fourth of July—the standard for all mid-Wisconsin farmers.

One reason I continue gardening—we planted our first garden at our farm in 1967—is the yearly surprises. I never know which vegetables will do well and which will not. I’ve essentially gardened the same way every year, yet the outcomes are always different. May it always be so.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: You can bury a lot of troubles digging in your garden.

CHECK THIS OUT: Central Wisconsin book launch for Campfires and Loon Calls. Fundraiser for Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose, Wisconsin, June 24, 6:30 p.m.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

June 28, 5-7 p.m. Fitger’s Bookstore, Duluth, MN. Book signing, Campfires and Loon Calls.

June 29, 2-4 p.m. Cherry St. Books, Alexandria, MN. Book signing, Campfires and Loon Calls.

July 6, 6:00 p.m. Chilton Library, Chilton, WI Campfires and Loon Calls

July 10, 11-2:00 Pickle Station, Saxeville, WI. Booksigning.

July 26, Noon, Wis Historical Society Museum, on the Square, Madison, WI. Ringling Bros. Circus.

July 31-August 6, Writing Workshop, The Clearing, Door County.

Congratulations , Josh

2011-06-11T10:05:00.001-05:00

Josh Horman, my oldest grandson, graduated from high school this weekend and is headed off to college in the fall. It’s been fun to watch him grow up, to attend his basketball games from the time he was a little shaver until he was part of his varsity H.S. team, to see him for the first time in football pads that made him look like a little triangle, and then, a few years later, watch him run back a kickoff for a touchdown on his varsity H.S. team.

Josh also helped with our garden at the farm. From the time when he was but a little kid, he helped plant the pumpkins and then harvest them in the fall, picking out the biggest one for his own special jack-o-lantern.

But what I remember most about Josh is how he would listen to my many tales about our farm, and then I would hear him repeat them to his little Colorado cousins, with considerable embellishment—sometimes well beyond embellishment. Such as a story about how the Indians did battle with the pioneers in the back fields of our farm in the early days, and how monsters were likely to live where the terminal moraine and the biological tension zone intersected at our farm.

Congratulations, Josh. Keep the stories coming.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Hard to beat a good story, doesn’t matter if it’s true or not.

CHECK THIS OUT: Central Wisconsin launch and fundraiser for Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose, Wisconsin, June 24, 6:30 p.m. Campfires and Loon Calls.

UPCOMING EVENTS:
June 24, 6:30 p.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose, WI. Fundraiser featuring Campfires and Loon calls.

June 28, 5-7 p.m. Fitger’s Bookstore, Duluth, MN. Book signing, Campfires and Loon Calls.

June 29, 2-4 p.m. Cherry St. Books, Alexandria, MN. Book signing, Campfires and Loon Calls.

July 6, 6:00 p.m. Chilton Library, Chilton, WI Campfires and Loon Calls

July 10, 11-2:00 Pickle Station, Saxeville, WI. Book signing.

July 26, Noon, Wis Historical Society Museum, on the Square, Madison, WI. Ringling Bros. Circus.

July 31-August 6, Writing Workshop, The Clearing, Door County.

Garden Planted

2011-06-04T07:58:00.001-05:00

Last weekend we finished planting the garden. We set out the last of the home-grown tomato plants, broccoli, and cabbage. Planted more sweet corn, put in the squash and pumpkin seeds, planted the green beans and sowed more lettuce. Planted several hills of zucchini.

The garden is larger this year as three families are sharing--my son Steve’s and daughter Sue’s families plus Ruth and me. So we have 17 rows of potatoes—everyone likes homegrown potatoes. Forty tomato plants—who can resist homemade tomato soup, tomato juice and salsa. Long rows of green beans for eating fresh and freezing, and several rows of sweet corn. A few heads of cabbage—I’m the coleslaw lover in the family. Plenty of zucchini, too.

Each garden year is a challenge and a mystery. Some vegetables will do well, others less so. But after all the years that we’ve grown a garden at Roshara (since 1966) we’ve always managed to have plenty of fresh vegetables—and enjoyed many of them throughout the winter as well.

I’ve decided that gardening is one part skill, one part patience and one part hope. May it always be so.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Gardening is one way to be close to the earth, in more ways than you could imagine.

COMING EVENTS:

June 7, 7:00 p.m. Galesville Library. Horses and Barns.

June 24, 6:30 p.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose, WI. Fundraiser featuring Campfires and Loon calls.

June 28, 5-7 p.m. Fitger’s Bookstore, Duluth, MN. Book signing, Campfires and Loon Calls.

June 29, 2-4 p.m. Cherry St. Books, Alexandria, MN. Book signing, Campfires and Loon Calls.

Old Apple Tree

2011-05-30T16:23:00.001-05:00

The old apple tree at my farm is twisted and gnarled and bent and broken, but it is still alive. I don’t know the tree’s exact age, but I do know the first settler on my farm, Tom Stewart, arrived on these acres in 1867, and I’m assuming started an apple orchard shortly after he came. He was from New York State, and many early settlers brought apple trees with them to plant in this new place.

We have owned our farm since 1964 and have marveled at this old apple tree from the day when we first saw it in full bloom. A few years ago we thought it was on its last tracks, it had but a few blossoms, a major limb had smashed to the ground, and it was a pathetic sight. But as it turns out, this was only a setback, a brief unhappy experience, as the tree developed new growth and continued on.

This year the old apple tree is covered with blossoms, more than I ever remember. The tree is making a point. Just because you’re old doesn’t mean you can’t show off a little.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Some trips are two steps forward and one back. Better this arrangement than the opposite.

June 2, 7:00 p.m. Luck Library. Campfires and Loon Calls.

June 7, 7:00 p.m. Galesville Library. Horses and Barns.

June 24, 6:30 p.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose, WI. Fundraiser featuring Campfires and Loon calls.

June 28, 5-7 p.m. Fitger’s Bookstore, Duluth, MN. Book signing, Campfires and Loon Calls.

June 29, 2-4 p.m. Cherry St. Books, Alexandria, MN. Book signing, Campfires and Loon Calls.

Lilacs

2011-05-21T10:06:00.002-05:00

The lilacs are opening in our neck of the words. Beautiful purple flowers with a smell filled with memories. Lilac bushes graced the south side of our one-room school yard, tall gangly bushes most of the year, but for a few days, a couple of weeks sometimes, the schoolyard was filled with the smell of lilac. When the lilacs first opened, we’d cut a big bouquet and give them to our teacher who would put them in a vase on the corner of her desk. And now the schoolroom, too, its long winter, musty smell with lingering smells of oak smoke was replaced with one more smell of spring.

We didn’t have lilacs at home. Pa didn’t like them. Said their smell was too strong. Here was one place I disagreed with him for I enjoyed the smell of lilacs, then and now. I prefer the smell of real lilac, not that created in a laboratory to become part of a strong smelling perfume that is supposed to smell like lilacs but doesn’t make it, not for my country smelling nose anyway.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: The road home is often the longest.

UPCOMING EVENTS:
May 23, 7:30 p.m. Brodhead Historical Society. Brodhead High School. History of Wisconsin Agriculture.

May 26, 7:00 p.m. Eagle River Library. Campfires and Loon Calls.

June 2, 7:00 p.m. Luck Library. Campfires and Loon Calls.

June 7, 7:00 p.m. Galesville Library. Horses and Barns.

June 24, 6:30 p.m. Patterson Memorial Library, fundraiser featuring Campfires and Loon calls.

June 28, 5-7 p.m. Fitger’s Bookstore, Duluth, MN. Book signing, Campfires and Loon Calls.

June 29, 2-4 p.m. Cherry Street Books, Alexandria, MN. Book signing, Campfires and Loon Calls.

The Many Greens of Spring

2011-05-15T10:19:00.002-05:00

After a few days of dreary, bleak and mostly colorless days in April, a few warm days in May changed the landscape to a world of green. We celebrate fall for its palette of vivid colors, but if we want to see green—early spring is the season to do it.

From the light greens of the aspen trees, to the dark greens of the white and red pine. From the reddish green of the maples to the yellowish green of the little nubs of oak leaves just pushing forth.

Alfalfa fields, winter wheat, rye, and pasture grass just waking up from a long winter. All green in various shades. Green is clearly the color of spring, the color of revival and new growth. The color of optimism and looking forward.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: The shortest distance between two points is often not the point.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

May 18, 7:00 p.m., Beloit Library. Ames County Novels.

May 23, 7:30 p.m. Brodhead Historical Society. Brodhead High School. History of Wisconsin Agriculture.

May 26, 7:00 p.m. Eagle River Library. Campfires and Loon Calls.

June 2, 7:00 p.m. Luck Library. Campfires and Loon Calls.

June 7, 7:00 p.m. Galesville Library. Horses and Barns.

June 24, 6:30 p.m. Patterson Memorial Library, fundraiser featuring Campfires and Loon calls.

June 28, 5-7 p.m. Fitger’s Bookstore, Duluth, MN. Book signing, Campfires and Loon Calls.

June 29, 2-4 p.m. Cherry St. Books, Alexandria, MN. Book signing, Campfires and Loon Calls.

Mother's Day

2011-05-06T09:20:00.002-05:00

A twenty acre woodlot backed up to our farm house. It provided firewood for our ever hungry wood stoves. In fall it offered a steady supply of squirrels and rabbits for our supper table. It was a place to explore, to hike and watch the birds, to find peace and quiet. And when you did something wrong, a place to run to while you waited for Pa to cool off and reconsider the punishment you knew was coming if you’d not escaped to this wonderful hiding place.

On Mother’s Day, the woods was an especially important place for on a hillside on the north side of the woodlot, in a little clearing, grew a big patch of purple violets, light purple, some a dark velvety purple. My brothers and I would pick bouquets of these beautiful spring flowers and give them to our mother for Mother’s Day. She put the fragile flowers in a jelly glass and then place them in the middle of the kitchen table where we’d all enjoy them. For several years, this was our Mother’s Day gift, and one that Mother seemed always to enjoy when she saw her three little boys, each holding a fist full of the purple flowers emerge from the woods with big smiles on their faces.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: It’s not the size of the gift, but the size of the thought that counts.

May 14, 10 a.m.-2:00 p.m. Books signing. Dregni’s, Westby.

May 18, 7:00 p.m., Beloit Library. Ames County Novels.

May 23, 7:30 p.m. Brodhead Historical Society. History of Wisconsin Agriculture.

May 26, 7:00 p.m. Eagle River Library. Campfires and Loon Calls.

June 2, 7:00 p.m. Luck Library. Campfires and Loon Calls.

Spring at the Pond

2011-04-23T14:33:00.002-05:00

Spring has arrived at the pond on our farm. A pair of sandhill cranes is staking out their nesting site, mamma and papa Canada geese are making inspection tours, several mallard and wood ducks have already taken up residence, and the frogs are singing out their hearts.

That’s not to credit less the turkey gobblers that are strutting and calling and making a fuss about finding a mate, and the song birds that are returning, some to stay and nest, others to move on further north.

I spotted at least three bluebirds nesting in our string of houses alongside our prairie—another good sign that some things appear right with the world.

Now we need the weather to cooperate a little—too cold, too much late snow and thus little plant growth. And no garden planted, not one seed. Another year with winter morphing into summer with no spring in between?

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Spring is full of promises, many not kept.

CHECK THIS OUT: Interested in old barns. The Wisconsin Historical Society Museum on the square in Madison is sponsoring a special program on Wednesday, May 11, 6:30-9:00 P.M. The program includes a meal catered by the Underground Food Collective, plus a presentation with history and stories from Wisconsin barns (my part of the program). Call 608-264-6563 for reservations.

UPCOMING EVENTS:
May 3, 12:00-2:00 p.m. Book signing. Barnes and Noble, Denver West Village, 14347 Colfax Ave., Lakewood, Colorado.

May 7, 1:00-3:00 p.m. Book signing. Apple Blossom Books, Oshkosh, WI.

May 11, 6:30 p.m. Dinner and Presentation, Barns of Wisconsin. Wisconsin Historical Society Museum on the Square in Madison. (See above for details)

May 14, 10 a.m.-2:00 p.m. Books signing. Dregni’s, Westby.

May 18, 7:00 p.m., Beloit Library. Ames County Novels.

May 23, 7:30 p.m. Brodhead Historical Society. History of Wisconsin Agriculture
.
May 26, 7:00 p.m. Eagle River Library. Campfires and Loon Calls.

June 2, 7:00 p.m. Luck Library. Campfires and Loon Calls.

Arbor Day

2011-04-17T20:02:00.001-05:00

Long before the celebration of Earth Day, which is April 22, we set aside a day at our one-room country school to spend outside, sprucing up the school grounds. We called it Arbor Day, a day long associated with planting trees.

We planted no trees in our one-acre schoolyard on Arbor Day—there were already plenty of giant black and white oaks. What we did was bring garden rakes from home and spent the day raking leaves and grass and piling them in the middle of our softball diamond. It was a fun day, a chance to be away from the routine of studying and reciting and following a rather tight schedule of learning.

I especially remember Arbor Day when I was in seventh grade. Maxine Thompson was our teacher and she joined us in the clean-up operation and seemed to be having as much fun as we did as we raked, carried, and piled leaves and dead grass.
When there was no more grass to rake, and no more winter-tired oak leaves to gather, Miss Thompson touched a match to the big pile and we had a glorious bonfire with pungent smoke trickling skyward. While the pile was burning, we searched for sticks as we knew that a wiener and marshmallow roast would follow. It was a day to remember.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: (Quoting Increase Joseph, from my novel, The Travels of Increase Joseph)”It’s the land. I’m talking about the land and how we must take care of it or we shall all perish.”

CHECK THIS OUT: The Sturm Public Library in Manawa has selected my novel, In a Pickle, for its community read program this spring. I will be speaking at the library on April 19, 7:00 p.m. Want to learn more about cucumbers and their history? Plan to attend.

Grape Vine

2011-04-10T18:22:00.001-05:00

I pruned my grape vines this week; I really should say “vine” as I have only one. I planted it about 15 years ago in front of my house and next to my split rail fence. The idea was to add a “little something” to the fence as my wife said.

It’s a Concord grape and I really didn’t expect much from it, beyond tangling itself along the top rail of the cedar fence and looking nice. But was I surprised. This single vine produces up to a half-bushel and sometimes more of rich, lush purple grapes each year. By mid-summer Its leaves and vines cover an entire section of the fence. Last year the grape vine was especially rambunctious and threatened to overrun a rose bush that is more than dozen feet away from the base of the vine.

As for care, beyond severely pruning the vine each early spring, I do nothing but watch it grow. No watering, no fertilizing, no spraying—nothing. It’s about the easiest plant to take care of I have on my property. Come late August and early September, I begin checking for ripe grapes, snipping them off with a shears when they are ready and carrying them into the kitchen.

Ruth has a wonderful grape jelly recipe—we feast on grape jelly and toast all winter. And the family and friends do as well as we give away jars of grape jelly as Christmas presents.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Expect little from something and be surprised.

CHECK THIS OUT: The Sturm Public Library in Manawa has selected my novel, In a Pickle, for its community read program this spring. I will be speaking at the library on April 19, 7:00 p.m. Want to learn more about cucumbers and their history? Plan to attend.

Tuesday, April 12, 7:00 p.m., Fall Creek Library (Horses and Barns)

Thursday, April 14, 6:30 p.m. Marathon County Library, 300 N. First Street, Wausau. (Horses and Barns)

Friday, April 15, 1:00 p.m. Kaukauna Public Library (Fox Cities Book Festival. Horses and Barns)

Saturday, April 16, Wild Rose High School Centennial Program. 1-4:00 p.m. Program at 2:30.

Tuesday, April 19, Sturm Public Library, Manawa, 7:00 p.m. In a Pickle.

Strawberries

2011-04-02T17:06:00.002-05:00

I uncovered my strawberry bed today, if you can call six plants a bed. They have been waiting out the winter tucked under a warm cover of maple leaves that I piled on them last fall.

My strawberry plants (I have a variety called Cabot that was developed in Canada), appeared bewildered as they once more saw the sun, plus a little bedraggled and winter worn. But they were green as summer, and most importantly, alive. A welcome sight they are, with memories of lush fresh fruit in a couple months or so depending on what kind of spring we have (so far it’s been a bust with an inch of wet snow on April Fool’s day).

California and Florida ship tons of strawberries to Wisconsin, but nothing beats the taste of homegrown berries, and especially those I grow myself. I cheat a bit. I planted my strawberries in the flowerbed in front of my house in town. The strawberries don’t seem to mind, in fact, with a little competition from daylilies, mums, and dahlias, the strawberries thrive, even a little too much. If given a choice they surely would take over the entire flowerbed. It wouldn’t be all bad. I’ve never much cared for the taste of mums and dahlias. Someone once said daylilies make a good salad. I’ll stick with fresh strawberries.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Don’t let April fool you; it will try. Spring is out there—At least I think so.

CHECK THIS OUT: The Mead Public Library in Sheboygan has selected my book, OLD FARM, for their Sheboygan Reads program. On Saturday, April 9, at 9:30 a.m., I will be reading from the book and answering questions. We will meet in the Quiet Study Room at the library. Hope to see you there.

Tuesday, April 5, 6:00 p.m. Salem Public Library, Salem, WI (Stories from the Land)

Saturday, April 9, 9:30 a.m. Mead Public Library, Sheboygan. (Old Farm)

April 9, 1:30-4:00 p.m. Mead Public Library, Sheboygan Writing Workshop. Call 920-459-3400, ext. 3422 for reservations.

Tuesday, April 12, 7:00 p.m., Fall Creek Library (Horses and Barns)

Thursday, April 14, 6:30 p.m. Marathon County Library, 300 N. First Street, Wausau. (Horses and Barns)

Friday, April 15, 1:00 p.m. Kaukauna Public Library (Fox Cities Book Festival. Horses and Barns)

Saturday, April 16, Wild Rose High School Centennial Program

Tuesday, April 19, Sturm Public Library, Manawa, 7:00 p.m. In a Pickle. A rescheduled program.

Medical Update

2011-03-30T14:28:00.001-05:00

I had an extremely aggressive bacterial infection, which I discovered last Saturday. By Sunday it was really on the move. Urgent Care doctors quickly identified the culprit and put me on massive doses of antibiotics, including IV infusions for a couple days. As one of the doctors said yesterday, “You’re over the hump.” That appears to be modern-day medical language to mean I’m getting better. If all proceeds normally, and there is every reason to believe that it will, I’ll be back to my regular schedule next Monday. It was a bit of a scare. Watch out for infections, there are some nasty bugs out there.

Thanks to all who sent notes of concern; I really appreciated it.

Cancelled Events

2011-03-27T15:37:00.002-05:00

Do to medical problem--got a diagnosis this afternoon--I will have to cancel the following:

Tuesday, March 29, 7:00 p.m. Strum Public Library (Manawa). (In a Pickle).

Friday, April 1, 7:00 p.m. Oconto Falls Library. (Stories from the Land)

Saturday, April 2, 9:00-11:00 a.m. Oconto Falls Library. (Writing workshop: Writing Family Stories. Call the library for further information.)

I'm hoping I can be back on the road in a week or so.

Early Spring Flowers

2011-03-27T10:40:00.002-05:00

Last Monday morning. Three little flowers peeking their heads above the leaf mulch. Welcoming spring. First color of the season. Crocus. The bravest of the brave. The earliest of the early.

By mid-week. Rain. Cold Rain. Sometimes mixed with sleet. Sometimes mixed with snow. Winter returning. Snuffing out spring. Sending the new season in retreat. Closing up the yellow flowers. Reprimanding them for their enthusiasm, for their optimism, for believing that spring has arrived in the north.

The yellow flowers will return. And winter, with all its fuss and bluster, threats and cold weather will retreat and wait a few months, to gather strength and verve.

The crocus knows patience. Patience is the watch word for those of us who have given up on winter and want no more of it. Spring is just around the corner. We’ve gotten glimpses of it—so have the crocus flowers.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Patience is often in short supply these days.

CHECK THIS OUT: The Mead Public Library in Sheboygan has selected my book, OLD FARM, for their Sheboygan Reads program. On Saturday, April 9, at 9:30 a.m., I will be reading from the book and answering questions. We will meet in the Quiet Study Room at the library. Hope to see you there.

Friday, April 1, 7:00 p.m. Oconto Falls Library. (Stories from the Land)

Saturday, April 2, 9:00-11:00 a.m. Oconto Falls Library. (Writing workshop: Writing Family Stories. Call the library for further information.)

Tuesday, April 5, 6:00 p.m. Salem Public Library, Salem, WI (Stories from the Land)

Saturday, April 9, 9:30 a.m. Mead Public Library, Sheboygan. (Old Farm)

April 9, 1:30-4:00 p.m. Mead Public Library, Sheboygan Writing Workshop. Call 920-459-3400, ext. 3422 for reservations.

Tuesday, April 12, 7:00 p.m., Fall Creek Library (Horses and Barns)

Thursday, April 14, 6:30 p.m. Marathon County Library, 300 N. First Street, Wausau. (Horses and Barns)

Friday, April 15, 1:00 p.m. Kaukauna Public Library (Fox Cities Book Festival)

Saturday, April 16, Wild Rose High School Centennial Program

Waterwheel

2011-03-20T11:22:00.002-05:00

On the home farm, when the snows began melting in March, a little stream of melt water trickled from behind the corn crib, continued on between the house and the barn, and finally curled under the barnyard gate to disperse in the barnyard.

One year Pa suggested we make a little waterwheel and place it in the melt water river. He made the waterwheel from a cedar wood shingle. He cut two pieces, each about three inches long and a half inch wide. He notched the two pieces and pushed them together making a waterwheel with four little paddles. With two other pieces of shingle wood he made a little frame that held the waterwheel in place while the running melt water turned it.

In early morning, when the temperature had fallen below freezing, the little waterwheel hung motionless in its frame, but usually by mid-day, with climbing temperatures and more snow melting, the waterwheel turned furiously, making a “flip ,flip” sound. The waterwheel turned for more than a week; Pa, my brothers and I would stop, watch and listen to it as we went about doing our various spring chores.

One warm, late afternoon day, we noticed the melt water river had stopped running and the water wheel no longer turned. On that day we knew that spring arrived.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Oft times the little things in life can provide the most pleasure.

CHECK THIS OUT: Plan to attend the Strum Memorial Library (Manawa) special program 7:00 p.m., March 29. The library selected my book, IN A PICKLE, for their “One Book/One Community” program. I’m told that more than 100 people in the community have read the book so far. I’ll discuss the background for writing the book as well as do a reading at the March 29 event.

COMING EVENTS:

Wednesday, March 23, 1:00 p.m., New Berlin Banquet and Conference Center. Learning in Retirement Group, (Remembering Our Agricultural Heritage).

Saturday, March 26, 9:30 a.m., Richland County Electric Co-op, Richland Center High School.

Tuesday, March 29, 7:00 p.m. Strum Public Library (Manawa). (In a Pickle).

Friday, April 1, 7:00 p.m. Oconto Falls Library. (Stories from the Land)

Saturday, April 2, 9:00-11:00 a.m. Oconto Falls Library. (Writing workshop: Writing Family Stories)

Tuesday, April 5, 6:00 p.m. Salem Public Library (Stories from the Land)

Saturday, April 9, 9:30 a.m. Mead Public Library, Sheboygan. (Old Farm)

Saturday, April 9, 1:30-4:00 p.m. Mead Public Library, Sheboygan Writing Workshop. Call 920-459-3400, ext. 3422 for reservations.

Tuesday, April 12, 7:00 p.m., Fall Creek Library (Horses and Barns)

Thursday, April 14, 6:30 p.m. Marathon County Library, 300 N. First Street, Wausau. (Horses and Barns)

Friday, April 15, 1:00 p.m. Kaukauna Public Library (Fox Cities Book Festival)

Saturday, April 16, Wild Rose High School Centennial Program

Canoecopia 2011

2011-03-12T10:21:00.002-06:00

It’s the weekend for Canoecopia, an annual event held at the Alliant Center in Madison where hundreds of winter weary people gather to think about summer, outdoor camping, canoeing, and traveling to wilderness areas to get away from it all for a few days.

Canoecopia is billed as the world’s largest paddlesports expo. Sponsored by an outdoor supply store in Madison with the rather exotic name of Rutabaga, visitors to the three day show can leave behind the waning days of winter by checking out new canoes and kayaks, paddles of various shapes and prices, life vests, appropriate clothing , new ideas for backpacks and much, much more.

Visitors can also listen to a vast array of speakers (I was one of them) talk about everything from their new books (I shared stores from my book, CAMPFIRES AND LOON CALLS) to camping in the Grand Canyon, Treasures of the Apostle Islands, Essential Equipment for Paddling and How to Build Your Own Canoe.

The show provides three days of escaping winter, propelling visitors to a time when they are sitting on a high point overlooking a lake with waves lapping the rocks below their campsite, and a loon calling in the distance as the sun slips slowly below the horizon to the west.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: I need to hear the call of the loon at least once a year to remind me that everything is not as bad as it may sometimes appear.

CHECK THIS OUT: Plan to attend the launch party for CAMPFIRES AND LOON CALLS at Barnes and Noble West in Madison on Tuesday, March 15 at 7:00 p.m. Ruth is making chocolate chip cookies for the event. (We take chocolate chip cookies along on our wilderness camping trips).

COMING EVENTS:

March 15, 10:30 a.m. Eager Free Library, Evansville, WI.

March 15, 7:00 p.m. Barnes and Noble, Madison West. (Launch for Campfires and Loon Calls).

March 17, 2:00-4:00. Monroe Arts Center, Monroe. Memories into Memoirs—Writers’ Workshop.

March 17, 7:00 p.m. Monroe Arts Center. (Our Rural Heritage).

March 20, 7:00 p.m. Lebanon Historical Society, Fire Station, New Lebanon. (Horse Drawn Days).

March 23, 1:00 p.m., New Berlin Banquet and Conference Center. Learning in Retirement.

March 26, 9:30 a.m., Richland County Electric Co-op, Richland Center High School
.
March 29, 7:00 p.m. Manawa Public Library. (In a Pickle).

April 1, 7:00 p.m. Oconto Falls Library. (Stories from the Land)

April 2, 9:00-11:00 Oconto Falls Library. (Writing workshop: Writing Family Stories)

April 5, 6:00 p.m. Salem Public Library (Stories from the Land)

Signs of Spring

2011-03-05T09:49:00.001-06:00

It is many years ago; my two brothers and I are in the upstairs bedroom of our old farm house. It has been a long, cold winter, with many below zero days and snow so deep the old timers said they couldn’t remember ever seeing such a tough winter. But something is different this morning—the most obvious, the bedroom isn’t so cold. The thick frost that has covered the inside of the windows since last November is melting, puddling on the window sills. Rain is splashing against the windows, one of the first sounds of spring. I look out the window, toward our snow-covered fields to east and I see wisps of fog.

I pull on my clothes, rush downstairs, grab my barn lantern and trot to the barn. For the first time in weeks, the snow is mushy underfoot. And the subtle smell of spring is in the air. Once in the barn for the morning milking, I notice the animals are aware of the weather change as well. They are restless and wanting to go outside, understandable after being cooped up in the barn for these long winter months.

After breakfast, we let the cows outside, to romp in the barnyard, to run with their tails in the air, to experience spring. To feel the rain on their backs and the soft snow underfoot. But winter doesn’t give up easily. That evening, the rain changes to snow as winter refuses to leave quietly. But we now know that spring is waiting in the wings, waiting for a chance to sneak in and take over, and push winter farther north for a few months.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: We need winter to truly enjoy spring.

CHECK THIS OUT: Tune in the Larry Meiller Show on Wisconsin Public Radio, Wednesday, March 9. 11:45-12:20. I’ll be discussing my new book, CAMPFIRES AND LOON CALLS.

COMING EVENTS:
March 11, 5:30 p.m. and Saturday, March 12, 3:30 p.m. Canoecopia Trade Show, Alliant Center, Madison:. (Campfires and Loon Calls).

March 15, 10:30 a.m. Eager Free Library, Evansville, WI.

March 15, 7:00 p.m. Barnes and Noble, Madison West. (Launch for Campfires and Loon Calls).

March 17, 2:00-4:00. Monroe Arts Center, Monroe. Memories into Memoirs—Writers’ Workshop.

March 17, 7:00 p.m. Monroe Arts Center. (Our Rural Heritage).

March 20, 7:00 p.m. Lebanon Historical Society, Fire Station, New Lebanon. (Horse Drawn Days).

March 26, 9:30 a.m., Richland County Electric Co-op, Richland Center High School.

March 29, 7:00 p.m. Manawa Public Library. (In a Pickle).

Late Winter Quiet

2011-02-26T08:58:00.002-06:00

I’m at my farm these waning days of winter. The snow is piled high around the buildings, as high as I can remember. It took me more than two hours with my tractor to plow out my driveway after the most recent snowstorm.

I watched a deer last night; a little doe with a thick coat of fur. She was feeding on the brush growing under the windbreak not twenty yards from the cabin. Although she was up to her belly in deep snow, she appeared healthy. Even with deep snow, she appeared to move easily, albeit very slowly.

This morning, as the late February sun begins to crawl above the horizon to the east, I pull on my parka and head for the woodshed, a several times a day task in winter, as my wood stove has a never ending appetite. The thermometer reads 15 degrees. What I notice these chilly late winter mornings is the quiet—oh so quiet. The only sound is that of my boots creaking on the snow. I stop and listen to the silence—a real treat as most of my life is filled with sound.

As the first rays of sun appear, I hear it, off to the east, a cardinal shattering the silence, welcoming the new day, and welcoming the seasonal change as well.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Change and progress are not the same thing.

CHECK THIS OUT:
My newest book, CAMPFIRES AND LOON CALLS: TRAVELS IN THE BOUNDARY WATERS is in the bookstores. My son, Steve and I have canoed in the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota for 25 years. This is our story. Go to: http://fulcrumpublishing.wordpress.com for more information, including an interview.

COMING EVENTS:
March 2, 7:00 p.m. River Falls Library. Smithsonian’s “Key Ingredients: America By Food.” (Farming History).

March 5, 3:00 p.m. City Hall, Platteville (Old Farm).

March 5, 7:00 p.m. Mining Museum-405 E. Main, Platteville: (Horse Drawn Days).

March 6, 2:00 p.m. Pioneer Dinner, Milton House Museum, Seventh Day Baptist Church, Milton (Remembering our Rural Heritage).

March 9, 11:45-12:30 Larry Meiller Show, Wisconsin Public Radio (Campfires and Loon Calls).

March 11, 5:30 p.m. and Saturday, March 12, 3:30 p.m. Canoecopia, Alliant Center, Madison:. (Campfires and Loon Calls).

March 15, 10:30 a.m. Eager Free Library, Evansville, WI.

March 15, 7:00 p.m. Barnes and Noble, Madison West. (Launch for Campfires and Loon Calls).

March 17, 2:00-4:00. Monroe Arts Center, Monroe. Memories into Memoirs—Writers’ Workshop.

March 17, 7:00 p.m. Monroe Arts Center. (Our Rural Heritage).

March 20, 7:00 p.m. Lebanon Historical Society, Fire Station, New Lebanon. (Horse Drawn Days).

March 26, 9:30 a.m., Richland County Electric Co-op, Richland Center High School.

March 29, 7:00 p.m. Manawa Public Library. (In a Pickle).

Ice Skating

2011-02-19T10:59:00.003-06:00

We’ve had a week of above freezing weather, the temperature climbing into the low 50s one day. The snow is in fast retreat. When I was a kid we looked forward to these winter thaws, not only because warmer weather made doing farm chores a little easier, but because the hollows on the farm filled with melt water. When winter returned, and it always did, the ponds in the hollows froze and we had ice skating ponds.

When I was eleven years old or so, I was introduced to ice skating after one of these winter thaws created a couple acre pond in the big hayfield across the road from our farmstead. When the pond froze, Pa asked my brothers and me one Saturday morning whether we’d be interesting in learning how to ice skate. We had no ice skates at the time, so were a bit perplexed by Pa’s question.

That Saturday afternoon, while Ma was trading for groceries (she traded eggs for groceries at the Mercantile in Wild Rose), Pa, my brothers and I walked down the street to Hotz’s Hardware. Pa inquired about ice skates, the kind that you clamp on the bottom of your shoes with a little key. He bought three pair, fifty cents a pair.

Later that afternoon, when we were back home, my brothers and I trekked down to the pond, clamped on our shiny new skates and quickly discovered that there was nothing easy about ice skating. We were on our backsides more often than we were upright. At suppertime, Pa inquired about our skating success and we told him we’d probably go back to sledding. The next day Pa came with us to the pond, we wondered why. Once there, he said he’d like to try skating. As an old man, he was in his forties, we thought he’d probably fall and break something. And we’d have more chores to do.

We shouldn’t have worried. Pa made a couple swings around the pond, his hands behind his back, a smile spreading across his face. He slid to a stop,commenced skating backwards, and then cross stepped going backwards. Not once did he fall. Not once. My brothers and I just stood there with our mouths hanging open. “Not much to ice skating,” he said. “Does take a little practice, though.”

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: The only way to lose is to quit.

CHECK THIS OUT:

My newest book, CAMPFIRES AND LOON CALLS: TRAVELS IN THE BOUNDARY WATERS is in the bookstores. My son, Steve and I have canoed in the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota for 25 years. This is our story. Go to: http://fulcrumpublishing.wordpress.com for more information, including an interview.

COMING EVENTS:

March 2, 7:00 p.m. River Falls Library. Smithsonian’s “Key Ingredients: America By Food.” Farming History.

March 5, 3:00 p.m. City Hall, Platteville (Old Farm).

March 5, 7:00 p.m. Mining Museum-405 E. Main, Platteville: (Horse Drawn Days.)

March 6, 2:00 p.m. Pioneer Dinner, Milton House Museum, Milton: Remembering our Rural Heritage.

March 9, 11:45-12:30 Larry Meiller Show, Wisconsin Public Radio: Campfires and Loon Calls.

March 11, 5:30 p.m. and Saturday, March 12, 3:30 p.m. Canoecopia, Alliant Center, Madison: Campfires and Loon Calls.

March 15, 10:30 a.m. Eager Free Library, Evansville, WI.

March 15, 7:00 p.m. Barnes and Noble, Madison West. Launch for Campfires and Loon Calls.

March 17, 2:00-4:00. Monroe Arts Center, Monroe. Memories into Memoirs—Writers’ Workshop.

March 17, 7:00 p.m. Monroe Arts Center. Our Rural Heritage.

March 20, 7:00 p.m. Lebanon Historical Society, Fire Station, New Lebanon. Horse Drawn Days.

March 29, 7:00 p.m. Manawa Public Library, In a Pickle.

Cook Stove

2011-02-13T09:43:00.002-06:00

I spent some time at my farm last week, where the snow is piled high and spring seems a long way in the future. I heat my shack with a wood stove, a cook stove that not only provides a place to fry some eggs and heat up a pot of beans, but provides a wonderfully warm heat for the little building.

The temperature dipped to minus twelve one morning, and minus fifteen another. And yet, with these challenging temperatures the cook stove, with sticks of oak and black cherry wood, soon warmed the place to a comfortable level.

I sat near it, in my old rocking chair, and remembered when I was a kid how my dad sat near our old cook stove on cold mornings. And when a neighbor came to visit on a cold winter day, my dad and he would sit by the cook stove and spin stories and reminisce about earlier times when winters were more fierce and the cold more treacherous, at least in their memories. So the wood burning cook stove not only warmed the room, provided a place to cook and bake, but provided a center piece for socializing and being neighborly.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: There is something special about the heat from a wood burning stove.

CHECK THIS OUT:
My newest book, CAMPFIRES AND LOON CALLS: TRAVELS IN THE BOUNDARY WATERS is in the bookstores. My son, Steve and I have canoed in the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota for 25 years. This is our story. Go to: http://fulcrumpublishing.wordpress.com for more information, including an interview.

COMING EVENTS:

March 2, 7:00 p.m. River Falls Library. Smithsonian’s “Key Ingredients: America By Food.” Farming History.

March 5, 3:00 p.m. City Hall, Platteville (Old Farm). 7:00 p.m. Museum-405 E. Main: (Horse Drawn Days.)

March 6, 2:00 p.m. Pioneer Dinner, Milton House Museum, Milton: Remembering our Rural Heritage.

March 9, 11:45-12:30 Larry Meiller Show, Wisconsin Public Radio: Campfires and Loon Calls.

March 11, 5:30 p.m. and Saturday, March 12, 3:30 p.m. Canoecopia, Alliant Center, Madison: Campfires and Loon Calls.

March 15, 10:30 a.m. Eager Free Library, Evansville, WI.

March 15, 7:00 p.m. Barnes and Noble, Madison West. Launch for Campfires and Loon Calls.

March 17, 2:00-4:00. Monroe Arts Center, Monroe. Memories into Memoirs—Writers’ Workshop.

March 17, 7:00 p.m. Monroe Arts Center. Our Rural Heritage.

March 20, 7:00 p.m. Lebanon Historical Society, Fire Station, New Lebanon. Horse Drawn Days.

March 29, 7:00 p.m. Manawa Public Library, In a Pickle.

Back Home

2011-02-06T09:16:00.002-06:00

Back home again after a couple weeks in the sunny south. Back to the land of snow banks and icicles, slippery roads and yes, the beauty of a good old-fashioned winter.

We were in Florida for a couple weeks, visiting places like the John and Mable Ringling Museum in Sarasota, and watching the surf roll in from the Gulf of Mexico (no traces of oil by the way).

We drove the near 1,400 hundreds miles so had a chance to see what winter was like in Illinois, in Kentucky, in Tennessee, in Georgia and of course in Florida. Winter is rather bleak and unappealing in these states. Drab and dull until we got to south Georgia and began to see some green grass.

Good to be home, even though my arms ache from shoveling and my back reminds me I’m not thirty years old anymore. Back home in time to watch the Super Bowl. Little talk of this great event in Florida, except for a chuckle or two that Dallas has snow and ice. “The cheeseheads must have brought their weather with them to Texas,” was the common comment.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: The Eskimos had 52 names for snow. One name seems sufficient when you have to shovel it.

CHECK THIS OUT: My newest book, CAMPFIRES AND LOON CALLS: TRAVELS IN THE BOUNDARY WATERS is in the bookstores. My son, Steve and I have canoed in the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota for 25 years. This is our story.

COMING EVENTS:
February 12, 2:00 p.m., Richland Center City Auditorium. Film: County Schools—One Room—One Nation, followed by panel discussion.

March 2, 7:00 p.m. River Falls Library. Smithsonian’s “Key Ingredients: America By Food.” Farming History.

March 5, 3:00 p.m. City Hall, Platteville: Old Farm. 7:00 p.m. Museum-405 E. Main: Horse Drawn Days.

March 6, 2:00 p.m. Pioneer Dinner, Milton House Museum, Milton: Remembering our Rural Heritage.

March 9, 11:45-12:30 Larry Meiller Show, Wisconsin Public Radio: Campfires and Loon Calls.

March 11, Presentations: Friday, 5:30 p.m. and Saturday, March 12, 3:30 p.m. Canoecopia, Alliant Center, Madison: Campfires and Loon Calls.

March 15, 10:30 a.m. Eager Free Library, Evansville, WI.

March 15, 7:00 p.m. Barnes and Noble, Madison West. Launch for Campfires and Loon Calls.

March 17, 2:00-4:00. Monroe Arts Center, Monroe. Memories into Memoirs—Writers’ Workshop.

March 17, 7:00 p.m. Monroe Arts Center. Our Rural Heritage.

March 20, 7:00 p.m. Lebanon Historical Society, Fire Station, New Lebanon. Horse Drawn Days.

March 29, 7:00 p.m. Manawa Public Library, In a Pickle.

The Indispensable Teakettle

2011-01-16T10:45:00.002-06:00

We took for granted the old and dented teakettle that sat on a back corner of the wood burning cook stove in the kitchen on the home farm. From early morning until long after we crawled up the frigid stairway to our bedroom, a thread of steam poured from its spout. Without indoor plumbing, the teakettle was our source of hot water. I remember but once or twice when a persnickety city relative appeared and insisted on tea that the teakettle was used for that purpose.

True, the cook stove had a warm water reservoir attached to its right side, which provided warm water for hand and face washing. But the only hot water source was the teakettle, dull aluminum in color, holding about four quarts of water.

Hot water was especially important when winter illnesses came our way. Hot water mixed with salt for a sore throat. A glass of hot water mixed with a jigger of “medicinal” whiskey became a whiskey sling that would kill most any cold from the sniffles to much more. The standard cold remedy in our house, in addition to the whiskey sling, was a goodly amount of skunk grease (it is odorless) rubbed on your chest and covered with a piece of red flannel pinned to your long underwear. It worked, I’m still here.

For bruises, sprains and aches of assorted origin, Ma filled the rubber hot water bottle with hot water from the teakettle. She wrapped a towel around it and the hot water bottle became a cozy warm friend on a cold winter night.

I have many fond memories of that old teakettle and its source of hot water that we used for so many purposes, both outside and inside the house.

CHECK THIS OUT: Look for CAMPFIRES AND LOON CALLS, my newest book, available February 1. It is about 25 years of canoeing in the Boundary Waters of Northern Minnesota. Steve’s photos are throughout. Go to: www.fulcrum-books.com for more information.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Winter is a time for warm memories.

COMING EVENTS:

February 12, 2:00 p.m., Richland Center City Auditorium. Film: County Schools—One Room—One Nation, followed by panel discussion.

March 11-13. Canoecopia, Alliant Center, Madison. Campfires and Loon Calls (two presentations)

March 15, 10:30 a.m. Eager Free Library, Evansville, WI.

March 15, 7:00 p.m. Barnes and Noble, Madison West. Launch for Campfires and Loon Calls.

March 17, 2:00-4:00. Monroe Arts Center, Monroe. Memories into Memoirs—Writers Workshop.

March 17, 7:00 p.m. Monroe Arts Center. Our Rural Heritage.

March 20, 7:00 p.m. Lebanon Historical Society, Fire Station, New Lebanon. Horse Drawn Days,

Seed Catalogs

2011-01-09T11:59:00.002-06:00

On a cold, snowy, and dreary early January afternoon, I pick up my mail and my spirits soar. The first seed catalogs have arrived, one from Jungs in Randolph, one from Gurney’s in Indiana,another from Burpee’s in Pennsylvania and several more. A spot of spring on a winter day. Pictures of hope and expectancy.

Seed Catalogs reach near religious status for those of us who garden. On these quiet days of winter we gardeners plan and anticipate—and study like someone facing a major examination. The test, of course, is next summer’s garden. Will it equal gardens of the past? Can next year’s be better?

I first study the tomato varieties: Pink Wonder is a new one, reaching 1 pound each with a “sweet and tangy flavor,” excellent keepers, good disease resistance. I look further. Three more new varieties: Tough Boy: produces “very smooth, round, 8 ounce fruits with no blemishes or imperfections,” Country Taste: “Old fashioned flavor blends with modern vigor.” And Bella Rosa: “A pretty name for a serious performer.” I must try a couple of these, I say, realizing I will most likely plant varieties I have grown for years: Better Boy, Early Girl, and Wisconsin 55.
I do the same for the other vegetables. I plan, check on what’s new in sweet corn, green beans, squash, pumpkins, rutabagas, cabbage, beets, radishes, potatoes and more.

I have a great time, reflecting on last year’s garden and what varieties did well, and planning for the next season. But I know from years of experience, no matter how carefully I plan, how carefully I select vegetable varieties, Mother Nature always surprises me. It’s one of the reasons I garden— I never quite know what to expect.

CHECK THIS OUT: My newest book, available about February 1 is about 25 years of canoeing in the Boundary Waters of Northern Minnesota. Steve’s photos are throughout. Go to: www.fulcrum-books.com for more information. The title: Campfires and Loon calls.

THE OLD TIMER WONDERS: Why do the pictures of the vegetables in the seed catalogs seldom resemble the real thing he grows in his garden?

COMING EVENTS:

February 12, 2:00 p.m., Richland Center City Auditorium. Film: County Schools—One Room—One Nation, followed by panel discussion.

March 11-13. Canoecopia, Alliant Center, Madison. Campfires and Loon Calls (two presentations)

March 15, 10:30 a.m. Eager Free Library, Evansville, WI.

March 15, 7:00 p.m. Barnes and Noble, Madison West. Launch for Campfires and Loon Calls.

March 17, 2:00-4:00. Monroe Arts Center, Monroe. Memories into Memoirs—Writers Workshop.

March 17, 7:00 p.m. Monroe Arts Center. Our Rural Heritage.

March 20, 7:00 p.m. Lebanon Historical Society, Fire Station, New Lebanon. Horse Drawn Days,

Old Timer Tips for the New Year

2011-01-02T14:31:00.002-06:00

The Old Timer asked for a little more space this week, the first days of the New Year. He is not much for New Year’s resolutions, but does has some suggestions for the coming year.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS:

Take time to watch a sunset.

Read some poetry. Start with, “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost, published in 1923. Here is the last verse:
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Travel away from the city on a cold, clear night, to a place where there is little light pollution, and look up. When was the last time you saw so many stars?

Hike into a woods on a below-zero morning and listen to the silence.

Vow once a week to set aside a few minutes to do nothing, to think about nothing, to worry about nothing.

Don’t take for granted those who love you.

Page through the seed catalogs that come this time of year. You don’t have to garden to enjoy them.

Write some stories about when you were a kid; your kids will appreciate it.

Call an old friend; somebody you knew when you were in high school.

It’s a New Year! Put a smile on your face, a spring in your step and forget last year’s mistakes.

CHECK THIS OUT: My newest book, available February 1, is about 25 years of canoeing in the Boundary Waters of Northern Minnesota. Steve’s photos are throughout. Go to: www.fulcrum-books.com for more information. The title: Campfires and Loon calls.

UPCOMING EVENTS
January 6, 2011, 5:30 p.m. Lacrosse Library Friends dinner meeting.

Ski Stories From Yesterday

2010-12-26T09:08:00.003-06:00

We had several steep little hills on our home farm, perfect for sledding and skiing, especially skiing. My dad made my first pair of skis out of barrel staves, the curved slats from wooden barrels that were about three feet long. He nailed a thin strip of leather onto each stave for my rubber boots. I was maybe four or five years old, so I didn’t mind much that my barrel stave skis were clumsy and performed poorly on hills. They served just fine on the level, sort of like snowshoes.

When I was seven or eight, my grandfather Witt made for me my second pair of skis from two five-foot strips of birch wood that he steamed over a teakettle to bend up the front ends. He also nailed a strip of leather across the middle of each of them to accommodate my four-buckle rubber boots. They were wider than barrel staves, and with the turned up ends I could sail down the hills as well as any kid with “store-bought” skis. Unfortunately, the skis that grandpa made did not have grooves cut in the bottom to keep them going straight. If the snow was packed, I would as likely go sideways as straight ahead—an added benefit I pointed out to my friends who had “better” skis.

By the time I was ten, I received a pair of factory-made skis for Christmas. They were seven feet long, still with but one strip of leather to hold my now six-buckle rubber boots, and with two grooves on the bottom of each for superior control and steering. My dad bought them at Hotz’s Hardware in Wild Rose—each ski somewhere along the way had lost its mate. One ski was black, the other brown. Dad painted the brown one black so they, with some minor differences, became a pair. With my new skis, I skied to school, skied a trap line each morning, skied to neighbors, and of course skied at skiing parties the neighborhood kids organized. Somewhere in my shed at the farm I still have one of these old skis. I broke its mate when I hit a stone, or maybe when I got tangled up in a wire fence I tried to cross. The remaining ski, once more alone, has many stories to tell.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: As we grow older we tend to forget things that happened and remember things that didn’t.

UPCOMING EVENTS
January 6, 2011, 5:30 p.m. Lacrosse Library Friends dinner meeting.

Christmas Memories

2010-12-19T08:28:00.002-06:00

Some Christmas memories:

I remember Christmas morning with a stack of presents under the tree that couldn’t be opened until the morning milking was done.

I remember receiving socks and mittens that my grandmother knitted and a new pair of skates, the kind that clamped on the bottom of my shoes and were tightened with a key.

I remember oyster stew for supper on Christmas Eve, every year—a tradition in the family that went back for several generations. We continue to eat oyster stew on Christmas Eve today.

I remember Christmas dinner, with aunts, uncles and cousins, and a table spread with food like I only saw when the threshing crews came.

I remember walking a mile to the neighbor’s with a small present and a freshly baked pie, because we knew the neighbor’s wife had passed away and he and his daughter were alone on Christmas day.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL. Any Christmas stories to share?

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: It often takes only a little more effort to move something from good to great.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

January 6, 2011, 5:30 p.m. Lacrosse Library Friends dinner meeting.

Country School Christrmas Program

2010-12-12T13:32:00.003-06:00

Practicing for the Christmas program at our country school began shortly after Thanksgiving break. It was serious business as the school Christmas program was one of the main social events of the year in our central Wisconsin farm community. Everyone attended, parents, relatives, and neighbors, no matter if they had children attending the school or not. Every student performed on the stage, from the youngest first grader, to the oldest, eighth grader.

I remember my first program; I was five years old in first grade, all decked out in a new flannel shirt and newer bib overalls, and scared out of my wits. The school room, lighted with two gasoline lamps, and overheated with a big wood burning stove, was filled with people—standing room only.

It was my turn to “say my piece” a little ditty about winter, as I recall. I had memorized it and memorized it again. I recited it to our cows, and to the chickens when I helped with chores. No complaints. I recited it to my mother who nodded her approval—I did not share it with my twin brothers. What did they know about good performance, they were only three years old?

I did what Miss Piechowski told me: stand up straight, keep my hands out of pockets, use my outside voice—and stare at the stovepipe in the back of room. That was my secret weapon to avoid forgetting my lines when my fellow students crossed their eyes and stuck out their tongues, trying to unnerve me so I would.

It worked. I remembered. I said my piece. Everyone clapped. And I have been searching for stovepipes to stare at ever since.

CHECK THIS OUT: Want to learn more about fictional Ames County, Wisconsin? Go to my website, www.jerryapps.com, and learn about my four novels, all based in this special county. The first is The Travels of Increase Joseph and the most recent is Cranberry Red.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: (From an old country school reader): All that you do, do with all your might. Things done by half, are never done right.

UPCOMING EVENTS
December 13, 11:00 to 2:00 p.m. Dregne’s Scandinavian Gifts, Westby. Book signing for Barns of Wisconsin, Horse Drawn Days, and Cranberry Red. (December 4 appearance canceled because of snow.)

December 16, 7:00 p.m. Stoughton Library. (Previous week’s program canceled because of weather).

January 6, 2011, 5:30 p.m. Lacrosse Library Friends dinner meeting.

Wish Book

2010-12-05T10:36:00.004-06:00

It was truly a wish book. The days after Thanksgiving my brothers and I waited patiently for its arrival in our rural mailbox. The book was of course the Sears, Roebuck Christmas Catalog, first published in 1933.

There was no other book like for it, especially for farm kids who lived miles from a city and probably had never been in a department store. The wish book contained page after page of toys, everything from Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys to dolls, books, BB guns, and board games of every type.

My brothers and I took turns paging through the catalog, making our choices for Christmas presents. What we hoped Santa would bring. My mother said we could pick out one toy from the catalog, and one other practical thing such as a sweater, a pair of mittens, or maybe a winter cap with fancy ear flaps.

One Christmas I chose a book called FUN FOR BOYS, edited by William Allan Brooks. I must have gotten it in about 1944 and it still has an important place on my bookshelf. I remember how thrilled I was on Christmas morning to tear open the package with my special book and read through its Table of Contents: “The Secrets of Cartooning,” “How to Identify Aircraft,” (German, Japanese and U.S. as we were in the midst of World War II), “Building Model Planes,” “How to Train Your Dog,” “How to Handle a Rope Like a Cowboy,” “Building a Powerful Physique,” and “The Fundamentals of Jiu-Jitsu” (As taught to marines, soldiers and G-Men).

The final chapter included eight pages of recommended books for boys beginning with THE DEERSLAYER by James Fennimore Cooper, including A SON OF THE MIDDLE BORDER by Hamlin Garland (a Wisconsin author), THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER and THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN both by Mark Twain, ADVENTURES OF BUFFALO BILL by William F. Cody, EARLY MOON by Carl Sandburg and many more.

I spent many hours poring over this special book—I still find it interesting today, more than 66 years later.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: The best thing you can do when it’s snowing is to let it snow.

CHECK THIS OUT: Listen to an online interview about my new novel, CRANBERRY RED. Go to: http://www.wuwm.com/programs/lake_effect/le_sgmt.php?segmentid=6674

WUWM: Lake Effect - Cranberry Red

UPCOMING EVENTS:

December 9, 7:00 p.m. Stoughton Library.

December 11, 10 to 2:00 p.m. Fireside Books, West Bend.

December 13, 11:00 to 2:00 p.m. Dregne’s Scandinavian Gifts, Westby. Book signing for Barns of Wisconsin, Horse Drawn Days, and Cranberry Red. (December 4 appearance canceled because of snow)

Snow at the Farm

2010-11-28T20:53:00.002-06:00

First snow at the farm. On the grass and in the shaded places. Not enough to be inconvenient. Not enough to shovel or even sweep. But snow nonetheless. Not especially beautiful as first snows can be—but merely white stuff mixed in with the browns and greens. A not so subtle reminder of winter that waits like a bully to pummel a victim, sending a light jab to garner attention.

Fourteen degrees this morning as a cold, late November sun reluctantly crawls out of the east. Weather person says low forties today. Enough warmth to melt the snow and send winter back north, at least for a bit. But winter will return as it always has. Those of us living in the north would have it no other way. Some of us anyway.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: If you put all of your eggs in one basket, be sure to keep your eye on the basket.

CHECK THIS OUT: Listen to an online interview about my new novel, CRANBERRY RED. Go to: http://www.wuwm.com/programs/lake_effect/le_sgmt.php?segmentid=6674

WUWM: Lake Effect - Cranberry Red

UPCOMING EVENTS:
December 2, 7:00 p.m. McMillan Memorial Library, Wisconsin Rapids, Cranberry Red.

December 4, 10:30-2:30. Dregne’s Scandinavian Gifts, Westby. Book signing for Barns of Wisconsin, Horse Drawn Days, and Cranberry Red.

December 9, 7:00 p.m. Stoughton Library.

December 11, 10 to 2:00 p.m. Fireside Books, West Bend.

The Hunter and the Crow

2010-11-21T21:28:00.001-06:00

Second morning of deer season. Foggy, misty, 32 degrees. I’m sitting on a wooden bench overlooking my prairie. I see a world of browns, tans and greens—the browns and tans from the dead grass and wildflowers. The greens from the pine trees—those that I planted, and those that grew on their own—red pine, white pine, jack, pine and Scotch.

Not a sound, profound quiet. No movement of wild creatures—they know better on a day like this. They stay hunkered down, out of the weather, different from their blaze orange fellow creatures who try not to let a little mist and fog, and cold and damp change their plans.

Then I hear it, to the west, in those few acres I call my oak woodlot, the sound of a lone crow. Just one. Out in the weather. Just me and a brave crow--I’d like to think the bird is brave, but maybe it’s as crazy as I am.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Change is not always progress.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

December 2, 7:00 p.m. McMillan Memorial Library, Wisconsin Rapids, Cranberry Red.

December 4, 10:30-2:30. Dregne’s Scandinavian Gifts, Westby. Book signing for Barns of Wisconsin, Horse Drawn Days, and Cranberry Red.

December 9, 7:00 p.m. Stoughton Library.

December 11, 10 to 2:00 p.m. Fireside Books, West Bend.

Corn Harvesting

2010-11-12T09:04:00.002-06:00

The big corn combines are mostly silent now, the corn crop harvested. How different harvesting corn when I was growing up. Then, we cut the standing corn with a corn binder pulled by a team or horses. Once cut, my dad, brothers and I stood the corn bundles into corn shocks that marched across the cornfield like so many Indian tepees.

After a few weeks, a corn shredder arrived at the farm, a smaller version of a threshing machine. The corn shredder (perhaps better called a corn husker) removed the ears of corn from the stalks and cut up the stalks that were blown into our barn for later use as bedding for our cows. The yellow ears of husked corn tumbled into a wagon. When the wagon was full, we forked the cobs into the corn crib.

Corn shredding involved several of the neighbors, just as did threshing. It took a couple of weeks for the corn shredder to make the rounds of the neighbors, tending to each farmer’s corn crop, and leaving the corn fields with rows of corn stubble. With good fall weather, the naked corn fields were plowed down in preparation for the following year’s oat crop. No successive crops of corn on the same field which is often the case today.

The corn combine has made the process of corn harvesting considerably easier—but I miss seeing the corn shocks, true symbols of fall. (Travel in Amish country and you can still see them).

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Better to remain silent and thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

November 16, 7:00 p.m. Reedsburg Library, Cranberry Red

December 2, 7:00 p.m. McMillan Memorial Library, Wisconsin Rapids, Cranberry Red.

December 4, 10:30-2:30. Dregne’s Scandinavian Gifts, Westby. Book signing for Barns of Wisconsin, Horse Drawn Days, and Cranberry Red.

December 9, 7:00 p.m. Stoughton Library.

December 11, 10 to 2:00 p.m. Fireside Books, West Bend.

National Farm Toy Show

2010-11-07T17:58:00.002-06:00

They came from throughout the country, from Canada and several other countries. They gathered at Dyersville, Iowa, a little town west of Dubuque. Farmers mostly, those who still worked the land, and those who were retired but knew the stories of farming and farm life. Often three generations together, grandparents, mom and dad, and the grandkids. Looking at toy tractors and swapping “I remember when stories.” So many stories, nonstop stories from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon.

I sat behind a table piled high with my books as folks stopped by to chat. Their caps identified them—John Deere, Allis Chalmers, International Harvester, Oliver. Their caps told me which tractor was their choice and the source of their stories. Their sweat shirts carried on their infatuation with a certain kind of tractor: “Real friends don’t allow their friends to drive red tractors.” (A John Deere tractor lover for those who don’t know about the friendly competition between red (International) and green (John Deere) tractors.

One little boy—lots of kids of all sizes and ages attended—wore a shirt with the words “I was born in a barn” plastered across the front.
“Were you really born in a barn?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said smiling. His mother was smiling, too.

Other sweatshirt messages: “Real men use duct tape,” “My tractor’s my first love,” and “Still plays with tractors.”

A cute little boy’s sweat shirt said: “Dirt Rocks.” Another little boy’s shirt: “I move dirt.”

Some 10,000 plus folks attended the event—most of them walked by my table at one time or another. I even signed a book or two.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Always remember, as through life you roll, to keep your eye on the doughnut and not on the hole.

CHECK THIS OUT: Tune in Wisconsin Public Radio on November 9, Larry Meiller show, 11:45-12:30. Discussion of my novel, Cranberry Red.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

November 9, Larry Meiller Show, Wisconsin Public Radio, 11:45-12:30, Cranberry Red.

November 13, 9:30 a.m. Sheboygan Falls Library, Horse Drawn Days.

November 16, 7:00 p.m. Reedsburg Library, Cranberry Red

December 2, 7:00 p.m. McMillan Memorial Library, Wisconsin Rapids, Cranberry Red.

December 4, 10:30-2:30. Dregne’s Scandinavian Gifts, Westby. Book signing for Barns of Wisconsin, Horse Drawn Days, and Cranberry Red.

Windstorm

2010-10-31T21:17:00.001-05:00

The weather bureau said, “High Wind Warning.” Batten the hatches. Tie things down. Find your flashlight. Prepare for the worst.

It came out of the west. A stiff breeze at first, then stronger gusts and by mid-afternoon on the first day of the storm a freight train sound roaring through the tree tops, screaming around building corners. Worrying roof shingles. Seventy mile an hour gust recorded on the UW campus in Madison.

Tree limbs sheared off, trees uprooted, diseased trees smashed to the ground. Power outages here, there and everywhere throughout the Upper Great Lakes, through Minnesota, Illinois and Wisconsin. Something to talk about. Stories to tell. Memories of previous storms to recount.

Two days of wind. So powerful. Mother Nature’s way. A periodic reminder of who is really in charge.

THE OLD TIMER REMEMBERS THIS OLD GERMAN SAYING: Let’s all stick together; everybody for himself.

CHECK THIS OUT: Tune in Wisconsin Public Radio on November 9, Larry Meiller show, 11:45-12:30. Discussion of my novel, Cranberry Red.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

November 3, 3:15 p.m. Wisconsin Library Association, Wisconsin Dells, Horse Drawn Days, Barns of Wisconsin.

November 5-7, National Farm Toy Show, Dyersville, Iowa. Horse Drawn Days, Barns of Wisconsin and more.

November 9, Larry Meiller Show, Wisconsin Public Radio, 11:45-12:30, Cranberry Red.

November 13, 9:30 a.m. Sheboygan Falls Library, Horse Drawn Days.

November 16, 7:00 p.m. Reedsburg Library, Cranberry Red

December 2, 7:00 p.m. McMillan Memorial Library, Wisconsin Rapids, Cranberry Red.

December 4, 10:30-2:30. Dregne’s Scandinavian Gifts, Westby. Book signing for Barns of Wisconsin, Horse Drawn Days, and Cranberry Red.

More Potato Harvest

2010-10-23T16:00:00.002-05:00

“So what did you do with all those potatoes?” someone asked me after reading my last week’s tale about potato digging, potato picking and country school potato vacation.

At noon, and again at the end of a harvest day, we loaded the filled potato crates on our steel-wheeled wagon pulled by trusty Frank and Charlie, our Percheron draft horses. We stored the potatoes in two places, in bins in the cellar of our farm house and in our potato cellar, a little building built into the side of the hill just west of our chicken house.

Farm houses in those days did not have basements, but had dirt floor cellars. Because we had no furnace and heated the house with wood stoves, the cellar was always cool.

The separate potato cellar structure, built mostly underground, was where most of the potatoes were stored. The upper part was for machinery storage, the cellar was divided into several potato bins.

We stored the potatoes until the prices would climb a bit, usually in late winter, and then we would sort them with a hand-cranked potato sorter, bag them and tote them to Wild Rose where the potato buyers operated big warehouses.

Of course we ate potatoes, three times a day, fried potatoes for breakfast, boiled potatoes for dinner, and often baked potatoes for supper.

Potatoes along with cucumbers and green beans were our cash crops, providing a little extra money to supplement the bi-monthly milk checks from our small dairy herd.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Nothing grows without roots.

CHECK THIS OUT: Tune in Wisconsin Public Radio on November 9, Larry Meiller show, 11:45-12:30. Discussion of my new novel, Cranberry Red.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

October 28, 7:00 p.m. Oconto Falls Library.

October 30, 9-4:00, Writing Workshop, The Clearing, Door County.

November 3, 3:15 p.m. Wisconsin Library Association, Wisconsin Dells, Horse Drawn Days, Barns of Wisconsin.

November 5-7, National Farm Toy Show, Dyersville, Iowa. Horse Drawn Days, Barns of Wisconsin and more.

November 9, Larry Meiller Show, Wisconsin Public Radio, 11:45-12:30, Cranberry Red.

November 13, 9:30 a.m. Sheboygan Falls Library, Horse Drawn Days.

November 16, 7:00 p.m. Reedsburg Library, Cranberry Red

December 2, 7:00 p.m. McMillan Memorial Library, Wisconsin Rapids, Cranberry Red.

December 4, 10:30-2:30. Dregne’s Scandinavian Gifts, Westby. Book signing for Barns of Wisconsin, Horse Drawn Days, and Cranberry Red.

Potato Harvest

2010-10-17T09:19:00.002-05:00

When I was growing up, mid-October was potato harvesting time. During those years we planted twenty acres of potatoes,sometimes more. We planted them by hand, cultivated them with a one-horse walking cultivator, and spent untold hours hoeing out the weeds the cultivator missed.

Come October and potato harvest time, our country school, along with all the country schools in central Wisconsin closed two weeks for potato vacation. Some vacation. Every chilly vacation day morning we loaded wooden potato crates on our steel-wheeled wagon pulled by Frank and Charlie our trusty draft horses.

We distributed the potato crates every few yards across the field, and Pa and a hired man began digging. Each used a six-tine barn fork and backed their way across the field, each digging two rows while my two brothers and I scrambled to pick the big white potatoes into pails that when full we dumped into the potato boxes.

It was back breaking work, but the smells of new potatoes and freshly turned soil were pleasant ones. And besides that, we earned a handsome one cent a bushel for the potatoes we picked, more than most of the kids in the neighborhood who received no pay whatever for their efforts. I purchased my first .22 rifle with potato picking money.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Everybody has a story to tell.

CHECK THIS OUT: CRANBERRY RED book launch:

Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose, Sunday October 24, 1:00 p.m.
Learn all about cranberry growing, county agent work, and what happens when research goes amuck. UW Press is the publisher of this, my fourth novel, in the Ames County series.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

October 19, 6:30 p.m. Rhinelander Public Library, Horse Drawn Days

October 23, 6:00 p.m. Oregon Public Library. Living a Country Year.

October 24, 1:00 p.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose. Cranberry Red

October 28, 7:00 p.m. Oconto Falls Library.

October 30, 9-4:00, Writing Workshop, The Clearing.

November 3, 3:15 p.m. Wisconsin Library Association, Wisconsin Dells, Horse Drawn Days, Barns of Wisconsin.

November 5-7, National Farm Toy Show, Dyersville, Iowa. Horse Drawn Days, Barns of Wisconsin and more.

November 13, 9:30 a.m. Sheboygan Falls Library, Horse Drawn Days.

Old World Wisconsin

2010-10-10T20:11:00.002-05:00

It’s harvest time on the farm. Time to bring in the crops. It is so today as it has been since pioneer days.

I spoke at Old World Wisconsin this past weekend, during the midst of their “Autumn on the Farms” celebration. Old World Wisconsin, a Wisconsin Historical Society site, is located near Eagle, not far from Milwaukee. It is a Wisconsin treasure; a place where visitors can see what farm life was like in the 1800s, when Wisconsin agriculture was in its infancy. It’s also a place to learn about Wisconsin’s ethnic roots. Visitors can see German, Norwegian, Polish, Yankee, African-American, Finnish and Danish farmsteads, plus visit a blacksmith shop, an old fashioned country store, church, a one-room country school, an early town hall and much more.

At Old World Wisconsin this past weekend, visitors could see everything from oxen at work, to draft horses plowing. They could witness sausage making, weaving demonstrations, rope making, timber framing, candle dipping, horseradish grating, and more.

Oh, they could also hear me talk about my new books, HORSE DRAWN DAYS and BARNS OF WISCONSIN.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Some advice he recently heard. “Write down all of your experiences, even when you don’t have any.”

CHECK THIS OUT: CRANBERRY RED book launch:
Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose, Sunday October 24, 1:00 p.m.
Learn all about cranberry growing, county agent work, and what happens when research goes amuck. UW Press is the publisher of this, my fourth novel, in the Ames County series.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

October 15, Local History Conference. Lake Geneva, WI

October 16, 12:00 noon, Muskego Library, Muskego. Horse Drawn Days

October 19, 6:30 p.m. Rhinelander Public Library, Horse Drawn Days

October 23, 6:00 p.m. Oregon Public Library. Living a Country Year.

October 24, 1:00 p.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose. Cranberry Red

October 28, 7:00 p.m. Oconto Falls Library.

November 3, 3:15 p.m. Wisconsin Library Association, Wisconsin Dells, Horse Drawn Days, Barns of Wisconsin.

November 5-7, National Farm Toy Show, Dyersville, Iowa. Horse Drawn Days, Barns of Wisconsin and more.

November 13, 9:30 a.m. Sheboygan Falls Library, Horse Drawn Days.

Midwest Booksellers

2010-10-03T17:04:00.000-05:00

We were in St. Paul this past weekend, attending the Midwest Booksellers Association trade show. An annual event for librarians, booksellers, publishers and authors to mingle and share ideas and stories. Folks from as far away as North Dakota and Missouri and all points in between.

Everyone was mostly optimistic about the book business, but some pessimism, too. Like farmers, book people look ahead, tomorrow will be a better day, next year will be a better year.

Saw many old friends, made many new ones. A special treat—viewing fall colors along the way. How beautiful the trees in the North these early October days—the red and yellow maples, the sparkling yellow aspens, the bright red sumac. An artist’s array of colors against a clear blue sky, with all the haze and humidity blown south.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Books have long been wonderful Christmas presents. They still are.

CHECK THIS OUT: CRANBERRY RED book launch:

--Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose, Sunday October 24, 1:00 p.m.
Learn all about cranberry growing, county agent work, and what happens when research goes amuck. UW Press is the publisher of this, my fourth novel, in the Ames County series.

UPCOMING EVENTS:
October 7, 7:00 p.m. Next Chapter Bookstore, Mequon. Horse Drawn Days

October 9-10 Old World Wisconsin, 2:30 each day. On Saturday, Horse Drawn Days and on Sunday, Barns of Wisconsin.

October 15, Local History Conference. Lake Geneva, WI

October 16, 12:00 noon, Muskego Library, Muskego. Horse Drawn Days

October 19, 6:30 p.m. Rhinelander Public Library

October 23, 6:00 p.m. Oregon Public Library. Living a Country Year.

October 24, 1:00 p.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose. Cranberry Red

October 28, 7:00 p.m. Oconto Falls Library.

November 3, 3:15 p.m. Wisconsin Library Association, Wisconsin Dells

November 5-7, National Farm Toy Show, Dyersville, Iowa.

November 13, 9:30 a.m. Sheboygan Falls Library, Horse Drawn Days.

Robert Gard

2010-09-25T10:17:00.002-05:00

Last Friday I had the opportunity to participate in the dedication of the Robert E. Gard Memorial Storyteller’s Circle at Muir Knoll on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, a quiet place on a high hill that looks out over Lake Mendota.

Bob was a storyteller, a historian, a folklorist, an author of more than 30 books, and many other things. He worked for the University of Wisconsin’s extension program when I first met him. I always enjoyed his folksy way of writing and his concern for the land. He helped me publish my first book, THE LAND STILL LIVES, and assisted me with several other writing projects. He had a gentle way of encouraging people to do their best, demanding but in a quiet, friendly way.

Bob was a Kansas farm boy, a lover of the prairie. In a newspaper piece published in 1986, he wrote, “[T]he roots of man and the roots of grass were much the same. Both must have the land to nourish them . . .”

Bob Gard died in 1992; I miss him.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Quoting from THE TRAVELS OF INCREASE JOSEPH: “It’s the land. I’m talking about the land and how we must take care of it or we shall all perish.”

CHECK THIS OUT: CRANBERRY RED book launch:

--Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose, Sunday October 24, 1:00 p.m.

Learn all about cranberry growing, county agent work, and what happens when research goes amuck. UW Press is the publisher of this, my fourth novel, in the Ames County series.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

September 29, 5:30 p.m. Wisconsin Book Festival. Quivey’s Grove (between Madison and Verona). Barns of Wisconsin and Cranberry Red.

October 1-2, Midwest Booksellers, St. Paul. Barns of Wisconsin, Cranberry Red

October 7, 7:00 p.m. Next Chapter Bookstore, Mequon. Horse Drawn Days

October 9-10 Old World Wisconsin, 2:30 each day. On Saturday , Horse Drawn Days and on Sunday, Barns of Wisconsin.

October 12, 5:30-8:00 Apple Blossom Books, Oshkosh.

October 15, Local History Conference. Lake Geneva, WI

October 16, 12:00 noon, Muskego Library, Muskego. Horse Drawn Days

October 19, 6:30 p.m. Rhinelander Public Library

October 23, 6:00 p.m. Oregon Public Library. Living a Country Year.

October 24, 1:00 p.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose. Cranberry Red

October 28, 7:00 p.m. Oconto Falls Library.

November 3, 3:15 p.m. Wisconsin Library Association, Wisconsin Dells

November 5-7, National Farm Toy Show, Dyersville, Iowa.

November 13, 9:30 a.m. Sheboygan Falls Library, Horse Drawn Days.

Final Three Sisters' Report

2010-09-19T19:52:00.002-05:00

I’ve reported several times on the progress of the three sisters’ garden project that I tried this summer. I mentioned how the sisters—corn, squash and pole beans—rather than helping each other as they were supposed to, got into a serious competition over which one was best, especially early in the growing season. The corn was supposed to support the pole beans and the squash was supposed to stifle weed growth with its broad leaves and sprawling vines.

The pole beans got off to the best start, the corn struggled, and the squash, once it got going, did well. By mid-summer the sisters seemed to be getting along or perhaps better said, putting up with each other. This summer’s growing season was far from normal. It rained and rained and rained, and it was hot, hot, hot.

By late August a mildew attacked the squash, and alas, killed it dead. One day it looked great with promise, a week later a brown, dead vine remained. The corn, never very energetic struggled on, but continued to be out done by the bush beans.

Final report. A good crop of beans, one tiny ear of corn, and no squash. I wonder if the Native Americans, who reported to have great success with this garden strategy, had the occasional crop failure—or was it just me? I would like to blame it on the weather. My other garden squash did poorly as well and my sweet corn was well below average. But I did have a good bean crop. Was this the year of the bean? A gardener knows there is always next year.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: It’s not over until it’s over, except when it is.

CHECK THIS OUT: CRANBERRY RED book launches:

--Barns and Noble Madison West, September 21, 7:00 p.m.

--Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose, Sunday October 24, 1:00 p.m.

Learn all about cranberry growing, county agent work, and what happens when research goes amuck. University of Wisconsin Press is the publisher of this, my fourth novel, in the Ames County series.

WRITING WORKSHOPS:

Saturday, October 30. There is still room in my day-long workshop. Contact: The Clearing Folk School www.theclearing.org P.O. Box 65 | 12171 Garrett Bay Road | Ellison Bay, Wisconsin 54210 Toll Free: 877.854.3225 | clearing@theclearing.org Monday - Friday 8-4

UPCOMING EVENTS:

September 21, 7:00 p.m., Barnes and Noble West, Madison, Launch of Cranberry Red.

September 24, 3:30 p.m. Robert Gard Story Tellers Circle dedication, School of Education, UW-Madison Campus.

September 25, 5:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m. Barn Dance and Harvest Celebration, Saxon Homestead Farm, 15621 South Union Road, Cleveland, WI. Sponsor: Council of Rural Initiatives. Before the dance, presentation BARNS OF WISCONSIN.

September 29, 7:00 p.m. Wisconsin Book Festival. Quivey’s Grove (between Madison and Verona). Barns of Wisconsin and Cranberry Red.

October 1-2, Midwest Booksellers, St. Paul. Barns of Wisconsin, Cranberry Red

October 7, 7:00 p.m. Next Chapter Bookstore, Mequon. Horse Drawn Days

Fall on The Way

2010-09-11T17:18:00.001-05:00

My son, Steve and I headed for the Boundary Waters of Northern Minnesota last week. In search of fish and some solitude. The solitude we found. The fish story later.

While we weren’t looking for it, we found fall—lurking just over the border in Canada. We were but a couple miles from our neighbor to the north and it sent a biting northwest wind south that dropped nighttime temps into the low 30s with little warming during the day. The birch trees turned more yellow each day we were there. The loons seemed a bit anxious, no doubt making preparations for their long migration south. Fall was clearly in the air.

And the fish? Well, we always bet about which of us is more successful fishing. Whoever is buys breakfast for the other guy in Grand Marais on the day we come out.

This year Steve won. He caught the first fish, the largest fish, and the most fish. He also caught the only fish, which was a small mouth bass about 15 inches long.

I enjoyed the solitude—and the beginnings of fall. Please don’t ask about the big ones I brought up to the canoe but didn’t land.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Fishing is always good; sometimes the catching less so.

CHECK THIS OUT: CRANBERRY RED book launches:

--Barns and Noble Madison West, September 21, 7:00 p.m.

--Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose, Sunday October 24, 1:00 p.m.

Learn all about cranberry growing, county agent work, and what happens when research goes amuck. UW Press is the publisher of this, my fourth novel, in the Ames County series.

WRITING WORKSHOPS:

Saturday, October 30. There is still room in my day-long workshop. Contact: The Clearing Folk School www.theclearing.org P.O. Box 65 | 12171 Garrett Bay Road | Ellison Bay, Wisconsin 54210 Toll Free: 877.854.3225 | clearing@theclearing.org Monday - Friday 8-4

UPCOMING EVENTS:

September 13, 10:00 a.m., Attic Angels Retirement Center, Madison. Horse Drawn Days.

September 14, noon, Waupaca Library, Waupaca, WI. Ames County Novels.

September 18-19, Creekside Books, Cedarburg, WI. Barns and Horse Drawn Days.

September 21, 7:00 p.m., Barnes and Noble West, Madison, Launch of Cranberry Red.

September 24, 3:30 p.m. Robert Gard Story Tellers Circle dedication, Muir Knoll, UW-Madison Campus.

September 25, 5:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m. Barn Dance and Harvest Celebration, Saxon Homestead Farm, 15621 South Union Road, Cleveland, WI. Sponsor: Council of Rural Initiatives. Before the dance, presentation BARNS OF WISCONSIN.

September 29, 7:00 p.m. Wisconsin Book Festival. Quivey’s Grove (between Madison and Verona). Barns of Wisconsin and Cranberry Red.

October 1-2, Midwest Booksellers, St. Paul. Barns of Wisconsin, Cranberry Red

October 7, 7:00 p.m. Next Chapter Bookstore, Mequon. Horse Drawn Days

Wild Grapes

2010-09-05T10:51:00.001-05:00

Sometimes you hear about animals doing crazy things. I want to tell you about a plant that’s been on a rampage. It’s a wild grape vine. With all the rain in central Wisconsin, the wild grapes have been growing, growing, growing. In some cases to the tops of trees near the trail by the pond.

For many years, grape vines have grown on the east and south sides of my old pump house. Built in 1912 and still standing tall, the pump house serves mostly as a woodshed these days. Not satisfied with growing on the outside of the pump house, a grape vine has decided to look around inside the building. So it snuck in, through an open space where the roof connects to the walls.

Not knowing at all how wild grapes look at the world—some days I can’t figure out how I see the world—the grape vine must have decided that not all is so hunky-dory in a dark, old, musty, bat-filled pump house, now woodshed. So it searched for a way out, which it found in a crack above the door. When you approach the pump house, you see a grape vine hanging over the door, green, happy and growing. Where to next, I wonder for this traveling plant?

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Nothing succeeds like excess.

CHECK THIS OUT: CRANBERRY RED book launches:

--Barns and Noble Madison West, September 21, 7:00 p.m.

--Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose, Sunday October 24, 1:00 p.m.

Learn all about cranberry growing, county agent work, and what happens when research goes amuck. UW Press is the publisher of this, my fourth novel, in the Ames County series.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

August 6-10, Research trip, Boundary Waters Canoe Area, Northern Minnesota.

September 13, 10:00 a.m., Attic Angels Retirement Center, Madison. Horse Drawn Days.

September 14, noon, Waupaca Library, Waupaca, WI. Ames County Novels.

September 18-19, Creekside Books, Cedarburg, WI. Barns and Horse Drawn Days.

September 21, 7:00 p.m., Barnes and Noble West, Madison, Launch of Cranberry Red.

September 24, 3:30 p.m. Robert Gard Story Tellers Circle dedication, Muir Knoll, UW-Madison Campus.

September 25, 5:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m. Barn Dance and Harvest Celebration, Saxon Homestead Farm, 15621 South Union Road, Cleveland, WI. Sponsor Council of Rural Initiatives. Before dance, presentation BARNS OF WISCONSIN.

Threshing Days

2010-08-29T11:29:00.001-05:00

Can you believe it? E-mails and even phone calls from those wanting to share with me the “proper” way to shock grain, the subject of last week's blog. Lots of memories associated with grain harvesting in yesteryear.

Someone asked me what happened after the grain was shocked. Threshing (separating the grain from the straw) came next, a highlight of the year for a farm kid. A threshing machine worked its way though the neighborhood, spending a day or more at each farm. All the neighbors helped with the threshing task, and for a kid, what fun it was. As an eight or nine year old, you shoveled the oats to the back of the oat bin. One task for three or four sturdy neighbors was to carry bag after bag of the freshly threshed oats from the threshing machine to the granary’s oat bins, so the shoveling job was never ending.

By the time you were twelve, you’d earned the dubious honor of sitting on the shaking and shuddering and very dusty threshing machine, working the handles and ropes to steer the straw blower so that a decent straw stack resulted. An important job, for a properly made straw stack would shed water.

By age 13, you graduated to spike pitching, meaning you helped load the oat bundles from the shocks onto horse-drawn wagons that toted the unthreshed grain to the threshing machine.

And if you did all of these previous jobs to satisfaction, by age 14 you moved up to the most glorious of all jobs, driving a team of horses on a bundle wagon and pitching off the load of bundles into the ever hungry maw of the machine. Anyone who could pitch off a load of bundles without missing a beat, and without plugging the threshing machine because you didn’t space the bundles properly had moved from childhood to manhood. A right of passage for a farm kid of my generation.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Remember when work was fun?

CHECK THIS OUT: CRANBERRY RED is appearing in the bookstores. Learn all about cranberry growing, county agent work, and what happens when research goes amuck. UW Press is the publisher of this, my fourth novel, in the Ames County series.

WRITING WORKSHOPS:

Saturday, October 30. There is still room in my day-long workshop. Contact: The Clearing Folk School www.theclearing.org P.O. Box 65 | 12171 Garrett Bay Road | Ellison Bay, Wisconsin 54210 Toll Free: 877.854.3225 | clearing@theclearing.org Monday - Friday 8-4

UPCOMING EVENTS:

August 6-10, Research trip, Boundary Waters Canoe Area, Northern Minnesota.

September 13, 10:00 a.m., Attic Angels Retirement Center, Madison. Horse Drawn Days.

September 14, noon, Waupaca Library, Waupaca, WI. Ames County Novels.

September 18-19, Creekside Books, Cedarburg, WI. Barns and Horse Drawn Days.

September 21, 7:00 p.m., Barnes and Noble, Madison, Launch of Cranberry Red.

Shocking Grain

2010-08-22T17:20:00.002-05:00

At Stonefield Village, a Wisconsin Historical site near Cassville, I was talking to a group about the early history of farming last Saturday. Several retired farmers were in the audience and the questions got around to shocking grain and the proper way to do it.

Shocking grain does not mean attempting to scare it or holding an electrified wire to it, as one young person said to me recently. Shocking grain means standing the recently cut grain bundles on end so they will dry and withstand any rain showers that may come by before threshing day, when the grain is hauled to the threshing machine and the kernels and the straw are separated from each other.

It seems in different parts of the Midwest, shocking grain was done differently, enough so that when a group of farmers gathered, they argued about the proper way to do it. Arguments similar to those where a farmer would proclaim the virtues of an International tractor and his neighbor would do the same for John Deere, with neither backing down one engine pop.

In my neighborhood, the shocks contained five pairs of bundles, with no bundle placed across the top. In other parts of the state, shocks included seven pairs of bundles with a bundle or two on top.

What was important, as it turned out, was that no matter how a shock was constructed, it should stand against the wind, and shed water if necessary. Grain shocks should also be things of beauty—to look at when the work was done, and allow one to say “Don’t those grain shocks look nice.”

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Do it right the first time.

CHECK THIS OUT: A revised edition (all new photos, about 25 percent new and updated material) of BARNS OF WISCONSIN is now available in book stores. My son, Steve, did the photo work.

WRITING WORKSHOPS:

Saturday, October 30. There is still room in my day-long workshop. Contact: The Clearing Folk School www.theclearing.org P.O. Box 65 | 12171 Garrett Bay Road | Ellison Bay, Wisconsin 54210 Toll Free: 877.854.3225 | clearing@theclearing.org Monday - Friday 8-4

UPCOMING EVENTS:

August 25, 7:00 p.m. Bailey’s Harbor Town Hall, Door County Environmental Council. Ames County Novels plus Old Farm and Barns of Wisconsin.

September 13, 10:00 a.m., Attic Angels Retirement Center, Madison. Horse Drawn Days.

September 14, noon, Waupaca Library, Waupaca, WI. Ames County Novels.

September 18-19, Creekside Books, Cedarburg, WI. Barns and Horse Drawn Days.

Writing Workshop

2010-08-15T14:28:00.001-05:00

I spent a delightful week teaching a writing workshop at The Clearing in Door County. People attended from Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois and Wisconsin, all interested in turning their memories into memoirs. Seventeen writers gathered each morning to write stories from such prompts as: “I wish someone had told me . . .” and “Ten things that annoy me. . .” They drew house plans for homes where they grew up, triggering memories of smells, sights, and sounds.

They listened to country music that told a story. They wrote about people who made a difference in their lives and turning points that sent in them in new directions. They discussed journaling and how to do research for their stories. They laughed; they hugged and sometimes there were tears as not all memories are pleasant ones. But at week’s end, in the midst of the hottest and most humid seven days that Door County remembered in some time, they wrote their stories—wonderful stories that came from the heart.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: If an idea does not first sound absurd, then there is no hope for it. Source--Albert Einstein.

CHECK THIS OUT: Just received an advance copy of CRANBERRY RED, the fourth novel in my Ames County Series. Should be in bookstores in a week or so. Go to www.uwpress.wisc.edu, and click on Fall 2010 Catalog for details. Amazon.com also has a cover photo and description.

WRITING WORKSHOPS

Saturday, October 30. There is still room in my day-long workshop. Contact: The Clearing Folk School www.theclearing.org P.O. Box 65 | 12171 Garrett Bay Road | Ellison Bay, Wisconsin 54210 Toll Free: 877.854.3225 | clearing@theclearing.org Monday - Friday 8-4

UPCOMING EVENTS

August 21, 1:00 p.m & 3:00 p.m. R.R, Days, Stonefield Village, Cassville. Horse Drawn Days and Barns of Wisconsin.

August 22, 11:00-3:00, Barnes and Noble, Racine, WI. Horse Drawn Days, Barns of Wisconsin and more.

August 25, 7:00 p.m. Bailey’s Harbor Town Hall, Door County Environmental Council. Ames County Novels plus Old Farm and Barns of Wisconsin.

September 13, 10:00 a.m., Attic Angels Retirement Center, Madison. Horse Drawn Days.

September 14, noon, Waupaca Library, Waupaca, WI. Ames County Novels.

September 18-19, Creekside Books, Cedarburg, WI. Barns and Horse Drawn Days.

August Three Sisters Report

2010-08-05T10:07:00.001-05:00

Reconciliation? Accommodation? Sister love? No matter. The three sisters in my garden are finally learning to live together and to depend on each other. For those who may have forgotten about the tiff going among my corn, pole beans and squash—the three sisters of Native American garden lore—all seems to have been forgiven.

The corn is now shoulder high, tasseled out and allowing (maybe even encouraging) the pole beans to shinny up its stalk. The squash although suffering from too much rain—can you even imagine too much rain on our sandy garden soil—is doing a reasonable job of shading out the weeds. But alas, there is still no sign of any edible squash developing.
The pole beans are first with produce, long skinny pods hanging everywhere. Corn ears are forming as well. My three sisters experiment may amount to something yet.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Try to do more for others than they do for you.

CHECK THIS OUT: IN A PICKLE (second novel in Ames County Series) now available in audio format. Got to www.uwpress.wisc.edu, and click on Fall 2010 Catalog for details.

WRITING WORKSHOPS

Saturday, October 30. There is still room in my day-long workshop. Contact: The Clearing Folk School www.theclearing.org P.O. Box 65 | 12171 Garrett Bay Road | Ellison Bay, Wisconsin 54210 Toll Free: 877.854.3225 | clearing@theclearing.org Monday - Friday 8-4

UPCOMING EVENTS

August 8-14, The Clearing, Ellison Bay, WI. Writing Class.

August 21, 1:00 p.m & 3:00 p.m. R.R, Days, Stonefield Village, Cassville. Horse Drawn Days.

August 22, 11:00-3:00, Barnes and Noble, Racine, WI. Horse Drawn Days and more.

August 25, 7:00 p.m. Bailey’s Harbor Town Hall, Door County Environmental Council. Ames County Novels plus Old Farm.

September 13, 10:00 a.m., Attic Angels Retirement Center, Madison. Horse Drawn Days.

September 14, noon, Waupaca Library, Waupaca, WI. Ames County Novels.

Bodie

2010-07-31T17:29:00.002-05:00

Bodie is a dog. A seven- month old Wheaton Terrier. He is tan, has a cute face and looks something like a Teddy bear. He lives with my son Jeff, wife Sandy and their kids, Christian, Nick, and Libby in Eagle-Vail, Colorado, in the mountains.

Bodie and his family were in Wisconsin this past week, at a cabin on Lake George near Rhinelander. Bodie went swimming and hiking. Bodie ate a lot, and napped a lot.

Bodie showed off a unique part of his developing personality. Much to everyone’s surprise, he demonstrated that he has literary tendencies. He likes novels. One day we caught him chewing on the cover of the paperback edition of my novel, THE TRAVELS OF INCREASE JOSEPH. What more could an author ask—a dog that likes to read. And novels? Wow.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Never stop reading. Read books, all kinds of books, fact and fiction, usual and unusual, and ordinary books written by local people with a story to tell and a message to share.

CHECK THIS OUT: THE TRAVELS OF INCREASE JOSEPH, (UW Press) the first novel in my Ames county historical fiction series is now in paperback. Buy at your favorite bookstore, or order off my website.

WRITING WORKSHOPS

Saturday, October 30. There is still room in my day-long workshop. Contact: The Clearing Folk School www.theclearing.org P.O. Box 65 | 12171 Garrett Bay Road | Ellison Bay, Wisconsin 54210 Toll Free: 877.854.3225 | clearing@theclearing.org Monday - Friday 8-4

UPCOMING EVENTS

August 4. 10:30 a.m. Flying Farmers Meeting, Holiday Inn, Fond du Lac. Stories from the Land.

August 8-14, The Clearing, Ellison Bay, WI. Writing Class.

August 21. Railroad Days, Stonefield Village, Cassville.

August 22, 11:00-3:00, Barnes and Noble, Racine, WI. Horse Drawn Days and more.

August 25, 7:00 p.m. Bailey’s Harbor Town Hall, Door County Environmental Council. Ames County Novels plus Old Farm.

September 13, 10:00 a.m., Attic Angels Retirement Center, Madison. Horse Drawn Days.

September 14, noon, Waupaca Library, Waupaca, WI. Ames County Novels.

Black-Eyed Susans

2010-07-23T08:16:00.002-05:00

With all the rain in central Wisconsin in recent weeks, my prairie has the tallest, thickest grass and the most wild flowers I remember since we began restoring it back in the late 1960s.

Black-eyed Susans have taken center stage for the past couple weeks, they are abundant, they are tall, and they are making a statement this year. For those who may not know, the Black-Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) is daisy-type flower, yellow with a brown center. It grows about two to three feet tall. And it likes my sandy, gravely, rather poor prairie soil.

Black-eyed Susans are native to the United States and they take care of themselves—I have not planted one Black-Eyed Susan seed since we began our prairie restoration. They come back year after year, some years more than others.

If you keep track of states and their official flowers, it is Maryland that has claimed the Black-Eyed Susan, since 1918.

More prairie reports later—along with the status of my garden’s three sisters who continue to duke it out.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: All gardeners know better than other gardeners.

CHECK THIS OUT: For those who read the Wisconsin State Journal, look for a review of Horse Drawn Days in the Sunday edition (July 25).

WRITING WORKSHOPS

Saturday, October 30. There is still room in my day-long workshop. Contact: The Clearing Folk School www.theclearing.org P.O. Box 65 | 12171 Garrett Bay Road | Ellison Bay, Wisconsin 54210 Toll Free: 877.854.3225 | clearing@theclearing.org Monday - Friday 8-4

UPCOMING EVENTS

July 29, 7:00 p.m. Brown Street Books, Rhinelander, WI. Horse Drawn Days and more.

August 4. 10:30 a.m. Flying Farmers Meeting, Holiday Inn, Fond du Lac. Stories from the Land.

August 8-14, The Clearing, Ellison Bay, WI. Writing Class.

August 22, 11:00-3:00, Barnes and Noble, Racine, WI. Horse Drawn Days and more.

August 25, 7:00 p.m. Bailey’s Harbor Town Hall, Door County Environmental Council. Ames County Novels plus Old Farm.

September 13, 10:00 a.m., Attic Angels Retirement Center, Madison. Horse Drawn Days.

September 14, noon, Waupaca Library, Waupaca, WI. Ames County Novels.

Three Sisters Still Fighting

2010-07-14T16:54:00.001-05:00

For those waiting breathlessly for more about how the three sisters are getting along: They aren’t. Talk about sisters competing with each other. Sister pole bean is so far the bully of the bunch; she has crawled to the top of the stake I pushed in the center of the little garden mound,and has stuck her sticky tendrils a good 18 inches in the air beyond the end of the pole. Searching for an unknown something to latch onto.

Not to be out competed (if that’s a word), sister squash now has leaves a foot across, already has several yellow blossoms, and is also trying to crawl up the center pole, mixing it up with sister pole bean. I’ve never seen anything like it. What a vegetable competition.

Alas, meek and mild sister corn, now about half as tall as the center stake, seems to have accepted defeat in the sister competition. Where will it end? Why can’t the sisters get along—they are supposed to. That’s what I read somewhere. Not only are they supposed to get along, they are supposed to help each other. Care for each other. Look out for each other. Not in my three-sister garden. Cutthroat competition goes on. And may the best sister win.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: You can count the seeds in an apple, but the number of apples in a seed will remain forever a mystery.

CHECK THIS OUT: A new edition of BARNS OF WISCONSIN (Wisconsin Historical Society Press) is now available. Check my website: www.jerryapps.com for details and ordering information.

WRITING WORKSHOPS

Saturday, October 30. There is still room in my day-long writing workshop. Contact: The Clearing Folk School www.theclearing.org P.O. Box 65 | 12171 Garrett Bay Road | Ellison Bay, Wisconsin 54210 Toll Free: 877.854.3225 | clearing@theclearing.org Monday - Friday 8-4

UPCOMING EVENTS

July 29, 7:00 p.m. Brown Street Books, Rhinelander, WI. Horse Drawn Days and more.

August 4. 10:30 a.m. Flying Farmers Meeting, Holiday Inn, Fond du Lac. Stories from the Land.

August 8-14, The Clearing, Ellison Bay, WI. Writing Class.

August 22, 11:00-3:00, Barnes and Noble, Racine, WI. Horse Drawn Days and more.

August 25, 7:00 p.m. Bailey’s Harbor Town Hall, Door County Environmental Council. Ames County Novels plus Old Farm.

September 13, 10:00 a.m., Attic Angels Retirement Center, Madison. Horse Drawn Days.

September 14, noon, Waupaca Library, Waupaca, WI. Ames County Novels.

Ducks or DUKWs

2010-07-07T19:10:00.002-05:00

The discussion at the Fourth of July family picnic the other evening got around to the ducks at Wisconsin Dells, and plans to take a tour on them. I pointed out that the folks at the Dells spelled the name of the vehicles incorrectly and that the correct spelling was DUKW. For the reaction I got, you’d think I’d spelled Wisconsin backwards.

The reason I knew the correct spelling is when I was in the U.S. Army Reserve (Transportation Corps) back in the late 50s and early 60s, we had these strange (I thought them strange at the time) vehicles in my battalion. They traveled on land as well as in water. I know that many of you have longed to know this important information, but the letters DUKW are not an acronym, as is so much the case with the U. S. army. The D refers to a vehicle designed in 1942; the U means “Utility-amphibious,” the K refers to front-wheel drive, and the W means two powered rear axles.
The army used DUKWs to transport equipment and troops from ships to shore—each could haul 2 ½ tons of equipment, or up to 12 soldiers. They are 31 feet long, a little over eight feet wide and 7 feet tall. Not exactly a fishing boat. The DUKW fleet’s greatest fame came during D-Day, June 6, 1944, when DUKWs helped bring troops and equipment ashore during that famous battle in WW II. So now you know.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: (He remembers what someone told him) Those who have a fifth on the Fourth have trouble going forth on the fifth.

CHECK THIS OUT: A new paperback edition of THE TRAVELS OF INCREASE JOSEPH (University of Wisconsin Press) is now available. Check my website: www.jerryapps.com

WRITING WORKSHOPS

August 8-14. My week-long writing workshop at The Clearing in Door County. “Writing From Your Life.” The class is full, but you can put your name on a waiting list. There is still room in my day-long workshop, Saturday, October 30. The Clearing Folk School www.theclearing.org P.O. Box 65 | 12171 Garrett Bay Road | Ellison Bay, Wisconsin 54210 Toll Free: 877.854.3225 | clearing@theclearing.org Monday - Friday 8-4

UPCOMING EVENTS

July 10, 10:30-2:30. Bramble Books, Viroqua. New location: 213 S. Main Street, Viroqua. Horse Drawn Days.

July 11, 10:30-2:30, The Pickle Station, Saxeville, WI. In a Pickle.

July 13, 7:00 p.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose. Central Wis. Launch of Horse Drawn Days.

July 29, 7:00 p.m. Brown Street Books, Rhinelander, WI. Horse Drawn Days.

August 4. 10:30 a.m. Flying Farmers Meeting, Holiday Inn, Fond du Lac. Stories from the Land.

August 8-14, The Clearing, Ellison Bay, WI. Writing From Your Life Workshop.

August 22, 11:00-3:00, Barnes and Noble, Racine, WI. Horse Drawn Days and more.

August 25, 7:00 p.m. Bailey’s Harbor Town Hall, Door County Environmental Council.
Ames County Novels.

Three Sisters Progress

2010-06-30T20:05:00.002-05:00

A few weeks ago I wrote about planting a “three sisters’ garden.” Three sisters refers to planting squash, corn and beans together in a mound. A Native American way of gardening. Corn in the center. Then climbing beans next to the corn and squash around the outside. The beans are supposed to climb up the corn; the squash are expected to shade out any weeds that may grow.

Here’s a progress report. With lots of rain and plenty of warm weather, everything came up, almost at the same time. The corn really needed to have a head start on the beans, which it did not have. The beans are growing wildly, throwing out their climbing tendrils with nothing to latch onto. The corn, wimpy and slow, seemed overwhelmed by the exuberant beans. The squash is growing as squash does this time of the year, slowly.

We weeded the little mound a couple of times, couldn’t wait for the squash. And we cheated a little, too. I stuck a four-foot long stick right dab in the middle of the mound for the wildly thriving beans. Within a day the beans found the stick and seem much happier with something to cling to. The corn, struggling, seems a little put off by what I had done. If corn thinks, it’s probably wondering why I didn’t have a little more patience and wait for it to grow taller so it could accommodate the beans. So far the three sisters are not getting along too well. But I guess most sisters have spats from time-to-time.

More about the experiment later.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: The shortest distance between two points is often not the point.

CHECK THIS OUT: A new edition of BARNS OF WISCONSIN (Wisconsin Historical Society Press) is now available. Go to my website: www.jerryapps.com for details and ordering information.

WRITING WORKSHOPS

August 8-14. My week-long writing workshop at The Clearing in Door County. “Writing From Your Life.” The class is full, but you can put your name on a waiting list. There is still room in my day-long workshop, Saturday, October 30. The Clearing Folk School www.theclearing.org P.O. Box 65 | 12171 Garrett Bay Road | Ellison Bay, Wisconsin 54210 Toll Free: 877.854.3225 | clearing@theclearing.org Monday - Friday 8-4

UPCOMING EVENTS

July 10, 10:30-2:30. Bramble Books, Viroqua. New location: 213 S. Main Street, Viroqua. Horse Drawn Days and more.

July 11, 10:30-2:30, The Pickle Station, Saxeville, WI. In a Pickle and more.

July 13, 7:00 p.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose. Central Wis. Launch of Horse Drawn Days.

July 29, 7:00 p.m. Brown Street Books, Rhinelander, WI. Horse Drawn Days and more.

August 4. 10:30 a.m. Flying Farmers Meeting, Holiday Inn, Fond du Lac. Stories from the Land.

August 8-14, The Clearing, Ellison Bay, WI. Writing Class.

August 22, 11:00-3:00, Barnes and Noble, Racine, WI. Horse Drawn Days and more.

August 25, 7:00 p.m. Bailey’s Harbor Town Hall, Door County Environmental Council. Ames County Novels plus Old Farm.

Wild Roses

2010-06-27T10:19:00.002-05:00

Almost by accident I found several wild rose bushes growing on a hillside on the back part of my farm. I was driving my Gator along the prairie trail and my eye caught a spot of pink among the grasses that grew there. I had not seen wild roses here before; the last plants I saw grew alongside the trail to the pond, and had been snuffed out by the over competitive buckthorn that grows everywhere these days.

I discovered not only one wild rose bush, small and rather fragile, but perhaps a dozen. And several were in bloom. For those not familiar, the wild rose flower has five petals, light pink in color. They have a wonderful, quiet, but distinctive aroma. No other rose compares, at least not in my judgment.

Wild roses have a special place on my farm, for the township where my farm is located is called Rose, and the nearest village is Wild Rose. Some claim both the township and the village were named after the wild roses found growing here. Others say, no doubt correctly, that these places were named after Rose, New York in Wayne County, where many of the settlers in this area had first lived.

The wild rose is state flower for Iowa and for the Province of Alberta in Canada. Alas, Wisconsin chose the wood violet as its state flower, missing an opportunity to give this native flower a bit more glory.

To see a photo of a wild rose, go to my son, Steve’s blog: http://steveappsblog.com/?p=547

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Tall trees don’t always provide the most shade

CHECK THIS OUT: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Author-Jerry-Apps

WRITING WORKSHOPS

August 8-14. My week-long writing workshop at The Clearing in Door County. “Writing From Your Life.” The class is full, but you can put your name on a waiting list. There is still room in my day-long workshop, Saturday, October 30. The Clearing Folk School www.theclearing.org P.O. Box 65 | 12171 Garrett Bay Road | Ellison Bay, Wisconsin 54210 Toll Free: 877.854.3225 | clearing@theclearing.org Monday - Friday 8-4

UPCOMING EVENTS

July 10, 10:30-2:30. Bramble Books, Viroqua. New location: 213 S. Main Street, Viroqua. Horse Drawn Days.

July 11, 10:30-2:30, The Pickle Station, Saxeville, WI. In a Pickle.

July 13, 7:00 p.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose. Central Wis. Launch of Horse Drawn Days.

July 29, 7:00 p.m. Brown Street Books, Rhinelander, WI. Horse Drawn Days.

August 4. 10:30 a.m. Flying Farmers Meeting, Holiday Inn, Fond du Lac. Stories from the Land.

August 8-14, The Clearing, Ellison Bay, WI. Writing Class.

August 22, 11:00-3:00, Barnes and Noble, Racine, WI. Horse Drawn Days and more.

Pioneer Days

2010-06-17T19:17:00.002-05:00

Want to learn more about pioneer days in Wisconsin, 1850s to 1900? My novel, THE TRAVELS OF INCREASE JOSEPH (University of Wisconsin Press) is now available in paperback. Here are two reviews for the book to give you some idea of its contents:

Like all of Jerry’s books, Travels is steeped in meticulous research, but this time Jerry has let his imagination have at the facts. We follow the career of Increase Joseph Link from the time he gets drummed out of theology school until his death. His calling to preach comes in the form of a literal lightning bolt and leads him to form the church of the Standalone Fellowship, based on teachings contained in a mysterious red book the preacher keeps with him at all times and never lets anyone else read. When not preaching a gospel of God, man, and the land, pastor Link peddles a cure-all tonic (the recipe also remains his secret, but I'm betting on a high alcohol content) that sells for "50 cents, or two for a dollar." It's a wonderful read and an education in Wisconsin history and the formation of America. I highly recommend it. Marshal Cook

The Travels of Increase Joseph by Jerry Apps is a superbly crafted historical novel of a pioneer preacher who came to the wildlands of Wisconsin in 1852 with his small gathering of followers, the Standalone Fellowship. Supporting the Fellowship by selling his special curative tonic, and delivering oratory and with powerful messages that are nothing short of spellbinding, Joseph Link dared to speak out as he journeyed and his words and ideas made an impression that stayed. The Travels of Increase Joseph is a most thoughtful and wonderfully entertaining read. Jerry Apps writes with vibrant character and has a penchant for making Wisconsin history come alive. Midwest Book Review.

Check your local bookstore, or order from my website, www.jerryapps.com.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: The land comes first. It’s the land; we must learn to listen to it, and take care of it.

CHECK THIS OUT: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Author-Jerry-Apps

WRITING WORKSHOPS

August 8-14. My week-long writing workshop at The Clearing in Door County. “Writing From Your Life.” The class is full, but you can put your name on a waiting list. There is still room in my day-long workshop, Saturday, October 30. The Clearing Folk School www.theclearing.org P.O. Box 65 | 12171 Garrett Bay Road | Ellison Bay, Wisconsin 54210 Toll Free: 877.854.3225 | clearing@theclearing.org Monday - Friday 8-4

UPCOMING EVENTS

July 10, 10:30-2:30. Bramble Books, Viroqua. New location: 213 S. Main Street, Viroqua. Horse Drawn Days.

July 13, 7:00 p.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose. Central Wis. Launch of Horse Drawn Days.

July 29, 7:00 p.m. Brown Street Books, Rhinelander, WI. Horse Drawn Days.

Horse Drawn Days at Stonefield

2010-06-13T12:24:00.001-05:00

Wisconsin Historical Society’s Stonefield Village, near Cassville, celebrated Horse Drawn Days this past Saturday. People toured the agricultural museum of horse-drawn farm implements, watched a farrier shoe horses, rode a horse-drawn carriage, saw a log cutting demonstration, and observed broom making.

Watching Randy Moshead and his three-horse team plow a small field in front of the museum delighted those who came to the day-long event. Children and adults gathered to watch Randy’s team pull a one bottom riding-plow that turned over ribbons of black soil. Slowly and deliberately the team worked and by day’s end much of the field was plowed.

A comment heard from those who watched, “How quiet it is when horses pull a plow.” Indeed, no roaring engines, no smell of diesel fumes, just the occasionally soft jingle of a harness chains and an even softer commands from the driver.

The Saturday event took many of us back to the days when horses pulled the plows, when the sounds were those of the birds and the soft spring breezes, and the smells were those of freshly turned soil and horse sweat. And no one was in a hurry.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: When you farm with horses, you are never alone.

CHECK THIS OUT: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Author-Jerry-Apps

WRITING WORKSHOPS

August 8-14. My week-long writing workshop at The Clearing in Door County. “Writing From Your Life.” The class is full, but you can put your name on a waiting list. There is still room in my day-long workshop, Saturday, October 30. The Clearing Folk School www.theclearing.org P.O. Box 65 | 12171 Garrett Bay Road | Ellison Bay, Wisconsin 54210 Toll Free: 877.854.3225 | clearing@theclearing.org Monday - Friday 8-4

UPCOMING EVENTS

June 15, 12:00 noon. Wis Historical Society Museum on the Square. Horse Drawn Days.

June 16, 11:45-12:30. Wisconsin Public Radio, Larry Meiller Show. Horse Drawn Days.

June 18, 11:00 – 11:50 a.m. SE Wisconsin Festival of Books, UW-Waukesha campus.
Ames County Novels.

July 10, 10:30-2:30. Bramble Books, Viroqua. New location: 213 S. Main Street, Viroqua. Horse Drawn Days.

July 13, 7:00 p.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose. Central Wis. Launch of Horse Drawn Days.

Whip-poor-wills

2010-06-05T13:52:00.002-05:00

I heard whip-poor-wills calling at the farm the other night. Just after the sun went down, on a still evening without another sound. Their calls echoed through the valley below our cabin, a haunting call that reminded me of my growing up years on the farm.

We usually heard the first whip-poor-wills in late May, after the grass had greened up, the oat crop was lush and growing, and we had the corn ground ready for planting. Pa said the whip-poor-wills were calling, “Plant your corn, plant your corn.” It sounded like that as the seldom seen night birds called their name over and over, sometimes a dozen or more times in a row.

When we heard the whip-poor-wills the other night, my son, Steve said that it was one of his favorite sounds at our farm when he was a kid. It was one of my favorite sounds when I was a kid as well.

THE OLD TIMER SAW THIS ON A T-SHIRT. “I was born with nothing and I have most of it left.”

CHECK THIS OUT: http://twitter.com/jerryapps

WRITING WORKSHOPS

August 8-14. My week-long writing workshop at The Clearing in Door County. “Writing From Your Life.” The class is full, but you can put your name on a waiting list. There is still room in my day-long workshop, Saturday, October 30. The Clearing Folk School www.theclearing.org. P.O. Box 65 | 12171 Garrett Bay Road | Ellison Bay, Wisconsin 54210 Toll Free: 877.854.3225 | clearing@theclearing.org Monday - Friday 8-4

UPCOMING EVENTS

June 8, 7:00 p.m. Launch for Horse Drawn Days book, Barnes and Noble West Madison.

June 9, 10:30 a.m. College Days, UW-Madison campus. Ames County Historical Fiction Series.

June 12, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Horse Drawn Days at Stonefield Village, Cassville, WI. Discussion of book and demonstrations with horses and horse drawn equipment.

June 15, 12:00 noon. Wis Historical Society Museum on the Square. Horse Drawn Days.

June 16, 11:45-12:30. Wisconsin Public Radio, Larry Meiller Show. Horse Drawn Days.

June 18, 11:00 – 11:50 a.m. SE Wisconsin Festival of Books, UW-Waukesha campus.
Ames County Novels.

July 10, 10:30-2:30. Bramble Books, Viroqua. New location: 213 S. Main Street, Viroqua. Horse Drawn Days.

July 13, 7:00 p.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose. Central Wis. Launch of Horse Drawn Days.

Bears

2010-05-27T16:43:00.001-05:00

Bears have lived in Wisconsin for hundreds of years, mostly in the north, in the big woods of the North Country. But in recent years they’ve begun moving south, into the central regions of the state, and more recently into the southern counties. The DNR estimates suggest from 22,000 to 40,000 black bears living in our state.

This past week a bear was spotted in Waunakee, just north of Madison. And recently bears have been spotted at Wisconsin Dells, Portage, and near Oshkosh. People are curious, a bit nervous and somewhat unsettled about bears moving into populated areas. Some suggest a bear is just a big dog. They are not. A male bear will weigh from 250-350 pounds and more and the females 120-180 pounds and more.

June and July is the mating season for bears, so they are on the prowl, looking for food, searching for love, and often creating quite a nuisance besides getting themselves killed on the highways. The DNR suggests: take down your bird feeder, be careful with garbage and never feed a bear. Oh, and don’t crowd up close to one for a photo. Remember, they are wild animals and should be treated as such.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: To know what you believe, you’ve got to know what you don’t believe.

JERRY IS NOW ON FACE BOOK: http://www.facebook.com/jerryapps

WRITING WORKSHOPS

August 8-14. Week-long writing workshop at The Clearing in Door County. “Writing From Your Life.” The class is full, but you can put your name on a waiting list. There is still room in my day-long workshop, Saturday, October 30. The Clearing Folk School www.theclearing.org P.O. Box 65 | 12171 Garrett Bay Road | Ellison Bay, Wisconsin 54210 Toll Free: 877.854.3225 | clearing@theclearing.org Monday - Friday 8-4

UPCOMING EVENTS

June 8, 7:00 p.m. Launch for Horse Drawn Days book, Barnes and Noble West Madison.

June 9, 10:30 a.m. College Days, UW-Madison campus. Ames County Historical Fiction Series.

June 12, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Horse Drawn Days at Stonefield Village, Cassville, WI. Discussion of book and demonstrations with horses and horse drawn equipment.
June 15, 12:00 noon. Wis Historical Society Museum on the Square. Horse Drawn Days.

June 16, 11:45-12:30. Wisconsin Public Radio, Larry Meiller Show. Horse Drawn Days.

June 18, 11:00 – 11:50 a.m. SE Wisconsin Festival of Books, UW-Waukesha campus. Ames County Novels.

July 13, 7:00 p.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose. Central Wis. Launch of Horse Drawn Days.

Three Sisters Garden

2010-05-22T20:29:00.001-05:00

Long before white people arrived in this part of the world, numerous Indian tribes grew gardens. The three most popular garden crops grown were corn, squash and beans—crops that became known as the “Three Sisters.” The crops were grown together in close proximity. In a mounded circle about two to three feet across, the Indians planted several corn seeds in the center. Pole-type beans were planted a few inches away from the corn seeds, and squash seeds were planted around the outside of the mound.

The pole beans climbed up the corn stalks and the squash rambled around the mound, shading out weeds. The three crops worked together rather than competed with each other, which is more often the case in a garden.

I’m planning to try an experiment with Three Sisters in my garden this year. We’ll see what happens.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: If it’s not bothering you, leave it alone.

JERRY IS NOW ON FACE BOOK: http://www.facebook.com/jerryapps

WRITING WORKSHOPS

August 8-14. My week-long writing workshop at The Clearing in Door County. “Writing From Your Life.” And a day-long workshop on Saturday, October 30. The Clearing Folk School www.theclearing.org P.O. Box 65 | 12171 Garrett Bay Road | Ellison Bay, Wisconsin 54210 Toll Free: 877.854.3225 | clearing@theclearing.org Monday - Friday 8-4

UPCOMING EVENTS

June 8, 7:00 p.m. Launch for Horse Drawn Days book, Barnes and Noble West Madison.

June 9, 10:30 a.m. College Days, UW-Madison campus. Ames County Historical Fiction Series.

June 12, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Horse Drawn Days at Stonefield Village, Cassville, WI. Discussion of book and demonstrations with horses and horse drawn equipment.

June 15, 12:00 noon. Wis Historical Society Museum on the Square. Horse Drawn Days.

June 16, 11:45-12:30. Wisconsin Public Radio, Larry Meiller Show. Horse Drawn Days

July 13, 7:00 p.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose. Central Wis. Launch of Horse Drawn Days.

Sandhill Cranes at the Pond

2010-05-15T21:56:00.002-05:00

Daughter Sue, Paul and our grandsons, Josh and Ben, stood on the shore of our pond last week, enjoying the beautiful day. Grandson Ben decided to go exploring and soon discovered he’d come too close to a sandhill crane nest. The birds began calling, then one of them displayed the classic dropped wing act to feign injury to lure an intruder away from the nest. As we watched they called again and again, their calls echoing through the valley. When Ben retreated, the sandhills calmed down. They usually hatch two little ones—I’ll keep watch for them.

For several years a pair of sandhill cranes has nested at our pond. What beautiful birds they are. They stand up to five feet tall with a wingspan of five to six feet. Mostly gray, they have red foreheads and long dark beaks. But perhaps most memorable of all is their call, a throaty, trumpeting, prehistoric sound that once heard is never forgotten. No other bird has a call like it, not even close.

Big blue herons are the other big birds we sometimes see at the pond. Both the sandhills and the big blues have long spindly legs and both may be seen wading in the water. One easy way to tell herons and cranes apart is how they fly. Cranes fly with their necks outstretched; herons fly with their necks tucked back. The big blue heron’s calls are dramatically different too, the big blue heron makes a kind of croaking sound, nothing speculator about it at all.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Life is simpler when you plow around the stump

JERRY IS NOW ON FACE BOOK: http://www.facebook.com/jerryapps

WRITING WORKSHOPS

August 8-14. My week-long writing workshop at The Clearing in Door County. “Writing From Your Life.” And a day-long workshop on Saturday, October 30.

The Clearing Folk School www.theclearing.org
P.O. Box 65 | 12171 Garrett Bay Road | Ellison Bay, Wisconsin 54210 Toll Free: 877.854.3225 | clearing@theclearing.org Monday - Friday 8-4

UPCOMING EVENTS

May 20, 11:00 a.m., Southern Lakes Retired Teachers, 616 Droster Avenue, Burlington. (One-Room Schools)

June 8, 7:00 p.m. Launch for Horse Drawn Days, Barnes and Noble West Madison.

June 9, 10:30 a.m. College Days, UW-Madison campus. Ames County Series.

June 12, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Horse Drawn Days at Stonefield Village, Cassville, WI. Discussion of book and demonstrations with horses and horse drawn equipment.
June 15, 12:00 noon. Wis Historical Society Museum on the Square. Horse Drawn Days.

July 13, 7:00 p.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose. Central Wis. Launch of Horse Drawn Days.

May Snow

2010-05-09T20:43:00.001-05:00

Snow in May. The mean side of winter showing its face once more. It comes in the night with big fluffy flakes floating out of a dirty gray sky. Hiding the recently mowed lawns, gathering on the newly emerged leaves and flower buds, covering the vegetable garden with a late, cold coat of white.

A robin sits in the spruce tree in front of the cabin this chilly, snowy May morning. Its feathers fluffed; it has an angry look in its eyes. The robin’s attitude is as chilly as the morning. The robin represents the thoughts and feelings of most creatures this May day.
What happened? What went wrong? Why would Mother Nature allow winter to throw a sucker punch? It’s just not right.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Rain in May is a barn full of hay. Snow in May is . . .a surprise.

JERRY IS NOW ON FACE BOOK: http://www.facebook.com/jerryapps

WRITING WORKSHOPS

August 8-14. My week-long writing workshop at The Clearing in Door County. “Writing From Your Life.” And a day-long workshop on Saturday, October 30.

The Clearing Folk School www.theclearing.org
P.O. Box 65 | 12171 Garrett Bay Road | Ellison Bay, Wisconsin 54210 Toll Free: 877.854.3225 | clearing@theclearing.org Monday - Friday 8-4

UPCOMING EVENTS

May 16, 2:00 p.m. Glenwood City Historical Society, Holy Cross Lutheran Church, 615 Maple Street, Glenwood City. Call 715-796-560 for further details. (Old Farm: A History)

May 20, 11:00 a.m., Southern Lakes Retired Teachers, 616 Droster Avenue, Burlington. (One-Room Schools)

June 8, 7:00 p.m. Launch for Horse Drawn Days, Barnes and Noble West Madison.

June 9, 10:30 a.m. College Days, UW-Madison campus. Ames County Series.

June 12, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Horse Drawn Days at Stonefield Village, Cassville, WI. Discussion of book and demonstrations with horses and horse drawn equipment.
June 15, 12:00 noon. Wis Historical Society Museum on the Square. Horse Drawn Days.

July 13, 7:00 p.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose. Central Wis. Launch of Horse Drawn Days.

Rhubarb

2010-05-01T11:08:00.002-05:00

We pulled some rhubarb this week, and just in time, too. It was starting to bolt. Some of the stalks had grown more than three-feet tall with leaves the size of elephant ears.

I have many memories of rhubarb as we had a big patch on the home farm. When the rhubarb was ready we knew that spring had surely arrived with no turning back. No winter relapses.

My mother made rhubarb sauce—sour and unappealing. But my dad assured us we must eat it as it “purified the blood” after a long dreary winter. So we did, but not without complaint.

Ruth made rhubarb crisp. Not even a distant relative of rhubarb sauce for rhubarb crisp is tangy--sweet, providing our first taste of spring.

Rhubarb Crisp

4 cups rhubarb, chopped
1 cup flour
¾ cup oatmeal
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix together the flour, oatmeal, brown sugar and cinnamon.
Add butter or margarine to the flour mixture until crumbly.
Press about half of flour mixture into a 9 x 13 greased pan.
Combine sugar and cornstarch in a small saucepan. Add water and vanilla. Cook this sugar water mixture over medium heat until clear, stirring constantly. Remove from heat.
Add rhubarb to the sugar-water mixture coating the rhubarb.
Pour rhubarb over crust. Place remaining flour crumbs on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 50 to 60 minutes.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

JERRY IS NOW ON FACE BOOK: http://www.facebook.com/jerryapps

WRITING WORKSHOPS

August 8-14. My week-long writing workshop at The Clearing in Door County. “Writing From Your Life.” And a day-long workshop on Saturday, October 30.

The Clearing Folk School www.theclearing.org
P.O. Box 65 | 12171 Garrett Bay Road | Ellison Bay, Wisconsin 54210 Toll Free: 877.854.3225 | clearing@theclearing.org Monday - Friday 8-4

UPCOMING EVENTS

May 3, 3:00-7:00 p.m. Local History Expo, Sheboygan County Area Historical Community, Range Line Inn, 170 Range Line Road, Kohler. (6:00 p.m. presentation, Old Farm a History.)

May 16, 1:00 p.m. Glenwood City Historical Society, Holy Cross Lutheran Church, 615 Maple Street, Glenwood City. Call 715-796-560 for further details. (Old Farm: A History)

May 20, 11:00 a.m., Southern Lakes Retired Teachers, 616 Droster Avenue, Burlington. (One-Room Schools)

June 8, 7:00 p.m. Launch for Horse Drawn Days, Barnes and Noble West Madison.

June 9, 10:30 a.m. College Days, UW-Madison campus. Ames County Series.

June 12, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Horse Drawn Days at Stonefield Village, Cassville, WI. Discussion of book and demonstrations of horse drawn equipment.

Rainy Day

2010-04-25T09:04:00.002-05:00

Raindrops on the windows this dark and dreary morning. Raindrops drumming on the roof. Sounds of April. Sounds of spring. Much needed rain for the gardens and fields, for the animals and birds, for the little trees I planted a couple weeks ago that desperately need water to survive.

Growing up on a sandy farm I learned to never ever say a bad word about rain. No matter if it interrupted spring planting, or challenged a daughter’s wedding party. Like the land itself, rain was, is and forever will be a necessity of life.

So on a rainy day like this one, put on your old ratty Filson hat, your well worn raincoat and hike in the rain like you did when you were a kid. Walking in the rain is special.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: A rainy day is a glorious day.

WRITING WORKSHOPS

August 8-14. My week-long writing workshop at The Clearing in Door County. “Writing From Your Life.” Contact www.theclearing.org or call 877-854-3225 for registration information.

October 30. Day-long writing workshop at The Clearing.

UPCOMING EVENTS

April 28, 7:00 p.m. Kiel Public Library, (Blue Shadows Farm and Ames County Novels.)

April 30, 10:45 & 1:10, WEAC Retired, Sheraton Madison Hotel (Stories from the land)

May 3, 3:00-7:00 p.m. Local History Expo, Sheboygan County Area Historical Community, Range Line Inn, 170 Range Line Road, Kohler. (6:00 p.m. presentation, Old Farm a History.)

May 16, 1:00 p.m. Glenwood City Historical Society, Holy Cross Lutheran Church, 615 Maple Street, Glenwood City. Call 715-796-560 for further details. (Old Farm: A History)

May 20, 11:00 a.m., Southern Lakes Retired Teachers, 616 Droster Avenue, Burlington. (One-Room Schools)

Early Garden Planting

2010-04-18T15:03:00.001-05:00

We planted our early garden crops last week. Potatoes, both white and red, radishes, carrots, peas, and a long row of onions. I’ll plant more early crops next week, lettuce and beets, but will hold off with the tender crops, the tomatoes and peppers, until the end of May. Too often I’ve been fooled by the warm days of early spring when I set out my tomatoes early and saw them die with a late spring frost.

I have planted a vegetable garden at Roshara every year since 1967. Each gardening year has its mysteries and challenges, its joys and disappointments. Gardening seems a lot like life in those respects.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: You can bury a lot of troubles digging in your garden.

WRITING WORKSHOPS

August 8-14. My week-long writing workshop at The Clearing in Door County. “Writing From Your Life.” Contact www.theclearing.org or call 877-854-3225 for registration information.

October 30. Day-long writing workshop at The Clearing.

UPCOMING EVENTS

April 22, 6:00 p.m. Walworth-Big Foot Historical Society Banquet. (One-Room Schools)

April 23, 3:00 p.m. UW-Madison, Day on Campus: Food Summit. Memorial Union. (A brief look at history of Agriculture in Wisconsin)

April 28, 7:00 p.m. Kiel Public Library, (Blue Shadows Farm and Ames County Novels.)

April 30, 10:45 & 1:10, WEAC Retired, Sheraton Madison Hotel (Stories from the land)

May 3, 3:00-7:00 p.m. Local History Expo, Sheboygan County Area Historical Community, Range Line Inn, 170 Range Line Road, Kohler. (6:00 p.m. presentation, Old Farm a History.)

May 16, 1:00 p.m. Glenwood City Historical Society, Holy Cross Lutheran Church, 615 Maple Street, Glenwood City. Call 715-796-560 for further details. (Old Farm: A History)

May 20, 11:00 a.m., Southern Lakes Retired Teachers, 616 Droster Avenue, Burlington. (One-Room Schools)

Tree Planting at Roshara

2010-04-11T13:26:00.002-05:00

We planted trees at the farm this weekend. Two-hundred of them. All Red Pine, six to 12 inches tall. We’ve planted trees every spring as long as we’ve owned Roshara, so we have trees now more than 40 years old, and that tall, too. Beautiful trees that sway in the wind and remind me of when we planted them--Ruth, our three toddlers and me. Doing the work by hand. With a shovel to cut a slit in our sandy soil.

We planted trees by hand this weekend, too: Paul, Steve, Natasha, Kristin and me. Mostly easy work for this energetic crew that enjoyed a sunny day, a cool breeze, and the wonderful smell of pine trees.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Planting a tree is planning for a future.

WRITING WORKSHOPS

August 8-14. My week-long workshop at The Clearing in Door County. “Writing From Your Life.” Contact www.theclearing.org or call 877-854-3225 for registration information.

October 30. Day-long writing workshop at The Clearing.

UPCOMING EVENTS

April 13, 7:00 p.m. Menasha Public Library, Fox Cities Book Festival (Blue Shadows Farm and Ames County Novels.)

April 14, 1:00 p.m. Hatch Public Library, Mauston. 1:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. (Blue Shadows Farm and Ames County Novels.)

April 17, 5:00 p.m. Wisconsin Rapids Community Theater at Rapids Mall, Nature Book Bash (Old Farm).

April 22, 6:00 p.m. Walworth-Big Foot Historical Society Banquet. (One-Room Schools)

April 23, 3:00 p.m. UW-Madison, Day on Campus: Food Summit. Memorial Union. (A brief look at history of Agriculture in Wisconsin)

April 28, 7:00 p.m. Kiel Public Library, (Blue Shadows Farm and Ames County Novels.)

April 30, 10:45 & 1:10, WEAC Retired, Sheraton Madison Hotel (Stories from the land)

Spring Charges In

2010-04-04T09:24:00.003-05:00

Spring came charging in on a southwest wind this past week, sending winter sulking away to the north to lick its melting ice and disappearing snow. Eighty degrees my thermometer at the farm said as I cut black locust brush that tries to smother out the pines I planted two years ago. I worked and rested, drank water and worked some more. But so much more to do—and, I learned yesterday that my new replacement trees are ready for planting.

Like it was when I was growing up the farm, after weeks of anticipation, of waiting and hoping, spring, arrives. And the work comes all at once. But, as my dad said, work is good for you. And I must say, I do enjoy stretching my muscles and swinging my brushcutter, even though, at day’s end my back, shoulders, and arms tell me to take it easy, that I’m not a kid anymore.

THE OLDTIMER SAYS: Never have any problems raising your kids provided there is plenty of work for them. A tired kid is a good kid.

WRITING WORKSHOPS

August 8-14. My week-long workshop at The Clearing in Door County. “Writing From Your Life.” Contact www.theclearing.org or call 877-854-3225 for registration information.

October 30. Day-long writing workshop at The Clearing.

UPCOMING EVENTS

April 6, 3:00 p.m. Oakwood Retirement Center. Madison, April 6 (The Good Old Days?)

April 13, 7:00 p.m. Menasha Public Library, Fox Cities Book Festival (Blue Shadows Farm and Ames County Novels.)

April 14, 1:00 p.m. Hatch Public Library, Mauston. 1:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. (Blue Shadows Farm and Ames County Novels.)

April 17, 5:00 p.m. Wisconsin Rapids Community Theater at Rapids Mall, Nature Book Bash (Old Farm.

April 22, 6:00 p.m. Walworth-Big Foot Historical Society Banquet. (One-Room School)

April 23, 3:00 p.m. UW-Madison, Day on Campus: Food Summit. Memorial Union. (A brief look at history of Agriculture in Wisconsin)

April 28, 7:00 p.m. Kiel Public Library, (Blue Shadows Farm and Ames County Novels.)

April 30, 10:45 & 1:10, WEAC Retired, Sheraton Madison Hotel (Stories from the land)

Brother's Walk

2010-03-28T09:46:00.005-05:00

My brother, Don, who lives near Wild Rose, wrote this after his morning walk last week.

Here’s what is happening on the farm: I saw about 30 swans flying and honking, saw lots of geese,too.

Two tom turkeys gobbled to my new crow call. Snow is about gone. Saw lots of deer tracks, one big one.

The pond is still frozen but the edges are open. I think the beavers are still there. I saw two huge snapping turtles. Sandhills are bugling everywhere.

Is spring early this year?

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Cherish the memories of yesterday. Dream big dreams about tomorrow. Live happily today.

WRITING WORKSHOPS

My week-long writing workshop at The Clearing in Door County for 2010 is set for
August 8-14. Call 877-854-3225. Contact www.theclearing.org for further information.

A one-day, Saturday writing workshop is scheduled for October 30 at The Clearing.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Westfield Public Library. March 31, 12:45-1:30. (Ames County Novels featuring Blue Shadows Farm)

Oakwood Retirement Center, Madison, April 6, 3:00 p.m. (The Good Old Days?)

Fox Cities Book Festival, April 13, 7:00 p.m., Menasha Public Library. (Blue Shadows Farm and Ames County Novels)

Hatch Public Library, Mauston, April 14, 1:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m.(Ames County Novels, featuring Blue Shadows Farm)

Nature Book Bash, Saturday, April 17, 5:00 p.m. Wisconsin Rapids Community Theater at Rapids Mall in Wisconsin Rapids. (Old Farm)

Walworth-Big Foot Prairie Historical Society, banquet, April 22, 6:00 p.m. Walworth. Place to be announced. (One-Room Country Schools)

UW-Madison, Day on Campus: Food Summit, April 23, 2010. Memorial Union. Keynote speaker: 11:00 a.m. George McGovern. 3:00 p.m. A Brief Look at Wisconsin’s Agricultural History (Apps)

Kiel Public Library, April 28, 7:00 p.m. (Ames County Novels, featuring Blue Shadows Farm)

WEAC-Retired, April 30, 10:45-11:45 & 1:10-2:10. Sheraton Madison Hotel. (Stories From the Land)

Writing Your Story

2010-03-20T09:48:00.002-05:00

For those who tuned in my program on Wisconsin Public Radio last week (Larry Meiller Show at 11:00 a.m.), I promised to share some storytelling tips. Program host Jim Packard’s asked: “What are the elements of a good story.”
--People
--Action
--Conflict
--Suspense
--A sense of time and place
--A beginning, middle and an end.

Everyone has a story to tell of childhood years, first jobs, military service, life-changing events and never told secrets. These are the stories that your children and grandchildren will cherish, and additionally will add a special addition to the history of your community when you file your stories at your library or local historical society. Oh, if you’re wondering. It’s never too late to begin writing your stories.

First day of spring! Says so right on the calendar. But I when I look outside this morning, my daffodils and tulips are but little green spears poking through two inches of snow. Mother Nature obviously doesn’t read the calendar. Patience. Patience. It’s still March.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: In spring we shake loose the shackles of winter and make big plans and think big thoughts. We celebrate what has passed and look forward to the future with joy and hope.

WRITING WORKSHOPS

My week-long writing workshop at The Clearing in Door County for 2010 is set for
August 8-14.

A one-day, Saturday writing workshop is scheduled for October 30.
Contact www.theclearing.org for further information.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

UW-Baraboo, “Add Learning to Your Life” workshop for those 55 and older. March 25, 11:30 a.m. (Stories From the Land) Call 608-355-5234 for further information.

Westfield Public Library. March 31, 12:45-1:30. (Ames County Novels featuring Blue Shadows Farm))

Oakwood Retirement Center, Madison, April 6, 3:00 p.m. (The Good Old Days?)

Fox Cities Book Festival, April 13, 7:00 p.m., Menasha Public Library. (Blue Shadows Farm and Ames County Novels)

Hatch Public Library, Mauston, April 14, 1:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m.(Ames County Novels, featuring Blue Shadows Farm)

Nature Book Bash, Saturday, April 17, 5:00 p.m. Wisconsin Rapids Community Theater at Rapids Mall in Wisconsin Rapids. (Old Farm)

Walworth-Big Foot Prairie Historical Society, banquet, April 22, 6:00 p.m., Village Supper Club, Delevan Lake, Delevan. (One-Room Country Schools)

UW-Madison, Day on Campus: Food Summit, April 23, 2010. Memorial Union. Keynote speaker: 11:00 a.m. George McGovern. 3:00 p.m. A Brief Look at Wisconsin’s Agricultural History (Apps)

Kiel Public Library, April 28, 7:00 p.m. (Ames County Novels, featuring Blue Shadows Farm)

WEAC-Retired, April 30, 10:45-11:45 & 1:10-2:10. Sheraton Madison Hotel. (Stories From the Land)

Feet Touching The Ground

2010-03-14T09:45:00.003-05:00

When I was still teaching, we interviewed a young man from Florida for a position in our department. We talked to him in January when we had a couple feet of snow on the ground, and after spending a day with him, I asked him if would like to come work for us in Wisconsin. I’d noticed he seemed uncomfortable all the time he was here, and I couldn’t put my finger on his concern.

His answer told all. He said, “I don’t think I could work in a place where my feet wouldn’t touch the ground for three months of the year.” He was referring to our snow-covered landscape.

My feet touched the ground this week as our snow has mostly disappeared. Can there be a surer sign of spring? Several readers responded to my request for signs of spring. Here are a couple of them.

“We saw our first robin last week and our tulips and daffodils on the south side of the house are about three inches up. Always love your observations about nature and the seasons. I can tell that like me, you are longing for spring. I look forward to hearing the birds start singing at four in the morning, from the comfort of my bed of course.” Sharon of Plymouth

“A recent morning as I was getting into my car, a cardinal was carrying on nearby with such jubilation I had to smile! In spite of the chilly wind, his frisky notes held such positive hope of the nearly spring. I couldn't help but grin to myself. We in the Midwest don't appreciate the cardinals’ cheery songs. I've heard people in Texas express such joy when they've seen or heard a rare cardinal!” Kay Moore

Interested in a good story? Tune in Wisconsin Public Radio next Thursday, March 18 at 11:00. Larry Meiller and I will be doing another session on Wisconsin stories and story-telling. Got a story to share? Call in.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: The coming of spring, so much like all of life, is two steps forward and one step back.

WRITING WORKSHOPS

My week-long writing workshop at The Clearing in Door County for 2010 is set for
August 8-14.

A one-day, Saturday writing workshop is scheduled for October 30.
Contact www.theclearing.org for further information.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Wisconsin Studio, Overture Center, Madison, WI, Sunday, March 21, 1:00 p.m. (Old
Farm)

UW-Baraboo, “Add Learning to Your Life” workshop for those 55 and older. March 25, 11:30 a.m. (Stories From the Land) Call 608-355-5234 for further information.

Westfield Public Library. March 31, 12:45-1:30. (Ames County Novels featuring Blue Shadows Farm))

Oakwood Retirement Center, Madison, April 6, 3:00 p.m. (The Good Old Days?)

Fox Cities Book Festival, April 13, 7:00 p.m., Menasha Public Library. (Blue Shadows Farm and Ames County Novels)

Hatch Public Library, Mauston, April 14, 1:00 p.m. (Ames County Novels, featuring Blue Shadows Farm)

Nature Book Bash, Saturday, April 17, 5:00 p.m. Wisconsin Rapids Community Theater at Rapids Mall in Wisconsin Rapids. (Old Farm)

Walworth-Big Foot Prairie Historical Society, banquet, April 22, 6:00 p.m., Village Supper Club, Delevan Lake. (One-Room Country Schools)

UW-Madison, Day on Campus: Food Summit, April 23, 2010. Memorial Union. Keynote speaker: 11:00 a.m. George McGovern. 3:00 p.m. A Brief Look at Wisconsin’s Agricultural History (Apps)

Kiel Public Library, April 28, 7:00 p.m. (Ames County Novels, featuring Blue Shadows Farm)

WEAC-Retired, April 30, 10:45-11:45 & 1:10-2:10. Sheraton Madison Hotel. (Stories From the Land)

Aldo Leopold Celebration

2010-03-07T10:28:00.003-06:00

Last Saturday I had the privilege of speaking at the Lake Geneva Library’s Aldo Leopold Celebration. Leopold, who died April 21, 1948, is best known for his book, A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC, published after his death in 1949. The library looked out on the lake, a special place for the celebration.

I have an original edition of A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC and read from it often. Fitting for the season, Leopold wrote this about spring: “One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw, is the spring.”

With Leopold, I look forward each spring to the geese flying high overhead in long V’s as they wing their way to their summer nesting grounds. I enjoy seeing them in the daytime, listening to their calls as their flocks sometimes spread from horizon to horizon. I especially enjoy hearing them on a still spring night, confidently moving north, announcing spring. Sometimes, if the moon is full and the sky is clear, I will see them flying in the moonlight. What a treat it is.

What are your first signs of spring? The return of the sandhill cranes? Bird song in the morning? The blush on a weeping willow tree? Pussy willows in the marshes? Click on comment and let us know.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: To value the land and the natural world demands an appreciation that goes deeper than knowing, deeper even than understanding—to the level that involves not only the head but also the heart.

WRITING WORKSHOP: The dates for my writing workshop at The Clearing in Door
County for 2010 are August 8-14. Contact www.theclearing.org for further information.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Wisconsin Studio, Overture Center, Madison, WI, Sunday, March 21, 1:30 p.m. (Old
Farm)

UW-Baraboo, “Add Learning to Your Life” workshop for those 55 and older. March 25, 11:30 a.m. (Stories From the Land) Call 608-355-5234 for further information.

Westfield Public Library. March 31, 12:45-1:30. (Ames County Novels featuring Blue Shadows Farm)

Oakwood Retirement Center, Madison, April 6, 3:00 p.m. (The Good Old Days?)

Fox Cities Book Festival, April 13, 7:00 p.m., Menasha Public Library. (Blue Shadows Farm and Ames County Novels)

Hatch Public Library, Mauston, April 14, 1:00 p.m. (Ames County Novels, featuring Blue Shadows Farm)

Nature Book Bash, Saturday, April 17, 5:00 p.m. Wisconsin Rapids Community Theater at Rapids Mall in Wisconsin Rapids. (Old Farm)

Walworth-Big Foot Prairie Historical Society, banquet, April 22, 6:00 p.m. Walworth. Place to be announced. (One-Room Country Schools)

UW-Madison, Day on Campus: Food Summit, April 23, 2010. Memorial Union. Keynote speaker: 11:00 a.m. George McGovern. 3:00 p.m. A Brief Look at Wisconsin’s Agricultural History (Apps)

Kiel Public Library, April 28, 7:00 p.m. (Ames County Novels, featuring Blue Shadows Farm)

WEAC-Retired, April 30, 10:45-11:45 & 1:10-2:10. Sheraton Madison Hotel. (Stories From the Land)

Discover Wisconsin: March 6-7

2010-02-28T14:24:00.003-06:00

On a warm day last November, a production crew from the TV-Series, “Discover Wisconsin” stopped by my farm for a few hours. They asked me to be part of a program they planned called “Booked into Wisconsin.” (The program will air March 6 & 7 on TV stations throughout the upper Midwest. See the station listing at the end of this blog.)

Program host, Stephanie Klett interviewed me about my Ames County Novels, a series of historical fiction books I have written about the history of agriculture in central Wisconsin. Four novels so far comprise the series, “The Travels of Increase Joseph,” “In a Pickle,” “Blue Shadows Farm,” and soon to be published, “Cranberry Red.” All are published by University of Wisconsin Press and are or will be available in book stores and can be ordered directly from my website.

Here is a brief rundown of each novel:

1. The Travels of Increase Joseph (Time Period: 1850-1900) Published in 2003 & 2010.

The Travels of Increase Joseph tells of the first settlers coming to central Wisconsin in 1852, settling Ames County and naming their village Link Lake. These settlers followed an unusual preacher, Increase Joseph Link, from New York State to Wisconsin. Increase Joseph, tossed out of Harvard College for his liberal thinking, preaches, “The land comes first.” The novel emphasizes the environmental challenges of the time, with many applications to today’s situation.

2. In a Pickle: A Family Farm Story (Time Period: 1955) Published in 2007.

This novel takes place in Ames County in 1955, when nearly every small farmer in the western part of the county grew a small patch of cucumbers. The book focuses on the forces that caused many small family farmers to leave the land.

3. Blue Shadows Farm (Time Period: 1866-present time) Published in 2009.

Blue Shadows Farm follows three generations of the Starkweather family as they try to make a living on a farm in the Link Lake Community of Ames County. It is about connecting to the land both past and present. A contemporary sub-plot concerns environmental education in the schools and the importance of children having first hand contact with nature and the out-of-doors.

4. Cranberry Red (Time Period: the present.) Publication date: Fall 2010.

Isaac Osborne University (a for-profit institution) discovers a new chemical called “Cranberry Red” that promises to drastically improve cranberry growth. It also claims that consuming these treated cranberries will prevent heart disease, reduce brain damage from strokes, and ward off Alzheimer’s. Ben Wesley, the Research Application Specialist for Osborne University, must sell the new substance to cranberry growers in Ames County and other Wisconsin Counties. However, the chemical has not been tested adequately, and Wesley remains apprehensive about promoting the substance since research results seem limited and overstated. While the chemical does all that the University claims it will do, it also creates some disturbing side-affects,

The story focuses on the push and pull of big businesses’ need for fast profit, a community’s need for safety, and how people can be caught in the debate of balancing efficiency with morality.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Great truths are often revealed in fiction.

WRITING WORKSHOP: The dates for my writing workshop at The Clearing in Door
County for 2010 are August 8-14. Contact www.theclearing.org for further information.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Eau Claire Farm Show, Eau Claire Indoor Sports Center, March 3, 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. (Stories From The Land)

Aldo Leopold celebration, Lake Geneva Public Library, March 6, 10:30 a.m. (Old Farm and Ames County novels.)

Wisconsin Studio, Overture Center, Madison, WI, Sunday, March 21, 1:00 p.m. (Old
Farm)

UW-Baraboo, “Add Learning to Your Life” workshop for those 55 and older. March 25, 11:30 a.m. (Stories From the Land) Call 608-355-5234 for further information.

Westfield Public Library. March 31, 12:45-1:30. (Ames County Novels)

DISCOVER WISCONSIN SCHEDULE: MARCH 6-7

The Discover Wisconsin – America's Dairyland "Booked Into Wisconsin" episode will air throughout the upper Midwest on the following stations during the times noted below:

Wausau WAOW TV 9 (ABC)
Saturdays 6:30 p.m.

Wisconsin (Statewide) FSN - Wisconsin
Saturdays 10:00 a.m. Outdoor Block

Baraboo WRPQ TV 43
Saturdays 1:30 PM & Mondays 10:00 PM

Cedar Rapids/Dubuque IA KFXA 28 (FOX)
Saturdays 6:30 p.m.

Chicago Comcast SportsNet
Saturdays 10:00 a.m.

Eagle River WYOW TV 34 (ABC)
Saturdays 6:30 p.m.

Eau Claire WQOW TV 18 (ABC)
Sundays 5:00 p.m.

Green Bay WFRV Ch 5 (CBS)
Saturdays 6:00 p.m

Hibbing, MN WIRT TV 13 (ABC)
Sundays 5:30 p.m.

La Crosse WXOW TV 19 (ABC)
Sundays 5:00 p.m.

Madison WKOW TV 27 (ABC)
Saturdays 6:30 p.m.

Milwaukee WITI TV 6 (FOX)
Sundays 9:00 a.m.

Minneapolis/MN FSN - North
Saturdays 10:00 a.m. Outdoor Block

Rochester/Austin FSN - North
Saturdays 10:00 a.m

Rockford WIFR TV 23 (CBS)
Saturdays 6:30 p.m.

Superior/Duluth WDIO TV 10 (ABC)
Sundays 5:30 p.m.

Tomah, WI WIBU - TV
Mondays 5:00 p.m

Upper Michigan - Escanaba, MI WJMN Ch 3 (CBS)
Saturdays 6:00 CST/7:00 EST