Logging at Roshara

I wrote about the fierce windstorm that swept through central Wisconsin last June, tearing out trees by the roots, and doing considerable damage to buildings and other structures. It was that storm that smashed into the row of willow trees that serves as a windbreak for my farmstead at Roshara, nearly destroying the end willow, a character in my first book.

At the time, I had not done an assessment of the damage the storm had done to my woodlots, especially the half dozen acres that made up a naturally seeded white pine woodlot. These white pines have an interesting history. John Coombes, who owned Roshara before we bought it, planted a row of white pine trees in the 1930s. He planted the trees as a way of saving some of his sandy soil from blowing away with the windstorms that swept through this part of Wisconsin at the time.

When we came to Roshara in 1966, the field immediately to the east of the white pine windbreak was a cornfield. As the years passed the cornfield became a field of naturally seeded white pines, many of which are now more than 50 years old.

The windstorm topped many of these fifty-year old pines, created a mess of tangled branches and broken tree trunks. It also ruined a few of the original white pines planted by Mr. Coombes.

With the help of a consulting forester (I also worked with my brother, Donald, who had considerable damage to his trees) a logger spent the last week cutting and piling the broken trees, which are headed for saw and pulp mills. The logger also did some thinning of our other red pine plantations—a thinning done a bit earlier than planned. (The above photo shows some of the logger’s efforts. When the photo was taken, six semi-loads of logs had already been hauled away.)


THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Sometimes a bad situation can turn into something better.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Saturday, September 23, 11:00 a.m. Stonefield Village, Cassville, WI. Old Farm Country Cookbook.

Friday, September 30, 5:00 p.m. Farm City Dinner, Platteville (details to follow)

Saturday, October 28, Edgerton Book Festival (details to follow)

Sunday, October 29, 2:00 p.m. Reed School, Neillsville. Old Farm Country Cookbook.

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

The library now has available signed copies of Jerry’s DVDs:

Emmy Winner, A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps (based on The Quiet Season book.)
Jerry Apps a Farm Story (based on Rural Wit and Wisdom and Old Farm books.)
The Land with Jerry Apps, (based on the book Whispers and Shadows.)

Also available are several of Jerry’s signed books including: Jerry’s newest nonfiction books, Never Curse the Rain and Old Farm Country Cookbook, and his newest novel, The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County. Also available are Wisconsin Agriculture: A History, Roshara Journal (with photos by Steve Apps) and Telling Your Story—a guide book for those who want to write their own stories.

Contact the library for prices and special package deals.
Patterson Memorial Library
500 Division Street
Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.org
www.wildroselibrary.org
920-622-3835