Barn Lantern

Those of my generation, especially those who grew up on farms before electricity arrived, will immediately recognize this barn lantern. We all had them, lamps in the house and lanterns outdoors.

On a cold winter morning, after dressing in front of the dining room wood burner, I would pull on my old Mackinaw winter coat, slip on my wool cap with the fur ear laps, and find my barn lantern, one just like this one, standing at its place near the wood box in the kitchen. I would take a match from the match box on the wall near the kitchen stove, lift the lantern’s glass globe, strike the match, and touch the flame to the lantern’s wick. Then I was on my way to the barn, where Pa had gone a few minutes earlier.

The lantern cast long shadows on the snow scape, as I briskly walked along the narrow path we had shoveled in the snow. Once arriving at the barn, I hung my lantern on the nail behind the cows. Pa had hung his lantern on a nail at the other end of the barn.

Grabbing up my three-legged milk stool and a milk pail, I cozied up to a cow and began milking. Except for the sound of fresh milk zinging against the bottom of the milk pail, and the occasiaonal rattle of a cow’s stanchion, it was quiet in the barn. The light from the two lanterns gave us just enough light to see what we were doing.

The soft, yellow light cast by the lanterns added to this quiet, peaceful time.

THE OLD TIMER ASKS? Is it possible to have too much light?

COMING EVENTS:


Saturday, Nov. 11, Second Saturday, 9:00 a.m. Plymouth Art Center, The Land. Viewing of PBS show with discussion and additional stories.

Thursday, Nov. 16. 1:00 p.m. Berlin Library. Old Farm Country Cookbook.

Tuesday, November 28, Aldo Leopold Nature Center, Madison. Never Curse the Rain.

Saturday, December 2, (10:00 to 2:00) Dregni’s, Westby. Old Farm Country Cookbook, Susie and Jerry.

Thursday, Dec. 7, 6:00 p.m. Waupaca Historical Society, Christmas on the Farm

Saturday, Dec. 9 McFarlane’s, Prairie du Sac. Old Farm Country Cookbook. Jerry and Susie

Sunday, Dec. 17 –Readers Realm Bookstore, Montello 1 p.m. Old Farm Country Cookbook. Jerry and Susie

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,) and Never Curse the Rain, Jerry’s newest DVD based on his book with the same title.
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