Home Place

So where did you grow up? A question I often hear as people read my books and watch my Public TV shows. The photo, taken in the 1960s, is the farmstead of the home farm located west of Wild Rose, in Waushara County.

The farm included 160 acres, 20 of which was wooded. Most of the rest of the farm was tillable. But it was hilly, stony and sandy. We never had enough rain. We had more than enough stones.

These farm buildings included a red barn, with a wood-stave silo and a big white house. In winter we closed off all but two rooms, the ones with woodstoves.The little white building between the house and the barn was the pumphouse, which also served as the milk house because it is where we cooled the milk cans after morning and evening milking.

To the west was the chicken house and immediately to the south a combination machine shed and granary. Then the corn crib, the kind where cob corn was stored.

Another machine shed stood next to the white pine windbreak, and a bit further to the south was the brooder house where my mother tended the baby chicks until they were old enough for the chicken house. The photo was taken in August, note the big straw stack just to the west of the barn.

Not to be forgotten, the white board fence that separated the barnyard from what we farmers called the dooryard. My folks were proud of these farm buildings, although there was nothing fancy about any of them.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: You can tell a lot about farmers by looking at their buildings.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: My writing class at The Clearing in Door County is scheduled: Friday, July 27, 9-4. Call 920-854-4088 to register.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Friday, April 13, 7:00 p.m. Fine Arts Center, Adams-Friendship High School. One-Room Country Schools.

Sunday, April 15, 6:30 p.m. Lebanon Historical Society, Fire House Community Room. One-Room Country Schools.

Wednesday, April 25, 6:00 p.m. Book Launch at Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose. New book: Once a Professor

Wednesday, May 2, 10:00 a.m. Book Launch at Oakwood West, Madison. New book: Once a Professor.

Tuesday, May 15, 11:30 a.m. Black Hawk Country Club, SAIL Group. Once a Professor

Saturday, May 19, 10:00-2:00 Dregne’s Westby, Book signing.

Thursday, May 31, 7:00 Middleton Public Library. Book Launch for Cold As Thunder (New novel)

Purchase Jerry’s singed DVDs and signed books from the Library in Wild Rose, Wisconsin (a fundraiser for them):

Patterson Memorial Library
500 Division Street
Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.org
www.wildroselibrary.org
Phone: 920-622-3835

DVDs: His newest Public TV show, One-Room Country School is now available. It’s based on his book, One-Room Country Schools (also available).

Also available, Emmy Winner, A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps (based on The Quiet Season book.)
Jerry Apps a Farm Story (based on Rural Wit and Wisdom and Old Farm books.)
The Land with Jerry Apps, (based on the book Whispers and Shadows,) Never Curse the Rain, based on his book with the same title, and the newest one, One-Room School

The library has several of Jerry’s signed books for sale including Jerry’s newest nonfiction books, Every Farm Tells a Story, Living a County Year (reprints), One-Room Country Schools, Never Curse the Rain and Old Farm Country Cookbook, and his latest novel, The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County. Also Wisconsin Agriculture: A History, Roshara Journal (with photos by Steve Apps) and Telling Your Story—a guidebook for those who want to write their own stories.

Contact the library for prices and special package deals.