Winter in April

April Grapevines

I’m looking out the window, and I see snow banks. How could this be? We are quickly pushing toward the end of April. Yes, April, not February.

Two memories come to mind. Last year, 2017, by this time we had planted 200 trees at my farm, and a good bit of our vegetable garden. The potatoes were in, the radishes and lettuce were planted. A pair of bluebirds were going in and out of the birdhouse that stands near the garden. This year. The garden is buried in snow. I haven’t seen the bluebirds.

A second memory, a bit dimmer. The year was 1948 or 1949. I was in high school. We had planted our oats in mid-April, as was per usual during those years. In late May, I was driving our Farmall H tractor, which Dad bought a couple years earlier. I was discing the corn ground, a twenty-acre field that we had fall-plowed. And it was cold. Cold for May. But I ignored the cold as I enjoyed driving the tractor from the first day we had gotten it.

I finished discing about supper time. Pa was doing barn chores. “Dang cold for this time of year,” I said.

“Feels like snow,” Pa said.

“Can't be, it’s May,” I said.

It snowed five or six inches that night. No corn planting for a few days. My twin brothers built a snowman. It remained until the first week in June.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Just when you think you’ve got something figured out, you discover that you don’t, especially when it comes to weather.

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:

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. Open to the public.

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 signed DVDs and 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 latest Public TV show, One-Room Country School is now available. It’s based on his book, One-Room Country Schools (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.

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.