Early Fall Harvest

Photo by Jerry Apps
It’s only a red maple leaf, but seeing it brings back so many memories. When the first maple leaves began turning from green to red and yellow, farm work turned from summer activities to fall work. We had already harvested at least one cutting of hay and had filled the hay mows in the dairy barn to full and overflowing. We had cut the oat crop and the threshing crew came by the farm in mid-August to thresh the grain and refill the bins in the granary with oats.

Now, in September, with cooler evenings, and shorter days, we looked to the first harvest of fall—silo filling. Everyday Pa would walk the rows of our 20-acre cornfield, checking an ear here and there, looking for what he called corn in the “milk stage.” By this he meant, when poking a corn kernel, a milk-like substance appeared. When he was satisfied that the corn was ready, he hitched our trusty team of horses, Frank and Charlie, to the one-row corn binder. Soon rows of green, heavy, corn bundles appeared on the ground.

Pa phoned Ross Caves, who did custom silo filling, that our corn was cut and asked when he could come to the farm. In a day or two, he did. Pa summoned the neighbors, the same ones who helped with threshing. By night time, the silo was filled with corn cut into little pieces. It would immediately begin fermenting, and by late October and early November, it was ready to feed to the ever-hungry cows.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Fall, such a wonderful time to be alive.


UPCOMING EVENTS:
Wisconsin Public Radio (Ideas Network), Chapter a Day. Reading at 12:30 September 9-13: The Civilian Conservation Corps in Wisconsin. Read by Jim Fleming.

September 12, 7:00 p.m. Belleville H.S. Auditorium, Belleville. “Simple Things: Lessons From the Family Farm.”

September 18, 9-4 Writing Workshop, Wyocena Public Library, Wyocena.

September 20, 12:30 p.m. UW-Platteville, Baraboo Campus, 1006 Connie Rd., Baraboo, WI. “History of WI Agriculture”

October 5, 10-2:00 p.m. Dregne’s, Westby. Book signing.

October 12 1:00 p.m., Fox Cities Book Festival, Menasha Public Library

October 22, 6;30 Sun Prairie Public Library, Sun Prairie, WI

October 24, 1:00 p.m. Friends of Muehl Public Library and Outagamie County Home and Community Education Assoc. Emmanuel Lutheran Church, 349 N. Main St., Seymour, WI “Rural Wit and Wisdom”

November 9, 9:00 a.m. 2nd Sat. Plymouth Art Center, Plymouth, WI. Sheboygan County Historical Research Center. “Farm Winter With Jerry Apps”

November 18, 1:00 p.m. Kiel Public Library, Kiel, WI. “Wisconsin. CCC”

To learn more about farm life in the 1940s and early 1950s, read EVERY FARM TELLS A STORY and LIVING A COUNTRY YEAR.
Available for purchase from your local bookstore or buy them from the Friends of the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose—a fundraiser for them. Phone: 920-622-3835 for prices and ordering.
Patterson Memorial Library
500 Division Street
Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.
www.wildroselibrary.org