Little Chicks Announce The Arrival of Spring

 

The phone fastened to the wall near the kitchen door was ringing, one long ring and three short rings.  My mother got up from the kitchen table to answer.  This was our ring on the party-line. She said, “hello,” listened for a bit, and said, “thank you.” She hung the receiver on its little hook on the left side of the telephone. “It was the depot agent,” my mother said.  “Our chicks arrived on the train this morning, and we should come and pick them up as soon as possible.”

 Each spring my mother ordered chicks from a hatchery in southern Wisconsin.  Usually, 100 White Leghorns and 25 White Rocks.  The former to replace laying hens and the latter to be butchered in the fall and sold.

After the barn chores were done, Pa and I drove to the Wild Rose Depot. Upon entering, we immediately heard the sound of little chicks peeping, several cardboard boxes of them waiting to be picked up. Each box was about two feet square and divided into four compartments. Several small holes allowed air in the box. Each compartment had a straw bottom, and a half dozen or so little balls of yellow, loudly peeping, chicks.

“Hello, Herm,” said George Collum, the depot agent. “Those boxes over there are yours.”   We put the boxes of little chicks in the back seat of the Plymouth and headed home.  Once at home, we put them back of our wood-burning kitchen stove, to make sure they remained warm. They continued peeping.  Meanwhile, Pa started the stove in the brooder house, a little building some distance from the main chicken house.  The brooder house stove was about two feet tall, had a big hood around it, which provided a place for the little chicks to stay warm, eat, drink and grow.  Spring had come.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: The arrival of baby chicks was one more sign of the coming of spring.

WHERE TO BUY MY BOOKS:

To purchase Jerry’s books, Including, Wisconsin Agriculture: A History, go to your local bookstore, order online from bookshop.org, or purchase 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
If you live in the western part of the state, stop at Ruth’s home town, Westby and visit Dregne’s.  and look at their great selection of my books, including my new ones, or order a book by calling them at 1-877-634-4414. They will be happy to help you.

 

 

Remembering the First Earth Day

 

Earth Day began in Wisconsin. Gaylord Nelson, a humble man from Clear Lake, Wisconsin suggested grave consequences for the future of this country if something was not done, and done quickly about the mounting environmental challenges that he saw in the 1960s.  Senator Nelson organized Earth Day, which was held on April 22, 1970.

            On that April day in 1970, I sat in a jam-packed Stock Pavilion on the University of Wisconsin Campus in Madison and heard Senator Nelson proclaim the necessity for all of us to not only become more aware of the environmental problems the nation faced, but to do something about solving them.  To push our lawmakers toward passing legislation to correct the errors of the past and assure they would not occur in the future.  In a rare moment of solidarity, Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, young and old became convinced that nature could no longer be ignored and the environment taken for granted.  Thousands agreed, including many lawmakers, that major action must be taken to stop air and water pollution, to save endangered species from extinction, prevent indiscriminate use of pesticides, commercializing wilderness areas, and a host of other concerns.

            In an introduction to my book, The Land Still Lives, Senator Nelson wrote, “Today, the crisis of the environment is the biggest challenge facing mankind.  To meet it will call for reshaping our values, to put quality on a par with quantity as a goal of American Life.”

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Earth Day, April 22, is a day we must continue to celebrate.

WHERE TO BUY MY BOOKS:

To purchase Jerry’s books, Including The Land Still Lives, to your local bookstore, order online from bookshop.org, or purchase 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

If you live in the western part of the state, stop at Ruth’s home town, Westby and visit Dregne’s.  and look at their great selection of my books, including my new ones, or order a book by calling them at 1-877-634-4414. They will be happy to help you.

 

 

Tomato Plants

 

The vegetable garden season at Roshara has officially begun.  The tomato seeds are planted and they are up and growing.  It’s hard to believe that these fragile little plants, only an inch or so tall, will, by mid-summer, be four feet tall and taller.  In my mind, as we plant the seeds, I see lush, big red, juicy tomatoes with a taste so much more special than the store-bought tomatoes.  Many of these. Store-bought tomatoes have traveled across the country to be in our grocery stores.

            Natasha, my daughter-in-law and head Roshara gardener, and I planted tomato seeds a couple of weeks ago.  Natasha commented on how tiny some of the tomato seeds were, some of them mere little brown specks. And how so much life could be stored in such a little package.  Such is one of the miracles of growing things from seed.

            My mother, head gardener when I was growing up, always planted tomato seeds on St. Patrick’s Day.  She said that was a green day and the right time to start seeds. She had no grow lights—we had no electricity—so she set the seed pots in a south-facing window in the kitchen.  And they flourished, year after year as I remember.

            I have a grow light, and it helps things along without doubt, especially on the many cloudy days of April.  Once the little tomato plants are a bit taller, we will transplant them to larger pots, and weather permitting, we will put them outside to “harden them in” before setting them out in our Roshara garden by late May.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS:  Planting the first tomato seeds reminds us that spring  has arrived..

WHERE TO BUY MY BOOKS:

To purchase Jerry’s books, Including Garden Wisdom: Lessons Learned From 60 Years of Gardening,  go to your local bookstore, order online from bookshop.org, or purchase 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

If you live in the western part of the state, stop at Ruth’s home town, Westby and visit Dregne’s.  and look at their great selection of my books, including my new ones, or order a book by calling them at 1-877-634-4414. They will be happy to help you.

 

 

The Wind: Friend and Foe

 

Photo by Steve Apps

The wind has always intrigued me.  As a boy I wondered where the wind came from and where it was going?  I wondered what caused the wind to blow and why it came from different directions?  Why it sometimes was a gentle breeze and other times it was a tornado or a hurricane destroying everything in its path?  I asked Pa these questions.  He said he didn’t know the answer, said he didn’t think anybody knew.

Why couldn’t I see the wind?  I could see the rain.  I could see the sun.  I could see water in a lake or stream.  I could see snow.  I knew the wind was there because I could feel it and I  could observe what it could do, without ever seeing it.

            In grade school, I studied the beautiful Dutch windmills and wondered how the Dutch had harnessed the wind providing power to operate their mills.  I  studied sailing ships. Christopher Columbus had three of them that crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1492  and discovered a new land.  How did a sailing ship operate?  How could a sailing ship journey in one direction when the wind might be coming from a different direction?

            As a farm boy, most of my interest in wind concerned its effect on farming and farm operations.  Pa couldn't answer many of my questions, but he knew a lot about the wind and how it both helped and hindered him.  The wind and a farmer are partners, along with the rain, the sun, and the land.  This much I do know.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS:  The wind, both friend and foe.

WHERE TO BUY MY BOOKS:

To purchase Jerry’s books, go to your local bookstore, order online from bookshop.org, or purchase 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

If you live in the western part of the state, stop at Ruth’s hometown, Westby and visit Dregne’s.  and look at their great selection of my books, including my new ones, or order a book by calling them at 1-877-634-4414. They will be happy to help you.

 

 

Bluebird Houses

 

Last Sunday was house cleaning day at Roshara.  Bluebird houses that is.  We have 22 of them, and I’m happy to report that 19 had birds in them last summer.  But, not all bluebirds.  More tree swallows than bluebirds.  We prefer the bluebirds.

To indicate the half-mile boundary line between my brother’s land and my land, we have a long string of bluebird houses.  No fence.  My son-in-law, Paul, is in charge of the bluebird houses, some of which are twenty and more years old.  He repairs them, replaces those that are falling apart, and he, with my daughter, Sue, make sure they are cleaned out and ready for this year’s occupants.

   About now is when the bluebirds return from their sunny home in the south to the cooler summers in the north.  They are beautiful birds.  As someone once wrote: The male bluebird carries on his back the blue of heaven and on his breast the summer sun.  Adding to its beauty, a most pleasant song.

            One of our bluebird houses is but a few feet from our vegetable garden.  One of the pleasures from working in the garden is watching the bluebirds come and go from their house.  And listening to their soothing song.  Unfortunately, over the fifty-plus years that we have had bluebird houses at Roshara, the number of bluebirds occupying the houses has gone down.  But that doesn’t deter us from welcoming those who do come.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Let us not forget to appreciate and enjoy the songbirds of summer, especially the bluebirds.

WHERE TO BUY MY BOOKS:

To purchase Jerry’s books, go to your local bookstore, order online from bookshop.org, or purchase 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

If you live in the western part of the state, stop at Ruth’s home town, Westby and visit Dregne’s.  and look at their great selection of my books, including my new ones, or order a book by calling them at 1-877-634-4414. They will be happy to help you.