Jerry Apps's Blog, page 19

Norwegian Woodpiles

This book was a Christmas present. I thought it was one those Norwegian jokes, like the Ole and Lena jokes of some considerable fame. As many people know, I married into a Norwegian family, so getting this book from my Norwegian, actually she’s half Swedish wife, was not a surprise.

What surprised me was the book was not what I thought it would be. It is not filled with page after page of Norwegian jokes about wood. Yes, I considered that could be a possibility. Norwegians seem to have a never-ending supply of jokes about anything and everything.

My background is German—a serious bunch of folks to be sure. I once saw a German joke book. All the pages were blank.

But back to the Norwegian book about wood. It is not a joke. It was written in Norwegian, and translated into English. And it is 191 pages of serious stuff about everything from how to select an ax to the nuances of wood splitting to an entire chapter on how to build a perfect woodpile. Reading this chapter, you will learn that “The first rule is to ensure that the pile you build is appropriate for the kind of wood you are stacking.”

Here you learn how to make a “sun-wall” woodpile—stacked against the sunny side of your house. Other stack styles you will learn about: a round cord stack and a long cord stack, a closed square pile and an open square pile. A “V” shaped stack and sculptural stack. These Norwegians take their woodpiles seriously.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Listen to those who seem to know, especially if they are of Norwegian background and are talking about wood.

UPCOMING EVENTS:
February 9, 2:15 Garden Expo, Alliant Center, Madison “Ten Simple Things I’ve Learned From Fifty years of gardening”

February 10, 1:00 p.m. Garden Expo, Alliant Center, Madison (Repeat topic)

PURCHASING BOOKS AND DVDs:

Order your signed Apps books and DVDs from 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

Popular recent Books:\

Simple Things: Lessons from the Family Farm (fun to read in winter)

Garden Wisdom (Time to begin planning for the upcoming garden season)

Old Farm Country Cookbook

The Quiet Season (All about winter)

Cold as Thunder (A look into the future)

The Old Pump House

Those who have followed my writing over the years know how much I like old buildings. I have written about barns, grist mills, one-room schools, cheese factories, and breweries. I discovered that every old building has a story to tell; sometimes it just takes a little work to discover the story.

Pictured here is the old pump house at my farm (There is a special beauty in these old farm buildings, especially after a fresh snowfall). The building was built in 1912, when the Coombes family moved their farm buildings across the road from where Tom Stewart, who homesteaded the place, built the first buildings in 1867. For several years, a windmill straddled the east end of the building, pumping water from the well that was located inside.

On a cold winter day in the early 1960s, the nearby farmhouse caught on fire and burned to the ground. The pumphouse also caught on fire, but the neighborhood farmers managed to put out the fire on this old building. To this day, the charred boards show evidence of the fire.

When we bought the place in 1966, the pump house provided our water as well as a storage place. Some years later, when we drilled a new well and installed indoor plumbing in the cabin, we turned the pump house into a woodshed. We continue to cook and heat the cabin with wood stoves.

Our woodshed, now some 107 years old is as sturdy as the farmers who once lived on this land.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Respect the old farm buildings, for each has a story to tell.


UPCOMING EVENTS:
January 8, 9:00 a.m.,Barns of Wisconsin, Auditorium Main Bldg, Wausau Campus of University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Barns of Wisconsin

February 9, 2:15 Garden Expo, Alliant Center, Madison

February 10, 1:00 p.m. Garden Expo, Alliant Center, Madison

PURCHASING BOOKS AND DVDs:

Order your signed Apps books and DVDs from 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
Popular recent Books:

Simple Things: Lessons from the Family Farm (fun to read in winter)

Garden Wisdom (Time to begin planning for the upcoming garden season)

Old Farm Country Cookbook

The Quiet Season (All about winter)

Ponds on The Rise

Some ten thousand years ago, when the glacier retreated, it left behind huge chunks of ice that were buried by soil. As the land warmed, the buried ice chunks melted leaving behind a pond. We have two of these small ponds on our farm.

People in the know call these ponds “water-table ponds,” which means they mark the level of the aquifer. As an aside, our farm is located on the terminal moraine, meaning where the glacier ended. We are also on a water divide. The rivers and streams a couple miles west of us flow to the Wisconsin River, then to the Mississippi and onto the Gulf of Mexico. The waters making up the aquifer under our farm flow east, eventually to Lake Winnebago, the Fox River and ultimately to the Atlantic Ocean.

In 1966, when we bought our farm, our ponds had nearly dried up. But to our surprise, waters in the ponds rose a little more each year until they filled the valleys where they are located by the mid-1980s. But then starting in the early 1990s, they retreated again until each of the ponds was scarcely an acre in size.

This past year, with ample rains, sometimes more than ample (we received 15 inches in ten days in August) the ponds once more rose, nearly to the high water mark they had reached in the late 1980s.

In the above photo, my grandson, Josh home for the Holidays is working on the ice, cutting trees and brush that the pond overran last summer. The high water killed them.
I’m looking forward to 2019 and how our ponds will fare.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Never Curse the Rain.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

January 8, 9:00 a.m.,Wausau. Auditorium Main Bldg, Wausau Campus of University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Barns of Wisconsin

February 9, 2:15 Garden Expo, Alliant Center, Madison

February 10, 1:00 p.m. Garden Expo, Alliant Center, Madison

PURCHASING BOOKS AND DVDs:

How about an Apps book for the New Year? Order your signed Apps books and DVDs from 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
Popular recent Books:
Once a Professor
Old Farm
Farm Country Cookbook
Cold as Thunder (a novel)
Simple Things: Lessons From the Family Farm.
Whispers and Shadows
Never Curse the Rain

A Horseshoe for Luck in 2019

On the home farm, it was not difficult to find a horseshoe. After all, we farmed with horses until our first tractor arrived in 1945. Horseshoes are important for protecting horses’ feet, especially when they regularly walk on hard surfaces. But horseshoes had power beyond the practical application. Pa, along with everyone else, believed that a horseshoe meant good luck. Sort of in the same category as finding a four-leaf clover.

The horseshoe as a good luck piece goes back several hundreds of years. Some early Europeans believed that iron had magical powers, and had the ability to drive away evil. And many people had great reverence for the blacksmith, who was believed to have a lucky trade because he worked with both iron and fire.

Pa did not hang a horseshoe over the doorway into our farm house. He didn’t go that far in his belief about this bent piece of iron as a good luck charm. But many people did, and still do. There was some argument as to whether the horseshoe should be hung with the heels up, forming a “U.” Others argued that to be effective, the heels should hang heels down.

When hung with the heels up, all of your luck is kept from running out of the shoe. But if you hung it heels down, good luck would flow to everyone who walked under it. Seems to me, if you want to cover your good luck bases, you would have two horsehoes, one pointed up and the other pointed down. I must confess, that the horseshoe pictured here hangs on a nail in my garage, sort of pointed sideways.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Much good luck to all in 2019.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Happy New Year.
PURCHASING BOOKS AND DVDs:

How about an Apps book for the New Year? Order your signed Apps books and DVDs from 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

Popular recent Books:

Once a Professor
Old Farm
Farm Country Cookbook
Cold as Thunder (a novel)
Simple Things: Lessons From the Family Farm.
Whispers and Shadows
Never Curse the Rain

Plus Fifty and Still Blooming

My mother’s long-living Christmas cactus stood near an east window in our dining room on the home farm. By early November, all but three rooms on the first floor of our drafty farmhouse that we heated with woodstoves had been closed off. By Thanksgiving, the first blossom on the Christmas cactus opened, and by Christmas day, it was covered with blossoms, competing with the Christmas tree for its striking appearance. The cactus didn’t seem to mind the cold December mornings. After the woodstoves had gone out sometime in the night, a profound chill visited the entire house, including the rooms heated with woodstoves. On the coldest, windy days, it was mid-morning before the dining room reached a comfortable temperature.

The Christmas cactus pictured above came from that old cactus my mother must have had for at least 50 years. Interestingly, our present cactus, is well over 50 years old. It blossoms by Thanksgiving, and keeps on blossoming well into the new year. Then it rests. When the danger of evening frosts disappear in the spring, I take it outside, set it under a big maple tree and mostly forget about it. Until the danger of frost returns in the fall, then I bring it inside, set it by a east window, in a cool place, water it well and add a bit of fertilizer.

Without fail, by Thanksgiving time it shows off its first blossom. Every year. Including this year. For more than 50 years.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Few things are as dependable as our Christmas cactus.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

PURCHASING BOOKS AND DVDs:

Christmas is just around the corner. Order your signed Apps books and DVDs for Christmas presents from the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose. Phone: 920-622-3835 for prices and ordering.
Patterson Memorial Library
500 Division Street
Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.
www.wildroselibrary.org

For books and DVDS, with a Christmas message, consider the following (all are available for purchase at the library).

--One Room School (DVD)
--One-Room County Schools.
--Farm Winter with Jerry Apps,(DVD)
--The Quiet Season.
-Old Farm Country Cookbook.

History Tree

The Christmas tree is up. The tree lights are on. The tree decorations are hung with care. And the memories return. I remember the Christmas trees when I was a kid on the home farm. We had no lights at the time as we had no electricity. Pa would never think of putting candles on the tree. He was afraid of fire. He allowed no candles in the house, except for those that appeared on birthday cakes. Our tree was beautiful with big, shiny ornaments that my mother carefully stored away and brought out in early December to hang on the tree.

I must have been about four years old when I remember spotting a toy barn under the tree on Christmas along with toy cows and horses. It was likely the following year that I received my first and only toy train. It included a half dozen little red metal cars, and a black, wind-up locomotive. I still have that special little train, which I played with for years. It still works; it was built to last and last it did.

Today, and for the past several decades, our Christmas tree and its decorations have become a family history tree. Each year, Ruth writes down the essential happenings for the year and puts the information in a little matchbox that we hang on the tree. There are also unique ornaments for each of our children, grandchildren, and great grand grandchildren. To find the history of our family—we have three children, seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren—inspect our Christmas tree.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Christmas trees can become history trees.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

December 15, 10 a.m. to 3:p.m. Macfarlanes, Sauk City. Presentation, radio show, and book signing.

PURCHASING BOOKS AND DVDs:

Christmas is just around the corner. Order your signed Apps books and DVDs for Christmas presents from the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose. Phone: 920-622-3835 for prices and ordering.
Patterson Memorial Library
500 Division Street
Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.
www.wildroselibrary.org

The following DVDs are available for purchase at the library. Each is about one-hour long and each was aired on Public TV.

• One Room School, Based on the book, One-Room County Schools.

• Emmy Winner, A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps, based on the book, The Quiet Season.

• Jerry Apps A Farm Story, based on Every Farm Tells a Story

• The Land with Jerry Apps, based on Whispers and Shadows.

• Never Curse the Rain, based on the book with the same title.

The Perfect Christmas Tree

Dark and dreary. Chilly but not cold. Our day for searching out and cutting Christmas trees at our farm. An annual event for the past several years. Always fun, and ever a challenge as over the past couple of decades we’ve planted about twenty-five thousand trees to choose from. Most of them are red pine. A few of them Norway Spruce. A handful are jack pine. Add to this list several hundred Scotch pines that self-seeded and are of various sizes. The searching crew—daughter-in-law, Natasha (with the saw), daughter Sue, and two young lads that Natasha cares for.

And add several hundred, maybe thousand, white pines to the mix. When we bought the place in 1966, there was a former cornfield just south of our cabin. On the west and north sides of this field, previous owners had planted a white pine windbreak in the 1930s. This was during the depth of the Great Depression and the associated drought that raised havoc with the sand country in central Wisconsin.

Today, that cornfield, about six acres or so, is a naturally seeded white pine plantation, with white pine trees ranging from a foot or so tall, to those that are of timber quality. So the Christmas tree searchers had many choices: red pine, white pine, Scotch Pine. The spruce are still too little for consideration, and jack pines are in a class by themselves.

“How about this one?”
“Too scraggly?”
“This one?”
“Too short.”

And so the time passed as we searched, discussed, debated, and finally agreed on three trees. One red pine, one white pine, and one Scotch pine. What could be fairer?

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: What fun it is to tramp through the woods in search of the perfect Christmas tree.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Monday, December 3, 7:00 p.m., All Wisconsin public TV stations. One Room School with Jerry Apps.

December 9, 4:30-6:30. 702 E. Johnson St., Madison.
"Water, Woods & The Pioneer Life: Three Wisconsin Authors on Process & Publication" 702WI teams up with Wisconsin Historical Society Press to present a panel discussion with three Wisconsin authors: Jerry Apps, Kathleen Ernst & Marnie Mamminga. A book signing will follow. Tickets are $15 for the event only or $20 for the event and a copy of Telling Your Story by Jerry Apps. Purchase tickets online, www.702wi.com.

December 15, 10 a.m. to 3:p.m. Macfarlanes, Sauk City. Presentation, radio show, and book signing.

Christmas is just around the corner. Order your signed Apps books and DVDs for Christmas presents from the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose. Phone: 920-622-3835 for prices and ordering.
Patterson Memorial Library
500 Division Street
Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.
www.wildroselibrary.org
Featured books: You can purchase these separately, or as a package of four;
THE QUIET SEASON
WHISPERS AND SHADOWS
NEVER CURSE THE RAIN
SIMPLE THINGS: LESSONS FROM THE FAMILY FARM

Winter Around The Corner

A late fall sun slowly crept over the eastern horizon. The thermometer reported eight degrees this morning as I made my way from the bedroom to the woodstove that provides most of the heat for our cabin. With some crumpled up newspaper, a couple sticks of cured split oak wood, and the magic of some commercial fire starter, the old stove sputtered to life.

Looking out the cabin window to a newly piled stack of firewood, now a little snow covered, I thought about my days on the farm as a kid. This time of the year and on into the “just around the corner” winter season, we began to relax a bit. The haymows in the barn were stacked high with alfalfa, clover, and bromegrass hay. The corn crib was filled to running over with yellow cob corn. Our wooden stave silo was filled with corn silage, and the oat bins in the granary sagged from the seasons annual threshing. The woodpile, many times larger than the one pictured here, stood ready for the long, cold winter ahead.

As I looked out the window at a chilly landscape, I thought about how much the winter season drove everything that we did on the farm. All of the work from spring to fall centered on preparations for winter. For providing sufficient shelter and feed for the farm animals. And making sure the family had shelter and food to last until spring.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: As we finished preparing for winter, we looked forward to slowing down a bit.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

December 9, 4:30-6:30. 702 E. Johnson St., Madison.

"Water, Woods & The Pioneer Life: Three Wisconsin Authors on Process & Publication" 702WI teams up with Wisconsin Historical Society Press to present a panel discussion with three Wisconsin authors: Jerry Apps, Kathleen Ernst & Marnie Mamminga. A book signing will follow. Tickets are $15 for the event only or $20 for the event and a copy of Telling Your Story by Jerry Apps. Purchase tickets online, www.702wi.com.

December 15, 10 a.m. to 3:p.m. Macfarlanes, Sauk City. Presentation, radio show, and book signing.

Christmas is just around the corner. Order your Apps books and DVDs for Christmas presents from the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose. Phone: 920-622-3835 for prices and ordering.
Patterson Memorial Library
500 Division Street
Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.
www.wildroselibrary.org


This week’s featured books:

• Simple Things: Lessons From the Family Farm
The importance of the simple things
.
• Once a Professor
Teaching at a major university during the turbulent 60s

Opening Day

Opening day of the deer gun season in Wisconsin. A sacred day for thousands of hunters who would not think of attending a wedding, a funeral, an anniversary or a birthday party on this day.

I am at my trusty deer stand, at the crack of dawn. Except dawn hasn’t cracked as it is cloudy, dark, and cold. And quiet. So quiet. No bird sound. No wind rustling the tops of the naked oaks. A dusting of snow covers the landscape and the frozen, snow-covered pond that is to my left. I am sitting near a much-used deer trail. It includes fresh tracks, made last night? Promising. Surely a deer will wander by.

A half hour goes by. Nothing. No squirrels. No bluejays. No crows And no deer. I pour a cup of coffee from my thermos. Inevitably a deer will wander by when I do not have my rifle in hand. That’s when they usually show up. Not this time. Still nothing.

An hour goes by. Nothing. I pour more coffee. And then, strange as it may sound, I begin enjoying the nothingness of the morning. No phone ringing. No radio blaring. No loud talking. I can’t remember when I have experienced such absolute quiet, such complete “nothing happening” time. I sit back and relax. Enjoying the morning. Long ago, I concluded that deer hunting is so much more than bagging a deer. This is one more of those times.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Sometimes nothing can be everything.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

December 15, 10 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Macfarlanes Sauk City. Presentation, radio show, and book signing.

Christmas is just around the corner. Order your Apps books and DVDs for Christmas presents from the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose. Phone: 920-622-3835 for prices and ordering.
Patterson Memorial Library
500 Division Street
Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.
www.wildroselibrary.org


Featured Books of the Week

Jerry’s Seven Novels

Cold as Thunder
A look into a challenging future when climate change is denied and one political party rules.

Tamarack River Ghost
Plans for a large industrial hog farm upset the nearby rural community

Blue Shadows Farm
A Family fights to keep control of their farmland with mounting pressures to sell.

Cranberry Red
When research results in unintended consequences that cause food safety concerns and raise havoc in Ames County

In A Pickle
A Story about the demise of the small family farm and how their disappearance affects the people who own them

The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County
When a sand mine has its eye on a rural community and the uproar it creates among the Citizens

The Travels of Increase Joseph
A historical novel about a preacher who advocates the need for soil conservation in the 1850s

All copies of these novels are signed by the author and available for sale at the Wild Rose Library as a fundraiser for the Friend of the Library.

The Wood Makers

Last Saturday was our annual “wood making” day at Roshara. We bring as many volunteers from the family who are available, sometimes the number reaches a dozen or so when kids and grandkids are there. But Alas, the grandkids had seen fit to be elsewhere this year. So it was back to the long-time reliables. My daughter, Sue and son-in-law, Paul worked on Saturday along with brother, Don who lent a helping hand. My son, Steve and daughter-in-law Natasha worked on Sunday.

A note on the weather. Saturday was a beautiful, sunny day. No wind and temperatures hanging in the high forties. Sunday was a miserable, cold, all day rain. But weather or not, wood making went on. Earlier I had spotted two trees that were close to the trail. One dead, and one nearly so.

With Paul on the chainsaw and Sue helping with the cant hook, by noon we had a pile of blocks ready for splitting. I was in charge of hauling, an easy task. I drove a four-wheel drive all-terrain vehicle with a dump box. When I was a kid we toted limbs and tree trunks to the farmstead from the oak woods with our trusty team of horses and a steel-wheeled wagon.

For years we split the blocks with a splitting maul, with Steve becoming an expert at doing it. But now, as we all are older, I purchased an electric log splitter that does the job twice as fast with a fourth of the effort.

The splitting continued on Sunday, in the rain (the splitter was in a shed). Sue on Saturday and Natasha on Sunday (in the rain) created a neat woodpile outside the woodshed, where it will dry until next summer when we will carry it into the woodshed.

With sore muscles all around, one more annual farm task is completed. Aside from the hard work, there is a certain beauty to the work (I never thought I would say that). The smell of freshly cut trees, and the artful pile of split blocks. Plus of course a great feeling of accomplishment.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: There is much more to making wood than cutting down a tree and splitting the blocks.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

November 13, 6:00 p.m. Patterson Memorial Library, Wild Rose. Central Wisconsin launch of SIMPLE THINGS, LESSONS FROM THE FAMILY FARM.

December 15, 10 a.m. to 2:p.m. Macfarlanes Sauk City. Presentation, radio show, and book signing.

Christmas is just around the corner. Order your Apps books and DVDs for Christmas presents from the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose. Phone: 920-622-3835 for prices and ordering.
Patterson Memorial Library
500 Division Street
Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.
www.wildroselibrary.org

Jerry’s latest books are:
• Simple Things: Lessons From the Family Farm
• Once a Professor
• Cold As Thunder (A Novel)

Jerry’s most recent Public TV show (DVD)
One Room School (Aired on Public TV stations)(Based on the book, One-Room County Schools.

Additional DVDs of Public TV Shows (DVDs)
• Emmy Winner, A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps (based on The Quiet Season book.)
• Jerry Apps a Farm Story (based on Every Farm Tells a Story)
• The Land with Jerry Apps, (based on the book Whispers and Shadows,)
• Never Curse the Rain, (based on the book with the same title)

The library has several of Jerry’s signed books for sale including several of Jerry’s nonfiction books:
• Every Farm Tells a Story (Revised edition)
• Living a County Year (Revised edition)
• One Room Country Schools
• Never Curse the Rain
• Whispers and Shadows
• The Quiet Season
• Old Farm Country Cookbook,
• Wisconsin Agriculture: A History
• Roshara Journal (with photos by Steve Apps)
• Old Farm: A History
• Telling Your Story—a guidebook for those who want to write their own stories.
• Horse Drawn Days

Additionally, the library has for sale Jerry’s six published novels:
• The Travels of Increase Joseph
• In a Pickle
• Blue Shadows Farm
• Tamarack River Ghost
• The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County.
• Cold as Thunder