Have you seen any cranes or anything
over here?
I haven't this morning so far.
One of the interesting things that I
experienced as a kid was
my father was one who
was curious about
a lot of things,
especially was he curious about the
out-of-doors.
And his way of
showing me the out of doors,
come along with me and we're
going to take a walk today.
And these walks happen generally on
Sunday afternoons because
we were farm people.
And there was farm work to do all
week long.
And we would check the old crop and
the corn crop and the hay crop,
and we would check as to whether or
not the cows had enough to eat for
the next while in the pasture.
We would walk slowly, and
would keep our mouths shut.
My dad was a stickler
for walking slowly
and quietly.
He said, what you need to do,
if you really want to understand
nature, is
not not pay so much attention
to what everybody else pays
attention to the
loud noises and the stuff that's
easily seen he
said learn how to
listen for the whispers
listen for what is not
ordinarily heard
and the second thing he said don't
just look with the bright light
shines Learn
to look in the shadows.
Because it's in the shadows that
there's a whole other world.
Learn to look in the shadow
and listen for
the whispers because
the extent to which you do that
is the extent which you will come
to know nature
and know it deeply,
know far more
important than simply
becoming acquainted with.
Further, whether it's an
old barn, a field of corn,
or an oak woods,
the extent to which you know it
is the extent of which you
will take care of it.
That's a powerful message,
and I've never forgotten that.
The Land with Jerry
Apps was funded in
part by Holiday
Vacations,
Ron and Colleen Wires,
Stanley J.
Cottrell Fund,
Carol Gaynor,
and the National Endowment for
the Humanities.
Explore new worlds and new ideas
through programs like this.
Made available for everyone.
Through contributions to your PBS
station from viewers like
you.
Thank you.
Are you in two rows or what?
I'll let Grandpa tell you what to
do.
Yeah,
don't mess with the lettuce yet.
We've got two onions.
Start with that.
Each take a handful.
That's good.
Alright, so why don't one of you go
down one row,
and one of go down the other row.
I find them a little closer together
than those I find on the boat like
that.
Yes, OK.
So I'm gonna go on that rope in over
there.
My earliest memories up here are
actually playing in the garden
and taking gator rides and
walking around up here, learning
about stuff that I didn't really
notice before back at my own house,
about different trees,
about seeing a caterpillar,
wondering what it's doing, wondering
where it's going, how it is
related to everything else around
it. Back when my grandfather was
young, everybody was on farms
and now essentially like
less than 5%, 2%.
Not as many people are as
intertwined with nature as back
then.
My dad's knowledge of nature
was something I think that
was just a part of him.
I've never been able to figure out
really why he had this interest
other than he
was a farmer.
He had limited formal education,
fifth grade.
Something else he always said, just
because you have a lot of education
doesn't mean you know anything.
He told me that often.
He told as the years went along,
he kept telling me that.
You see a little on the maple right
there, see that?
He wanted to share what he knew.
And his way of sharing was to
show me.
And he would quiz me all the time.
What kind of a tree is that?
Geez, I don't, I just told you last
week, that is a black oak.
Remember this, that's a black Oak.
And what's a Black Oak good for?
I don't know what a Black.
It's good for firewood, it's
good for lumber, oh really?
And we did that again
and again.
Okay you guys, this is a quiz now.
Right behind you.
What's that little tree right there
set of?
Oak No,
it's an aspen.
It's a black cherry black
cherry. Yeah, you know
for you. You could just
Tell them by looking at it.
I'm not so good with the trees.
Birch is the one I can tell.
But besides that, it's pretty hard
for me to do that.
But yeah, it' good.
I like the quizzes.
Keeps me on my toes.
With my age and my group, I mean,
if we want to know something, we can
just Google it.
And so I think a lot of times we
have all this information yet with
all the trees and getting to hear
the sounds of the water and the
sounds of the leaves crackling and
the sound of the wind. You don't get
that when you're just at home in
front of your computer in front of
the TV.
What's interesting about the oaks,
and this is an old thing that my
dad taught me, when the oak
leaf is the size of a
squirrel's ear,
do you know the size a squirrels
ear?
Then it's time to plant your corn.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, so you check.
First off, you have to know the size
of squirrels' ear.
Yeah. That's if you don't know that.
It's gonna be pretty small. If you
don't know that, you're lost.
But then you check the
oak tree and it's about that big
around.
That's the time to plant your corn.
Yeah, and that's really kind of
interesting because my dad never
paid any attention to the calendar.
See the maples?
See the red on the maple?
Those maples now are in
early spring bloom.
That's the red that you see.
That's really a flower.
Maple flower comes out first.
I'm just really curious about
biology in general and about how
the biology of life works.
It's all very interesting to me.
It goes back to the curiosity of
what my grandfather was talking
about with his dad.
He just loved to sit under a
tree and listen to it talk
to you.
Because every tree, just like
the land, has a message that it
wants you to hear, a tree
talks to you in a language
of the tree, but it's speaking.
And the red pine and the white
pine and the aspen each
speak differently.
The aspen is all excited in
the leaves flutter.
And the white pine has a
soothing, quiet
message.
These are the sorts of lessons that
he taught.
He didn't call them lessons.
This pond has a pair of
geese nesting on it.
In fact, there was a nest right over
here at one time, but it may have
flooded out when the
water came up.
I think my favorite part is
usually like the pond area.
I mean, I always remember coming
down to the ponds because that's
where all the wildlife gathers.
That's where everything comes
together.
And I think I enjoy just kind of
sitting near the pond and listening
to, you have birds meet
there. You have little frogs.
You have, you know, every once in a
while you can see the fish swimming
through.
I hope that it can be like this,
like for my kids and my grandkids,
because I mean that everything
is evolved and intertwined with
nature, so.
I think it's not as high a priority
as it should be.
Do geese just pair?
Are they just pairs when they come
and nest or do they have like lots
of geese?
That a lot of people don't
understand, they
pair for life.
Really? Yep, they're monogamous,
they are really interesting in that
respect, different from ducks.
And one of the things that I still
enjoy very much
is the geese coming and going.
I know everything is right with the
world when the gees are
flying in the spring and flying
south in the fall.
When they quit flying, they're like
the canary in the mine, I think.
If we don't see the geese flying
north and south, that's something
that's wrong with the
environment.
Out here, I tell you, I really enjoy
them because sometimes you come
down here on this pond and just
sit for an hour and
you'll hear them talking
to each other,
the pair.
I don't want to talk about,
I suspect they're worried about
the eggs are gonna hatch and all
that sort of thing, but they do.
How's your summer, Mabel?
Well, it's pretty good.
How about yours, John?
I mean, that's what I think they
were saying. I don't know what they were say.
How are the young ones?
He always has stories to tell.
He always talks about how different
animals are communicating in
different ways, how they have their
own little conversations going on,
how they're always thinking about
what they're going to do and how
their home life is.
Similar names, but different
species.
I go to James Madison Memorial High
School. When I say that I'm going up
to a farm, they don't really know
what that means in general.
They just think I'm gonna go camping
in some campsite,
but no, I'm just learning about
outdoors.
It's almost an infinite amount of
knowledge that you can actually get
from nature just by walking around
out here.
This very patch of ground is
10,000 years old.
How do I know that?
That's when the last glacier
retreated.
And we happened to be standing on
the terminal moraine,
the end of the glacier.
That's why it's so hilly, and there
are a lot of stones here.
And the ponds were big
chunks of ice left
over from the glacier, and
when the ice melted, it
dropped down, and that
formed the pons.
Well, the history of this place now.
10,000 years ago, there was nothing
here.
The glacier, it scraped everything.
There were no trees, nothing.
And then, I don't know how many
thousands of years ago the Native
Americans came into this
country.
And many, many years later, this was
still Menominee Indian country.
The Menominees traveled
from their trapping grounds
in Adams County through
this very land, right here.
To Berlin, which is on the Fox
River, where there was a trading
post.
And they camped, I suspect,
right up in here.
Now, one of the stories that I
learned, the person who
owned this place ahead of us, the
Combses, Mrs. Combs
was in her 80s when I was probably
16, and
I would come down here and she would
tell me stories about
how the Monominies would travel
through here and would come up
to the house and
trade maple syrup.
And maple sugar for
salt, because they were always
short of salt.
And I thought she was just telling
me a story, I really did.
And then when I did some historical
digging on this property and
looked at the first survey
map, which was drawn in 1851,
a squiggly little line, and the
surveyor had written Indian
Trail.
Right through here?
Yeah, I mean, it's unbelievable
how. She was not spoofing
me at all, she was telling me what
she remembered as a little girl.
Every piece of land has a story
to tell.
You just gotta know how to look for
it.
The story is in the trees, the story
is the land, the story
in where these two ponds
maybe went together.
And it's such fun to stand and
wonder, what's this land trying to
tell me?
And sometimes you come up with
exactly the wrong answer, but
it gives you a starting place.
And that's why it's kind of fun.
We've gotta learn how to listen.
We don't know how listen to the
land.
Sounds a little corny.
But that's what we have to do.
That smells good.
Burgers?
Oh yeah.
Hi, I'm John Muskowski and we're
watching The Land, this wonderful
public television documentary with
Jerry Apps.
And I'm here with Jerry apps.
Jerry, could you tell us a little
bit about the inspiration for the
book that then inspired this work?
It comes from my father,
John.
He was one who believed
that we ought to look in places
where other people don't look when
we go on a walk, and we did a lot of
walks in the country.
And he also said that we should
listen to things that people don't
t ordinarily hear. We should listen
for the whispers.
So look in the shadows and listen to
the whispers, that's the inspiration
for the book, inspiration for The TV
Show.
Another program on public television
is the third from Jerry Apps.
Possible because of
viewer support, possible because of
your support.
We ask you to go to the phone now
and call with your pledge to
make these great programs possible.
Hi, I'm Stephanie Elkins, I am one
of the music hosts on Wisconsin
Public Radio and what
a wonderful program this is tonight.
So many people in Wisconsin
have either grown up on a
farm or have friends and
neighbors that are on a far and we
can relate to this kind of wonderful
program and we're asking for your
support of Wisconsin Public
Television, your support for this
program and when you a gift
in the amount of six dollars a month
or seventy-two dollars
at once or more.
We'll send you the DVD that you're
watching right now, The Land
with Jerry Apps.
And it's meaningful and wonderful
and you'll be able to watch it and
share it. And for a gift
of $15 a month or
$180 as a
one-time gift, we have a wonderful
bundle for you.
It includes the book that
inspired the DVD that you are
watching right.
Whispers and Shadows, as
Jerry just mentioned, a naturalist's
memoir and it also includes
not just the land that you're
seeing tonight, but also
a farm winter and
a farm story, three
hours of wonderful
storytelling and imagery of
Wisconsin farm life
from the 30s and the 40s
and great stories.
And it's yours for a pledge of $15
a month or $180.
Make your pledge right now at
the number that is on your screen.
I'm Kermin Eckes and I'm so happy to
be here with you this evening during
this presentation of The Land with
Jerry Apps.
Jerry is a wonderful treasure.
He has that way of preserving
stories and the memories of
people and of the environment around
him and presenting it in a way that
resonates with all of us.
When you call the number on your
screen, you talk to one of your
volunteers and show your support for
your local PBS station, you're
truly helping to bring shows like
Jerry and all of the wonderful
programming that you'll see on your
local PBS station.
That's because of you, because of
your support.
And it starts with one phone call,
one at a time, one person
stepping forward and saying, yes,
I'm willing to do this.
Because of that, we're able to
continue to bring you great shows
like this. So please, take the time
now to call the number on your
screen.
We're watching The Land with Jerry
Apps and we'll be back to that
program in a minute as we explore
these issues of land and
the environment and as you do it
with your grandsons.
Jerry, you and Ruth are generous
supporters of public television.
We have done that for years and
we will continue to do that because
my wife and I know the
power of public television.
We know that the programs
are authentic, they are
interesting, they're inspiring,
and what more can I say?
Those are reasons that
we have contributed and will
continue do so.
And we know that from people who
watch the show and
they watch it together and they
watch it with their family, they get
the DVDs and they watch it
their grandchildren.
What an amazing, wonderful thing.
Well, thank you for that and thank
you supporting public television
with your contributions makes
these programs possible.
And when you make a pledge of
support right now, we're going to
send you the DVD that you're
watching. It is marvelous.
And it's one that you gonna want to
share with your family and
your friends. It's one, that
children can relate to.
It's when that all of us can relate
the land.
And that's available for your pledge
of $6 a month or
more or a one-time pledge of 72
dollars by calling the number
on your screen.
And for a really special
thank you gift, We would love to
send you. A bundle that includes
a book called Whispers and
Shadows. That's the one that Sheri
was just talking about.
It's the inspiration for the
program that you're watching right
now, full of great observations
about nature and stories about
walking.
And we also have the DVD
that you are watching right now, The
Land, and one of A
Farm Winter.
And then the one started it
all. A farm story with
Jerry Abbs.
This kind of programming is really
meaningful.
The book is marvelous and
Jerry mentioned that he's been
keeping a journal since he was a boy
and he's got that eye.
It's really special.
Make a pledge of support by calling
the number on your screen right now
and thank you.
One thing that the land celebrates,
again, a theme that we've heard over
and over in this presentation, is
that idea of curiosity.
You think about Jerry talking about
learning from his father and from
the people around him and how his
father shared by showing
things to him.
Or even think about Gerry's grandson
Ben, who said that he's discovered
that there's an infinite amount of
knowledge out in nature,
always something new to discover.
It's kind of like that on PBS.
There's always something here for
everybody.
On your local PBS station, whether
it's a special presentation like The
Land with Jerry Apps, or the shows
that you come to know and
love every week, Nova, Masterpiece,
Nature, many, many different shows,
a little bit of something for
everyone. You can help support that
quality programming by calling the
number on your screen.
And with your gift of $15 a month,
you can receive all three
documentaries that we've been
talking about with Jerry Apps about
growing up on the farm on the
40s and the 50s, and
the book Whispers in Shadows.
Now, Jerry, we were driving together
a little back and your
phone started to ding and it dinged
and it dinged.
And you said, oh, somebody
is showing one of my
shows because you get this
wonderful messages from people all
over the country.
It's the truth, and that's how I
could tell where the show was
being aired from the emails that
I was getting, and I would get a
bunch from California, and then I
would get some from North Carolina,
I'd get some Minnesota, from
Alaska, all over.
And I was so humbled to
realize that people across the
country, and Canada, a lot of
response from Canada, were
interested in what farm life was all
about.
And I think it's because, Jerry,
you share their story,
that you bring it together.
People see so much in their own
lives in these stories.
And as we'll talk with you later
about how this has
inspired people to share it with
their family, just as we're seeing
in the land, as you share it your
grandsons, which is really
wonderful.
Thanks for your call and support.
And when you support this program
right now, we have a wonderful thank
you gift for you. We'd love to send
you the DVD of the program that
you're watching, The Land with Jerry
Epps. That's available for your
pledge of $6 a month
or $72 all at
once. And we have wonderful
collection of all
of Jerry's DVDs plus the
book that inspired the one that you
are watching right now.
Those are available for a pledge of
15 dollars a month or
$180 all at one and
that includes A farm story,
that's the one that started it all.
It includes the land that you're
watching right now.
And it also includes a
farm winter.
That's part of the bundle that
you'll get when you make a pledge of
support at the number on
your screen. Thank you.
That we've heard over and over in
this program is the idea of
sustaining and preserving and
conserving, whether it's the land,
whether that's keeping the memories
alive of the people and their
stories.
That's something that's been a theme
all the way throughout the land with
Jerry Apps.
And of course, we're able to bring
this because of people like you who
say, my PBS station is
important to me, it's something I
want to help sustain in my
community.
For people all around me, and of
course that starts with you coming
forward with an ongoing monthly
contribution and helping to
preserve the wonderful stories that
are being told and presented on your
local PBS station.
Great way to do that is by becoming
a sustaining member of your local
station. It's an easy way for you to
make an ongoing monthly contribution
to your station.
So if that's something you're
interested in, call the number on
your screen and talk to one of the
volunteers now.
It's been really rewarding to
work with Jerry Aps on these public
television documentaries that we
have presented to you over the last
few years, including this
program, The Land.
It's especially rewarding because
of the comments from people
all over the country sharing how
much this story, how much
his story has meant to them and how
it's inspired them to share their
story, to talk to their children,
to write down
their stories. These kinds of things
are possible because of public
television, and it's possible
because you support it with your
dollars. So we encourage you to go
to the phone now, make your pledge
of support, make stories like this
possible on your public television
station.
A black-eyed Susan in full
bloom.
See that right there?
Isn't that a beautiful wildflower?
Yeah, it is. Black-eyed Susan.
Your mother's name is Susan, and
she always called these black-eye
Susies.
It's just kind of a cute flower.
All right, on to the blackshear.
Growing a crop, you do that
in terms of the seasons.
There's a planting season, there's a
growing season, there's harvesting
season, there's planning
season, and then you do it over
again. It's a yearly cycle.
But growing a piece of land is
not a yearly cycle.
It's multiple year cycle.
And it probably goes in circles.
I don't know what that circle is.
I don't know where we are on this
property after 40
years. I don't know if that's the
beginning, if that's in
the middle, that's halfway.
I don 't know that.
And I don´t care.
My grandkids, they'll have to
come along after me and ask the same
questions. Where are we in that
cycle?
And if they're smart about it, they
would say, but it really doesn't
matter.
This is a very interesting piece of
history for this farm, this
hump of dirt.
People say, what is that hump?
Well, in the 1930s,
this entire area was
plowed and planted to
crops.
And during the time of the
Dust Bowl in states like
Oklahoma and Kansas,
people have realized that we also
had a very severe Dust Bowl
here in central Wisconsin.
I remember as a kid,
the clouds of dust just
boiling up out of the west.
And our home farm is only a couple
miles from here.
And the dust was
so thick that when
the sun went down in the afternoon,
the whole sky was a purple,
reddish color.
Because of the dust, it
literally tore the plants right out
of ground and buried
them.
Not only did you lose the crop,
but you lost probably as much
as three, four, five inches of
topsoil.
It moved it from west to
east. The farms all moved from west
to east on the wind.
This particular farm,
the dust accumulated right where
we're standing on this big
hump.
And why did it stop
here?
Because at the very beginning
of that dry period,
John Combs, who owned this farm,
planted this row of big white
pine and that stopped
the wind and thus the
blowing dirt all accumulated in this
big home.
That big roll that you see down
there. We planted those in 66,
67. Your mother helped plant those,
as a matter of fact.
But they don't compare to
that white pine that we see right
there, for example, which is 85
years old. Look how big it is.
I mean, it's a huge tree,
a beautiful tree.
Interesting to know the history of
your land and if you didn't really
know that then you just think that
there's these random trees that are
all in a row.
It's not just nature that's shaping
itself, but humans
that are helping it.
It makes you seem a lot more little
compared to everything else.
I mean, your life, I guess,
we're basically 20 and these
trees are 40, 50 years old.
So something that's two
and a half times your age.
I think it makes me look forward to
the future and how this is going to
look in another 20 years or so.
Passing on what
the land was about to the next
generation and the generation after
that without doing any
harm to it.
I'm trying to do that, but
I'm tryin' to improve on what
had previously happened because this
land had been almost
destroyed through wind and
water erosion, huge
gullies.
And so now slowly it's healing,
and it's taking many years, but it's
healin'. It's getting better.
And there are no gullies, and
there's no windy erosion.
Here you guys, where you see the
plowing, that furrow,
I plowed that this spring, and
we planted. So you can see the
little trees growing in there.
You might ask, why did you
plow a furrow before you planted the
trees?
Do you know why? I don't know why.
Do you why, Ben?
I have no clue.
Oh, come on now.
Look at all the grass around here.
For a tree to grow, for any plant to
grow it needs light.
And by plowing a furrow, I
have given the tree a chance.
We start planting usually by
the middle of April and
I don't think we've missed a year
that I didn't plant some trees here.
Sometimes only 100, sometimes,
four years ago we planted 7,000.
So, and in the early
days we planted 1,000 every year.
Four rows all the way around.
And then we plant a little patches,
100 trees here and 100 trees there.
How come you put them in patches?
This farm is very subject
to water erosion,
meaning gullies form when it rains
hard.
And so the steep side hills I
planted to trees to stop water
erosion. That was the main reason.
So how come you left all this open
then?
Well, this whole area I
left open because underneath
red pine that are planted this
thick, there's absolutely
nothing, almost nothing that
grows underneath them, a tree
desert.
And besides that, I get a big
kick out of prairie restoration.
This land was first plowed, can
you believe this now?
It was plowed in 1867
with oxen.
And it was all big, tall grass
at the time.
And from 1867
to 1966,
it had been farmed.
Plowed, planted the corn,
planted oats, planted hay.
This is a poor farm, it's sandy.
And so one of the reasons I've done
this is that I wanted to
see what would happen
if you just left it alone.
And then I allowed the wild
grasses and the wild flowers.
To emerge by themselves.
And people said to me, you can do
all the weeds.
This is interesting.
You don't have to worry about the
weeds in two or three years, the
weeds will disappear and
the native grasses and the
wildflowers will start coming all by
themselves How does that happen?
I don't know how it happens.
That's the mystery of it.
And that's the fun of it because
almost every year I
discover a wildflower I have not
known, a wild grass
I've not seen before.
It's called big bluestem
because...
You see that bluish tinge to it?
Yeah. Yeah, this is a nice little
patch right here.
By late August, early September,
this will be, it will be
like this, maybe about this tall.
And not only will it grow six feet
tall, it's got a
root system that goes six feet down.
One of the interesting questions is
how old do you think it is?
You know, it could be 500 years
old.
Wow.
Older than that.
I've known a lot of people who
know all kinds of facts.
They can identify all of these
plants and they know the Latin names
and they know it all, and
that's wonderful.
But that's just the beginning.
Accumulating facts does not mean
that you know.
And knowing means, oh,
so much more.
It's so much deeper.
It's a connection to history.
It's spiritual thing, to be
honest about it.
Knowing is the deepest
kind of way of relating
to something.
It's a connection between
the human person and
this thing called the land.
Knowing is something that
some of us strive for,
I've been striving for, you never
quite get there, but
striving for it is so much
fun, and it's so
important.
And to stop.
With the identification of a
plant and saying, well, now I know
that plant.
You don't know that planet at all.
You just know its name.
Just down the trail a little bit,
is the most unattractive tree you
ever could imagine.
That's true, and if you understand
in esthetics and beauty
and a wonderful
symmetrical tree that
is appealing to all,
this ain't it.
This scraggly looking specimen is
a jack pine.
I have no idea how old it is.
It could be 75 years old.
It grows in every direction.
It is certainly nothing to look at.
I'd give it's name.
I have no idea.
Who's Jack? I have no idea who Jack
was in relation to this pine
tree. I make fun of it, but
in its own way,
it's an absolutely beautiful
specimen of what
it's like to
live on poor,
droughty soil and
survive.
It's a symbol of
survival in the sand country.
There's something like the old
curmudgeons that lived on this land.
They don't want a lot of company.
You notice it really stands alone.
It doesn't want to be with other
trees. Doesn't care that there's not
another jack pine nearby.
It's just happy standing
there all by itself.
That old jack pine wants to be
respected too.
It wants you to know that, look, I'm
still here.
People come and go, but I'm
going to be here a while.
I don't see this as an economic
somewhere to have this land and
make money off. I don't look at it
that way. I look at as an esthetic
value.
Growing up in the city I haven't
grown plants or crops long
enough to be able to know how to do
that stuff. But I mean for the
future I'd love to be be able come
up here and work in our garden more
and have that knowledge
to be sustainable or
self-sufficient. I think that's a
very cool idea.
Every plant has several rows
that are plump and it has
several that aren't.
You have to treat the plant quite
gently because you pull it out of
the root. When I was growing up, the
various activities on the farm were
divided up.
My dad was responsible for the
cattle and the field work,
and my mother, she was responsible
for the chicken flock and
the garden.
She would enlist my dad and
my brothers and me on occasion,
only where we invited.
We could not offer, we should not
offer.
Stay out of the garden, it is her
garden. But when she said, now I
need your help hoeing, then we
showed up to hoe.
And my dad somehow, he just listened
to that. He did not argue.
There were two events where I
sometimes got involved.
When we picked the green beans,
which we will be doing here in a
week or two, and one was
shucking peas.
You pick the peas, then you have to
shuck them.
With my mother, I sat at
the kitchen table,
and we would each have a pan on our
laps, and then she begins asking
questions.
What do you think you want to do
when you get through with the grade
school? I said, geez, I don't know.
Maybe I'd be a farmer like Pa.
And so that's how the afternoon
went. She asking me questions,
and then I learned a lot about her
too. She said to me, she said, But
you know, I always wanted to
be a teacher.
I did not know that.
I think I decided I wanted to be a
teacher in second grade, but when
both your parents are teachers and
your aunt was a teacher
and your cousins are teachers, it's
sort of...
Those days that
I had a chance to sit with my mother
across the kitchen table
on a hot day in July
turned into something kind
of interesting, because she
learned something about me that she
didn't know.
I learned something about her that
she hadn't shared before.
I have never not had
a garden, save for the time I was in
the Army.
I've had gardens for years, years
and years.
What do you think is going to happen
on this one?
Big ones.
Time to surprise.
Look at that!
Good ones there.
As we go down this way, they're
going to get bigger.
What do we got?
Oh, wow.
Always one. That's a good size.
I think Bugs Bunny will eat this
one.
This would be a very busy time of
the year for us because
mid-September was cutting corn
for silage time.
And we'd load it on a wagon and haul
it up to the silo filler.
When the silage was filled,
that usually was two or three weeks
after the threshing was done.
My dad clearly, he wouldn't say it,
but you could tell there was a
feeling of we've made it through
another season.
One of the things that we did do at
this time of the year, which we did
all the time, but especially
in September, when the nights
were a little cooler and the
mornings were a lot cooler, we would
continue our walking, our
exploring.
My dad would be checking the corn
that was remaining and he was always
looking at the neighbors too.
There was a lot of comparing going
on, but nobody talked about
that, but everybody did it.
They always wanted to see how the
neighbor was doing.
All of that was going on in
September.
And the garden, we were still
harvesting things from the garden.
Digging carrots and doing all of
that. You guys noticed the zinnias?
Oh yeah, the spars?
Yeah, those are zinna.
My dad always, when he planted the
garden he always said you gotta put
something in the garden that's
pretty.
It's not necessarily there for
eating.
And he always had dahlias, some
beautiful dahlius.
I usually plant some kind of a
flower, just your zinnia.
So that's why they're there.
They're kind of pretty.
It's a different type of learning.
It's not straightforward, but once
you start getting into it, it's hard
to stop.
When I was younger and my mom
brought me up here, I was mostly
excited just for like gator rides
and just like the thrill of driving
around up here.
I thought we were going so fast and
it was amazing.
But now as I grow older and
gatorides are still fun obviously,
but it's more the idea
that you can just be in nature.
It's just the like relaxation
compared to downtown cities.
It's the crazy contrast between
those two that's
exhilarating almost.
See they go, they're little ant,
they little trails where they go out
and forge and they come back.
They're able to carry something
that's several times their size.
See I'm moving the sticks around.
See the size of those sticks on
there?
They carry those around.
They're slowly building the anthill
taller by bringing those little
sticks in.
And how they talk to each other,
I don't know if anybody knows.
I really appreciate coming out here
because you don't get to see this
type of nature in the city or
not well anyway and I think that's
my favorite part about being out
here.
I just kind of get out here wander
around and kind of get lost and
you know you just get to see new
things every time.
It's a lot quieter, a little
mini escape I guess you could say.
Getting away from all of your, in
my case, being a college student so
I don't have to worry about my
homework or anything when I'm out
here I just...
Come out here and get to be away
from it all.
Like the land itself and
the animals and the
trees, they all have a story to
tell. Well, the plants have a store
to tell, and this one has just a
really interesting story to tell.
This is a lead plant.
Grows in clumps, as you can see.
When the pioneers ran onto this
stuff, the breaking
plow, got all tangled
up with the roots.
So they called it the devil's
shoelace.
Yeah.
Because they didn't like it.
And why is it called a lead plant?
Well, there are a couple of answers
to that question. If you look at the
leaves, somebody
said, well, it looks like the leaves
are dusted with white
lead.
And it does look a little like that,
doesn't it? It's green with...
Metallic? Yeah, looks kind of
metallic.
Also, prior to the pioneers coming
here, the Native Americans used
this particular plant by
drying the leaves and making a
tea.
So it had medicinal properties.
So it's just an all-around
interesting plant.
In a way, I do look at this as
similar to the kind of harvest that
we were doing on the home farm,
because just as we watch the crops,
the old crop, go from just coming
up to being harvested, the corn
crop from planting time, here
it's happening naturally.
And it's so fun.
Each year, I don't know what crop
is planted.
It's a mystery.
For those who say, well, you've seen
a prairie, you've see them all, you
haven't. There'll be something
different, something new.
When have you guys seen as much
yellow in one place?
Packard Games.
I don't know. No, I've never seen
this many yellow flowers before.
Well, it's really quite amazing, and
this year because we've had some
good recent rains, it's a little
more vivid than usual.
There are at least three different
kinds of goldenrod.
That's what we're seeing mostly.
If you look closely, look at this
one right here.
Notice how that one is vivid yellow
right now, and the one to the left
of it is in decline.
So that means that it's likely a
different kind.
And blazing star, that's another
little flower that you see in there
that punctuates the picture with
some purple going along
with all of the yellow.
And people look at this and they
say, why in the world do you stand
up there and say how beautiful
all of that is?
Because don't you know that golden
rods are seen as a weed by
some people, and that's true.
And also, for those who
have allergy, golden
rod can be a bit of a problem.
For me, my dad
would say this too, there are things
that we just need to
look at.
And the big question is, what
does worth mean?
Does worth always have to be
economic?
No, in my opinion.
Sometimes that which is most
worthy has no economic
dimension to it at all.
I'm talking about that which is
most difficult to define.
Some would say it the spiritual
dimension of what I'm looking
at. That which affects us
emotionally, sometimes in ways that
we don't even realize.
And I'll often come out here to this
prairie and I'll just sit here.
Just when the sun's going down, I
may see a deer, but mostly
it's just quiet.
It's just the environment and
me.
And why do I do that?
And how does that affect me?
I can't tell you.
It's something that I need to do.
It's a chance to relate to something
that is beyond
definition.
And then off here to the left,
that's called the butter and eggs.
Doesn't grow very tall.
It grows in patches.
There's a patch of it there.
And then when you look straight
ahead, down in that hollow,
see that hollow down there?
That's just filled with butter and
egg.
The monarch butterflies like
a golden rod.
If you look around, you see monarchs
flying all over the place.
And there's a whole array of
other insects that live off.
There goes a monarch right now, see
him?
They're just all over the
place, they love the Golden Rods.
What other kind of butterflies you
see out here?
All kinds.
One of the interesting things is
that we use no insecticides here
because we're not growing corn or
other grains or anything like that
and thus we have
all kinds of butterflies and other
insects as well.
The insecticides that kill harmful
insects on commercial crops of
course kill butterflies too and
other insect and here they
are free to roam.
I think my dad had
a relationship to the land that
was reciprocal.
It was sort of like, it sounds
strange, and he would never
have said it this way, but it goes
something like this, I'll take care
of you, meaning the land,
and I know that you're going to
take care me.
That's a profound idea,
because so often today the land
is seen as commodity, let's
make some money off of it.
I understand that.
He understood that in a different
way. He understood that
he was going to receive what he had
to give back.
And so you didn't put corn on the
same patch of ground year after
year.
You move the crops around.
It's crop rotation, it was called.
And it invigorated the land, just
as we as human beings are
invigorate with variety.
The same thing over and over and
again.
Does not do us any great benefit,
just as the land does not want to
be.
And I'm speaking against the
common thread of thought these
days. It does not the same
crop year after year
after
Ten years ago, I probably wouldn't
have talked this way, but there
comes a time when the
truth needs
to be told.
Hi, I'm John Miszkowski, you're
watching The Land with Jerry Apps,
and I'm here with Jerry Apps
encouraging you to support public
television, to support your station
that brings such wonderful programs
to you night after night,
day after day.
Jerry, it's really important that
people record these stories
and share these stories.
It is, because we're losing
a tremendous amount of
really fascinating history.
Each person has a very special,
unique story to tell,
and they don't take time to tell it.
People say to me, well, nobody cares
about my story.
Well, your story is special.
Doesn't matter who you are, where
you grew up.
If you grew in a big city or on a
farm, doesn't matter.
Your story is still special, and you
ought to get it down, if for no
other reason that they share it
with your family.
And the program, The Land,
is a great tool to do that when you
contribute to your public television
station with a gift of $6 a
month. You can receive the DVD,
and you can watch it with people in
your family, and you can share
your stories.
Call with your pledge now.
And this is a very special time
to call because it is a
challenge break.
We have members who have put
a pot of money aside and they're
going to match your contributions
right now, only during this break,
up to $2,000.
So every dollar that you contribute
right now will be doubled.
And when you make a pledge of
support in the amount of $6 a month
or $72 all
at We're going to send you
the DVD of what you're watching
right now, The Land with Jerry Aps.
It's wonderful. It's one of those
DVDs that you'll be sharing and
watching over and over again.
And for a pledge of support of $15
a month or $180,
we'll send you a wonderful
collection, including the book
that this particular program
is based on.
It's called Whispers and Shadows.
It's hardcover.
It's a really lovely book, full of
wonderful observations about
nature.
And all three of
Jerry's DVDs, including
the one you're watching tonight, as
well as a farm story
and a farm winter.
All of those are available for
you when you make your pledge of
support right now during this
challenge break.
Jerry mentioned how important it is
to share those stories and preserve
the stories of your
life, of the place that you grew up,
of the land on which you grew.
And that's something that I think is
really intriguing about the
land, the show that we're watching
this evening.
It really sparks conversations about
how things were in the past or how
they might be in the future.
And that something that's one
of the beautiful things about this
show.
And of course, we're able to bring
you this show because of your
support. People all around the
country have gone to the phones at
their local PBS station, and they've
dialed the number on their screen,
and they made a pledge of support to
their local PBS station.
And we're encouraging you to do that
now so that we can continue to bring
you stories, like stories
from Jerry Apps and many, many other
storytellers around the county.
Please, if that's something that's
important to you, go to your phone
right now and call the number, on
your screen.
Thanks for your calls.
It's wonderful to hear that
response. Join us with your phone
call. We have a couple of people who
have joined us. Jerry, you want to
introduce?
Yes, these are the stars of the
show by my grandsons.
This is Josh Horman on my far left.
This is Ben Horman, that's right
behind me.
And they are so tall, I need a
box to stand on.
So Ben, you want to tell us a little
bit about the hearing
stories from your grandfather.
So, one great thing about making
this documentary was just getting to
hear my grandpa talk
just about all of his time growing
up and about how he actually feels
about nature.
He does tell us about
nature just a lot, and he tells us
stories, and it's just always nice
that we're given this opportunity.
And Josh, we were all together at
the premiere in Wild Rose.
Do you want to tell folks about
that? That was great fun.
Yeah, it was a very good
experience to be at the premiere.
It was interesting to hear from
other people who grew up with my
grandpa and Wild Rose.
And it was interesting during the
question and answer part to hear
about their stories that are
so similar to my grandpa's
and kind of how, you know,
as a community they can really, you
know, interact, and it
was great.
Very cool to be at.
It was really wonderful.
People added their stories and they
built on your stories
and maybe a little, maybe
a lie here and there.
Oh no, no, there's
none of that,
a little embellishment here.
But you really could see the
community.
They share these stories.
And I know these shows have inspired
other people do the same to
share in their family and their
community. And that's possible
because of your support for public
television.
We're in the middle of a challenge
break. We have members that are
matching your contributions right
now during this break, dollar for
dollar. So we'd love to hear from
you right now.
And when you make your pledge in the
amount of $6 a month or
$72 at once,
we'll send you the program DVD that
you're watching right now, The Land
with Cherry Apps,
including. His beautiful grandsons,
and lots of wonderful stories.
And you almost feel like you're on
the trails with him in this DVD.
And for your pledge of $15
a month or $180,
we'll send you the book that
inspired or that this is based
on. It's called Whispers and
Shadows.
It's a hardcover book and it's lots
of observations about the natural
world from his farm.
And it also includes all
three programs.
That Jerry has made with
Wisconsin Public Television,
including a farm story,
a farm winter, and the
land. All of those are yours for
your pledge of $15 a month
or more, and number is
on your screen.
If you've already called in and
shown your support for your local
PBS station, thank you so very
much. If you haven't, now is the
perfect time. There are plenty of
volunteers standing by.
You just call the number on your
screen and talk to one of the
volunteers.
They can tell you a little bit more
about becoming a sustaining member
of your local, PBS station.
It's a great way to make your
membership very easy to keep up.
You can change it if you want to
change it, if you wanna stop for
some reason, you can do that as
well. But it all starts with you
going to your phone and talking to
one of the volunteers.
And as I said, they'll fill you in
with other information about
becoming a sustainer,
but it's a great way to show your
support for your local station.
So please call the number on your
screen now.
When you do make that gift of $15 a
month, we have all three
documentaries with Jerry
Apps all about growing
up on the farm in the 40s and
in the 30s and
a wonderful story on
a farm winter, a Christmas story
that's a reminder of that era.
Jerry, tell about your book,
Whispers and Shadows.
This book is all about
experiences on the farm,
mostly on the farm I have now,
but also with reference to
some of the great nature writers,
Thoreau and Aldo Leopold
and people like that, who inspired
me, along with some of our
neighbors, who were very common,
ordinary people, but they had
a connection to nature that was
unbelievably profound.
That's another theme that runs
through my work.
Thanks, Jerry, for joining us and
thanks for calling and supporting
your public television station with
your pledge.
While I've been watching the land, I
can't help but think of memories
from me growing up and
the kind of environment that we were
in. Our dad, for example, used to
take us out on nature walks just
like Jerry's dad did, and when
we planted our garden, we always had
flowers in the front, too, except
for us it was marigolds and then
bachelor buttons, and to this day I
still plant bachelor buttons in my
garden, but that's part of the
legacy of growing up
and of the traditions that
came from my family.
The other thing that I think the
land does is it sparks
conversations.
You see how the conversations that
Jerry and his grandsons have had and
the things that they've discussed.
Well, if you have the show and
you're watching it on DVD, you could
do that too with your own family or
other people in your community or
other that you wanna share your
memories with and share your
experiences with.
And that's one of the wonderful
things about PBS.
We bring you quality shows like this
that are not only entertaining,
but we learn from them, we share
from them and we really grow from
those. Because that's important to
you, I'm gonna ask you to go to your
phone right now.
Call the number on your screen and
talk to a volunteer at your local
PBS station.
This is just one of the programs
that we bring you of Wisconsin
stories.
We have Around the Farm Table and
Wisconsin Foodie,
wonderful programs about Wisconsin.
We are particularly proud of these
because they're being shared
nationally through PBS.
And right now, during this challenge
break, we have a
dollar for dollar match when you
pledge your support to this
program.
Right now, only during this break.
And we'd love you to pledge
your support in the amount of $6
a month. We'll send you the program
DVD that you're watching that
is The Land with Jerry Epps.
It's really meaningful and
lots of beautiful visuals.
It's something you can share over
and over again.
It's also available for a one time
pledge of $72.
Or you can pledge your supports at
the $15 a month level
or $180 and
we'll send the book that this
program is based on, it's called
Whispers and Shadows.
And all three
of Jerry Epps'
DVDs, program DVDs.
It's a wonderful way for us to
thank you for your support of
Wisconsin Public Television.
The number is on your screen.
Thank you.
One of your favorites is Ken Burns.
Yes,
Ken Burns is one of my heroes.
He knows history, he knows how to
talk about it, he makes it
interesting, and it's
accurate. I work as a historian too,
and his work is just wonderful.
That, I watch all of his shows.
Ken Burns, one thing wonderful
about the history work we do in
public television, it really
inspires people to want to learn
more.
It exactly, it's wonderful.
And that's what your dollars support
with your pledge to your public
television station.
And remember, with that $15 gift,
$15 a month, you can
receive the land, which is the
program we're watching, a farm
story, which really
is about growing up on the farm,
and then a farm winter, which about
the sort of hazards of
living on the farms before
electricity.
And also Whispers and Shadows,
the book that we've been talking
about, is all available to you when
you contribute to your public
television station.
Well, thank you again if you've
already made your commitment to your
local PBS station.
We're going back to the show in just
a moment, but there's still plenty
of time for you to join your local
station and say, yes, I want to
see shows like The Land with Jerry
Apps on my local station, and
I'm willing to step forward and make
an ongoing monthly contribution.
That's something you can do if you
join your station.
As a sustaining member, it's a
great way and an easy way for you
become a member of your local
stations. You make an on-going
monthly contribution.
And then you can sit back and every
time you turn on your local PBS
station and see all of the quality
programming, you know that you have
done your part to help bring that to
not only to you and your family, but
to people all around your community.
So please, go to the phones right
now, call the number on your screen
and talk to one of our volunteers.
Jerry Yap's stories are about
community, those rural community
growing up on the farm that
are sustained by people pulling
together.
We hear the stories of thrashing of
the one-room schoolhouse of
community.
And that's how public television
works. It's all of us pulling
together contributing our dollars I
encourage you right now to go to
your phone show and
tell your public television station
that this is important to you
that you value this and you want to
see more work like this on public
television and that you will make It
possible with your financial support
the phone numbers on your screen
when you call You
make a contribution in your
community by bringing these
wonderful stories to people
in your communities.
Thanks.
In the fall of the year,
that transition time, that time to
celebrate, that time to change,
to do something different.
Again, it sounds hokey, but
the land talks to me.
It wants to tell me these stories
that I remember as a kid.
The reminders are everywhere.
The smells of fall,
all of those leaves on the ground.
The smells bring me back
to that time. The smell is a
powerful memory trigger.
And then the sounds of fall,
the wind going through the
trees.
And of course, all of the colors
of fall.
And the geese, the gees
flying now north to south,
and long Vs honking
their way along.
My memories, maybe I'm blessed or
cursed, but my memories mostly
are in stories.
They're not just events that
happened. There are people involved,
there are emotions involved, there
are all the elements of what a story
is.
And maybe that's from my relatives,
especially my dad, he was a
storyteller.
But right next to us is an
old 80-acre farm that
was once owned by a fellow,
Morton Oliphant.
As kids, we called him Morty
Elephant because we didn't know
about Oliphants.
Very poor old bachelor.
Most of the neighbors and
the community sort of
ignored him because he had a
speech impediment.
He stuttered.
He stuttering so badly, you could
hardly understand a word that he
said.
And so people just ignored him.
Well, my dad didn't.
We lived a couple of miles from here
then and he would
stutter a welcome and we would
sit down by the wood stove.
My dad said to Morty, I
think Jerry would like to see...
Was in that little box over there
by the wood stove.
And I kind of perked up, I see a
little box over there, and
Morty would make this click,
click, noise like that with his
mouth. Click, click.
Out of that box came a full
grown raccoon.
Jeez, I mean I've never seen
a raccoon that close.
And the raccoon walked right up
to him And he sat there,
and Morty would go,
and the raccoon would make a kind of
a clicking noise, and he would
hand the racoon a peanut.
Yeah, he had peanuts in his pocket,
unshucked peanut, and a raccoon,
they almost have like, their little
front paws are like hands,
and the reccoon would open up the
peanut, put the shell in the floor,
and put the peanut in his mouth.
I'm just sitting there like, this is
really something, which it was.
But then, He lifts up
a floor board in the kitchen,
and guess what comes out of that
hole?
A full-grown badger.
No way. A badger?
Big bugger, I mean they're big.
This big old badger waddles
across the floor, stops
right in front of him, and starts
to purr like a kitten.
I mean, geez, I think it's gonna
bite off my leg.
It's not, no.
The badger and Morty are carrying
on a conversation.
I swear they're talking to each
other. I don't know what they're
talkin' about. I can't understand
either one of them.
What's that all about?
Well, here this guy who's living all
by himself, he
had a way of communing with nature
that's unbelievable.
These were his friends.
First off, I think we have to get
past the notion that we're animals
too.
Even though we may think we're so
far above a raccoon, we're
still animals.
And maybe deep within
our DNA,
there's a communication link.
That crosses the species.
I'm stretching it now when I say
that, but that may be so.
Do you think you have that
connection?
I don't know, I've never talked to a
Badger.
He's had us out here since I was a
little kid, and maybe I didn't
realize what he was doing, but
subconsciously maybe, you know, I'm
picking up on it now.
I finally have, I'm old enough to
realize like how important it is
to care about these things.
So valuable just like I can go up to
him, ask him whatever, and you know
what? Even if he doesn't know the
answer, he's gonna tell me something
anyway.
There's a good story in everything,
and that's what he tells me.
So I think that's his valuable
lesson that he's taught me.
Way back in 1947,
when I was 12 years old,
I was in eighth grade and
came home from school one day and
I was feeling awful,
had a headache, sore throat.
And the following morning when I
woke up, my right leg didn't
work.
I did not, I should have, I guess,
because the neighbor boy just half a
mile away had died of polio,
but I did think of poliol.
I thought it was something that
would go away in a day or two.
Something like when you get kicked
by a cow and your leg doesn't
work too well and when it gets
better you can go again, but it just
didn't go away.
Like three days later,
the folks finally decided they
should take me to a doctor because
my leg wasn't getting better.
The idea of going immediately to the
doctor was unheard of, country
people didn't do that.
You're supposed to tough it out,
well you don't tough out polio.
And my doctor reminded me,
you really are lucky.
I said, what do you mean?
I'm lucky, I can't stand up.
He said, you're still alive,
which sort of puts it in
perspective, doesn't it?
Yeah.
Did you have other classmates with
Folio? Sure.
Sure. In the years right after
the war, 45, 6, 7, 8,
9, those were polio
years all through the Midwest.
I was a little concerned because the
hospital was full of polio
victims and there was a kid or two
dying almost every day.
So they didn't admit me to the
hospital because there wasn't any
room. When the doctor told me
that I was lucky I was still alive,
I wasn't so sure I was going to
continue to be alive because
when my mother said, what should we
do with him?
And the doctor said, take him home,
give him a lot of liquids and keep
him warm.
And that sounded like maybe in a
week or so I wouldn't be around
anymore.
Terrible feeling when you're 12
years old.
Yeah, I can't imagine.
Did you know of any way to, like,
get better? Like, was there any
rehab that you could?
I had no idea and couldn't
walk even, I couldn't stand up
hardly for the better part of
several months.
And so one of the first things that
happened in April when the snow was
gone and I was able to get around a
little bit, I still was feeling just
absolutely worthless at that time.
And nobody would have anything much
to do with me because I was ornery
and my others were down on me
because they had to do my chores and
all that sort of thing.
So I would go out into the woods.
We had a 20-acre woods back
of our farmhouse.
And it looks something like where we
are right now.
It was a very
quiet place.
And one of the interesting things,
this sounds maybe a little
quirky,
but sitting in the woods, the trees,
well, they would listen to you.
And they wouldn't talk back.
And it didn't feel, that sounds
really weird.
It sounds weird, but it's true.
So I would sit out in the woods and
just sit there.
Well, when I came back home, I
wasn't feeling quite so sorry for
myself.
That idea of going out into
a place that is quiet,
with a lot of trees around,
there's mystery to that, there's
mystique to that.
It was my therapy.
It's a terrible disease.
You feel absolutely devastated and
worthless.
And people ask me about it.
I say to them, once you've had
polio, you always have it because
it's not only a physical
problem, but it's a psychological
one, because you go through life
feeling somewhat less than
everybody else.
Another dimension to that,
which is unfortunately,
was very common in those
days, if you had as
a country kid, especially.
If you had some kind of a physical
disability, you
also were immediately judged
to be mentally incompetent.
So you go through life trying
to cover up for it.
Well, my dad would have none of
that. Each night, what he did,
my Dad thought that horse
liniment was good for everything.
If you have an upset stomach, he
gave you horse liniments.
If you've had a sore muscle, you got
horse linements.
He, that's both for people and for
horses and cows.
That's what he did.
He rubbed my knee with horse
liniment and pulled on it to
try and make it work.
And by two or three weeks I could
bend it again.
He's like
And I was so mad at him.
I mean, it hurt like
a bugger.
And this horse liniment must have
red pepper in it.
Oh, man, I had a hot knee.
Oh, jeez, every night, just
hot knee, and by the end of April
into May, I was able to go to
school again.
I talked to nobody about it.
I always limped a little bit,
but I never talked about it, because
that nagging feeling of
worthlessness just
hangs in there.
So when you were out here by
yourself in the woods, what would
you think about to get you cheered
up?
I would try to think of-
about nothing.
There are times when it's important
to try and wipe your mind clear,
just to turn off the
cell phone and leave it home.
Just be quiet, sit down.
You'd be surprised what happens.
Since people are just on their
phones constantly, I don't think
they can actually just think to
themselves because they're just
taking in information.
I must admit, I'm probably on my
cell phone more than I probably
should be or want to be, I guess,
but it's the feeling that
if you aren't connected to
everybody around you, then you're
just gonna get left behind.
And that idea just seems so
meaningless when you're out here.
I'd learned this from my dad when I
was two years old.
We went out into the woods.
He'd quiet, sit down.
I don't know what he was thinking about.
And I never said to him what should
I think about. I mean, that would
have been a dumb thing to ask him.
He would look at you like you're
nuts.
As I think it, I think my dad
was thinking just as I'm thinking
now.
He was thinking when he was a kid.
He was just looking off in the
distance, like I do here.
And I'm certain what he thinking
about, what it was like when
he a kid...
When my aunts and uncles were all
there, and what
it was like, he was born in
1899, what it would be like
in 1910, 1912,
what kind of animals were here,
what kind a trees were here.
I'm sure you're thinking about that.
And that's what I'm doing.
And that what I hope my grand boys,
I hope they will do that.
I'm looking forward to them saying,
you know, I remember when we helped
plant trees, and I
remember we helped cut wood, And
I hope that they see those as
valuable memories.
We're at that time of the year,
it's a kind of celebration for
nature and it wants to
show off in its
own way, quietly
but vividly with
all of the color.
It's always,
well, sometimes we're in too big of
a hurry doing everything that
we're doing to take time
to respect,
appreciate.
And enjoy that
nature is trying to
show us something that is really
quite spectacular.
It's sort of like going to a
fireworks display and
at the end of the fireworks is this
big explosion of color.
That's what nature is doing with
autumn. There's this huge explosion
of colors and then everything goes
drab and quiet
and we become
browns and grays,
tans, before everything
turns to white.
So how many deer did you see?
Quite a lot of them.
No bucks? Six or eight, no.
But it's kind of fun just to watch
them.
Favorite little spot, that's where
grandpa was sitting many
long years ago.
I have hunted now
69 consecutive
years without missing a deer season.
I started hunting in 1946
at age 12.
And for the family,
deer hunting was much, much more
than shooting a deer.
Why don't you get up 5.30 in the
morning, it's 20 degrees,
freeze your tail off, stumble
through the dark to try and find
where you're supposed to sit.
I mean, why in God's creation would
anybody do that?
Stupid.
Not really.
It's a tradition,
it's a family gathering,
it's storytelling event.
It's something that's much, much
more than just getting some meat for
the table.
Oh, we had the stories to tell.
Every deer season has a story
to tell!
In 1992,
my dad was not feeling well,
and I noticed that he
had trouble catching his breath.
I said, Pa, are you planning on
going deer hunting this year?
And he didn't say anything for a
minute. He said, yeah,
I got to go down to a tome and get
my license.
I haven't gotten my license yet.
And so on the opening day of deer
season, I stopped by
his house in Wildrose to
pick him up, 5.30 in
the morning. Pitch dark.
I come in the house and there he
sits on the chair.
He has a 30-30 savage lever
action deer rifle that he
bought in the 40s.
He's got it across his lap,
he's got his orange coat ready
to go, he he's ready to go deer
hunting.
And so we get in the truck and
I said where do you want to where do
want to stand?
He says well I really don't want to
stay. I've got a
chair here, you got to bring this
chair along. He said, I want to sit
down by the pond.
And so he sits down right
where we are right now.
I go off to my stand.
Well, this is what happened.
He got cold, and so he started
walking around a little bit.
And he walked up on top of the hill.
And there he ran into Steve,
my son, his grandson.
And Steve had with him his friend.
His friend, Rick, was a
deputy sheriff.
He knew firearms.
They both had...
I think at the time, 30, 30
Winchesters with scopes,
the whole schmear,
and they're up on the hill.
And my dad comes up and stands with
them and they talk a little bit.
And then they see three deer
way off,
200 and some yards away, we measured
it later.
And they're running, and one of
them's a buck.
And Rick and Steve, they commence
shooting at these deer.
I mean, each one of the shot three
or four times, I didn't even touch
them.
And my dad said, which one is
the buck?
He had open sights, no fancy
anything, just this
open sight, 30, 30
lever action savage.
And Steve says, the second one.
And my Dad pulls up,
bang, lever action, bang.
The buck deer falls.
We walk over to the deer.
He shot it twice in the
neck at
200 plus yards.
We're all, he's 92 years old.
We're standing there like, what is
going on? He's got a big schmuck on
his face.
He doesn't say anything.
Why'd you shoot him in the neck?
Well, I didn't want to waste any
meat.
I don't know if he was just plain
lucky or if
somebody, something knew that this
was his last hunt and it would
give him a chance.
I don't know what was going on.
But it's a story that will remain in
the family forever.
It's a powerful story.
And this year,
at the beginning of deer season,
which was yesterday,
I sat in a chair at the very
spot where he sat.
I could almost hear him in the wind.
You could feel his presence.
I don't know if I was even so much
aware of it as I am today, but
in 1966 when we started
coming here, acquired the place,
I had in the back of my head the
idea that I would like this
place, insofar as
possible, to look like
it did before it
was first settled.
In other words, what did Tom Stewart
see when he came
here in 1867,
which is when he homesteaded to
play Civil War veteran.
Is that some kind of a payback for
the values that I've experienced
in spending time here?
I suspect it is.
It is very hard for me to even say
what it is that my family and
I have gained from this place.
I'm still in search of
that kind of mysterious,
almost mystical dimension to
a piece of land and how
it affects the people who
are on it.
How this piece of the land has
ultimately influenced me.
My wife, my kids and
my grandkids, I don't think I'll,
I don't know that now completely.
I'll keep looking for it.
Dear grandpa, I don't
think I've ever told you how much
the farm has meant to me.
So often you have been open about
how you feel about it, and because
of this I feel bad that I have not
reciprocated my feelings.
The farm is a treasure,
one that is highly complex,
and one from which I have so much
more to discover.
I cherish the moments when you teach
me things that otherwise I would
never have cared to know.
The form of
Here Grandpa, I remember
when I was younger the excited
feeling of seeing deer.
You once pointed out a buck and by
the time I caught a glimpse it was
running away from our noise and
I was sprinting after it to get a
better look.
When I got back you had a big smile
on your face and asked sarcastically
if I caught up to it.
I'll also never forget how nervous
my mom was when you let me drive the
Gator for the first time.
The excitement of that moment
still sticks with me.
These are memories that I don't
think I'll ever forget.
You've taught me how to garden.
You've talked me about the different
kinds of wildlife and
the flowers and the trees.
You've told me how be patient and
quiet and just listen and watch.
But most importantly, you've
taught me how to appreciate the farm
and everything
it has to offer.
Thank you, Grandpa.
Ha, ha, ha.
Cross our fingers.
You've just watched The Land with
Jerry Apps, and you've
seen the whole program.
And what a wonderful ending with
the letters from your grandsons.
It's a DVD of the programs
available with a gift of $6
a month.
And with a give of $15 a month,
we have all three DVDs that
we've been talking about.
And this new book, Whispers and
Shadows. You want to tell them about
that, Jerry? Sure.
This is a
a series of stories about what
it was like on the farm when I was
a kid, and what
I.
Learned from my father about
nature, what I learned from the
neighbors about nature.
Well thanks for sharing these
stories and thank you.
For calling, for pledging,
for your support of public
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and take advantage of these
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we'll send you the DVD
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the stories across generations.
And what struck me was the honesty,
Jerry's honesty about having
polio and the
feelings of growing up like
that and such stories.
And that's available for your
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And for a pledge of $15 a
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we'll send you all three
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We have The Land that you've been
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some wonderful video and stories
in this one, and A
Farm Story with Jerry
apps, which is the one that started
it all.
And in addition, the book that Jerry
was just talking about, Whispers in
Shadows.
The inspiration for the program that
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All those are available for your
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all at once as our thank you
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Public Television.
You know, there are so many
wonderful stories that have been
preserved in the program that we've
just watched, The Land with Jerry
Apps. PBS has made a
commitment to Jerry Apps and said,
we wanna continue to bring your
wonderful stories to people,
to all of our viewers.
So that's something that's important
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And because of that, we'd like to
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So it's very easy for you join,
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Thanks for folks who are calling.
Jerry, you and Ruth have been very
generous to public television, and
you want to tell folks about it.
We have, and I'm
not any kind of a pitch man,
I say that right up front, but
I think everybody ought to
pledge to public television.
It's a great thing.
I say it not just because
I'm standing here, but because
it's something that my wife and I
have enjoyed for many years.
And I think you would too.
It's great way to help
public television
And we've heard from so many people
who've watched a
farm story, a farm winter,
and the land that
really recognize what
public television means to them.
Yes, and I'm very humbled by that,
and I am very happy to do it.
Well, thanks for your call.
Thanks for your support.
Thanks for contributing to public
television to bring these really
extraordinary stories into your
home.
Jerry Apps is just a consummate
storyteller.
You can't help but have a smile on
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So many of us in Wisconsin
have heard these kinds of stories.
And now we can see and
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And we're asking for your support
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Of what you have seen this evening,
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It is just marvelous.
And for a pledge of $15 a
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You'll get the DVD of this program,
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In return for your support
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Well, if you've already called and
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But if you haven't, now is the
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And of course we also have those
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I especially like that bundle
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Each DVD is very unique.
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We've made it as easy as possible
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And with that gift of $15 a month,
remember we have Jerry's book,
Whispers and Shadows.
We have The Land with Jerry Apps,
which you've just seen, but these
other two wonderful
programs filled with stories,
I remember my favorite are The
Christmas Stories and A Farm Winter
and The Musicians.
Yes,
Frank and Pinky and
Harry were fantastic
musicians.
They couldn't read a note of
music, they played by ear.
But whenever the neighbors got
together for a wedding or
an anniversary or a birthday
party, these three musicians
were there.
And especially during the Depression
when things were not very good,
they made life a
little more interesting.
And they gave us some hope.
That's in the farm winter and then
in a farm story it's about you're
growing up on the farm and you want
to tell people about the front door
on the house?
The front door in our house, it was
there for show, you
couldn't open it, it was nailed shut
in the wintertime.
You could open it in the summer so
the air could come through.
Anybody that knew anything about
farmers news, you came around to the
kitchen.
All these wonderful programs, all in
this collection of DVDs
from Jerry Apps available to you
with a gift to your public
television station of $15 a
month.
We're asking for your support of
Wisconsin Public Television and
specifically of this wonderful
program that we've been enjoying.
And for your pledge of $6 a month
or $72 at
once, we'll send you the program DVD
of what you've been seeing.
And we have a wonderful set
of thank you gifts, multiple thank
you gift for you at the $15 a
month pledge or more or
$180.
And that is the book that
the land is based on.
It's called Whispers and Shadows.
And it also has three program
DVDs, including the one that you
watched tonight, The Land, and
one that started it all,
A Farm Story.
And we also have the DVD of
A Farm Winter for
your pledge of support of $15 a
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The number is on your screen.
We'd love for you to call with your
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Thanks.
We'll be moving on to our next
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And don't forget, when you join your
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We'll send you a DVD copy of The
Land with Jerry apps.
Or if you call at that wonderful,
that $15 a month ongoing monthly
report, we'll send what we've been
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And that includes three DVDs
of programs that feature Jerry.
And his stories and the wonderful
information that we've learned from
Jerry and the people in his lives
and from the land as well.
And also, we'll send you a copy
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So we have many ways to thank you,
but now we need you to take the
first step of going to your phone
and calling the number on your
screen.
But thanks for joining us here,
Jerry. Introduce your grandsons
again.
Well, here we have Josh Horman on my
far left, and this is Ben Horman,
and well,
what words of wisdom would you share
with us as we wrap things up
tonight?
Well, I'd have to say that you've
taught me that nature is not only
just at our farm, but it's
everywhere.
Well, that's pretty good, Ben.
I don't really know if I have any
words of wisdom, but I just really
appreciate the experience that I had
filming this documentary.
It meant a lot to me.
Well, thank you for sharing your
stories with Wisconsin Public
Television and I hope that this
program is an inspiration for other
folks to grab those grandkids and
get them out there, get them outside
and enjoy nature and
learn from this wonderful
experience.
Early December, I walked the
boys down to the pond.
There wasn't any snow on the ground.
It was just flat surface ice.
And we're walking across the pond,
and two things happened.
You could see through the ice, and
we see a muskrat beneath the
surface.
And they were just unbelievably
astounded. What's that?
I said, it's a muskat.
Well, there was a muscat den just
on the bank. So we watched the thing
swim under the water and into the
bank, I mean, they just could not
believe that.
Second thing that happens,
as you well know, ice expands
and contracts, and when it does
that, it sounds like a cannon going
off.
We're out in the middle of this
pond, and we get this big
rock-a-boom,
and these little guys, they
just ran like everything.
They were sure they were gonna fall
in. I said, listen, guys,
the ice is talking to us.
You
The Land with Jerry
Apps was funded in
part by Holiday
Vacations,
Ron and Colleen Wires,
Stanley J.
Cottrell Fund,
Carol Gaynor,
and the National Endowment for
the Humanities.
Explore new worlds and new
ideas through programs like
this, made available
for everyone through contributions
to your PBS station from
viewers like you.
Thank you.