?
Winter is like a great river
always the same, but constantly changing
each winter resembling the one before
but each like no other.
Winter is the season that demands respect
insists on it.
It is a season that refuses to be ignored.
Winter is a season that never leaves us.
It is forever a part of who we are
what we believe and value
and how we see the world.
I don't think I really understood
and was able to put into words at the time
but when I was growing up on the farm
everything that we did in spring, summer and fall
was done because of winter
and in preparation for winter.
Everything
from planting the oat crop
to getting the chicks in spring.
All of that, all of those activities
were done because we knew winter was coming.
Winter meant we had to have available
for the livestock and the chickens
sufficient feed to last throughout the winter months.
For the family
we knew we had to have a garden.
We knew that we had to raise some hogs
that could be butchered in the fall
that we would have enough to eat during the winter.
Everything
everything, the whole cycle of the seasons
winter was the premier, was the first place season.
Today, we tend to discount it
as sort of, oh Lord, winter's coming again.
We're going to have to put up with snow
and cold, and all of that.
We didn't look at it that way.
We looked at winter
as something that had to be respected
because it was coming.
We were not opposed to it.
We looked forward to it.
We tried to, and did enjoy it.
But we also knew
that we are going to spend a lot of time
preparing for it, and that we did.
A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps
was funded, in part by
Holiday Vacations;
Ron and Colleen Weyers;
the Edward J. Okray Foundation;
the Wisconsin History Fund;
with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities;
and the Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.
[diesel engine running]
My earliest memories
which are in the late '30s
and then through the '40s and early '50s
winters were considerably different than they are now.
Winter usually, dependably started
about the middle of November.
Meaning, that's when we got the first significant snowfall.
And by, oh gosh, I can remember into April
having snow on the ground.
So that makes a long season.
Not only that, but with snow cover
it was not unusual to have 10 below zero
in November.
It was not unusual to have 30 below zero
in January.
I can remember 35 below zero.
Well, the snow was not melting.
It just kept accumulating
until we would have three or four feet of snow on the ground.
Winters were fierce.
Along about early November
when the barn was full of hay
and the corn cribs were full of corn
and the first heavy frost had come
and the leaves were down from the trees.
When everything was drab, and brown, and boring
we looked forward to the change in the season.
Really, almost a celebration
was when we brought
the wood stove in from the wood shed
and set it up in the dining room.
Of course, the kitchen wood stove, cook stove
had been there all the while
because my mother used it all through the summer, as well.
It was a Round Oak heater, it was called.
The thing weighed a ton.
We'd ask the neighbors to come.
We'd slide planks under this thing
carry it into the dining room
and try to line it up with where the stove pipe should go.
Once they'd get the thing all lined up
then they would stand there
and say, yep, I think we got 'er.
My dad would say, well, we're gonna check it out.
And he would start the fire.
Everybody would stand there in anticipation.
Now it's a thing when the smoke--
My mother was standing off in the back.
You could tell, if the thing wasn't just right
it would smoke like everything.
I mean, the room would fill with smoke.
Then they'd have to readjust the thing.
If they had done it properly, they would all smile
and go out in the kitchen and drink coffee and eat cookies
and sort of celebrate that the stove was in place.
At the time
that's when we closed off the rest of the house.
We closed off the parlor
closed off the back bedrooms,
closed off the upstairs bedrooms, except for the one
that was supposedly heated by the stove pipe.
Because at that time, my two brothers and I
we all gathered now in this one bedroom.
That's where we would spend the winter.
These old houses looked enormous
and they looked like
they must really be comfortable and doing well.
They were so cold. They just were.
Now having said all that, the next preparation for winter
we had to enhance our wood pile.
We had to make wood.
Making wood was an enormous project
when you think about it.
Mind you, there were no chainsaws.
We had a cross-cut saw, each of us had an ax.
So, grab the ax, grab the cross-cut saw
and out into the woods, and find this old tree.
Those who know about cutting wood,
know that first you have to notch the tree.
You do that with an ax, you notch the tree
in the direction that you want the tree to fall.
My dad had an uncanny ability to walk around the tree
and look at its natural lean.
You can't decide where the tree should fall.
The tree knows where it wants to fall.
It's for you to figure that out.
So you'd notch it in the direction
that it looks like it's going to fall.
Then you grab this cross-cut saw
which is about six feet long, or so
with wicked, wicked teeth on it.
Grab one handle, he the other handle.
One of the things that you learn when using a cross-cut saw
is that you never push, you always pull it.
If you try to push it, you'd jam it up, it pinches.
So, Pa's pulling and I'm pulling.
and Pa's pulling and I'm pulling
and Pa's pulling and I'm pulling.
And my arms are about to fall off.
Then we hear a cracking noise.
Oh, I've been waiting for that noise!
My dad yells, in that time-honored announcement,
"Timber!"
and the tree crashes to the ground.
It was an explosion of broken limbs
flying in the air.
That's just the beginning of our work.
If you thought that cutting it down was a problem.
Because now, with our axes
we'd trim off the smaller branches
and then we'd start sawing the trunk
into probably six-foot hunks.
We'd pile the brush in a pile, "For the rabbits," Pa says.
You've got to have a place for them to spend the winter.
When we've done two or three trees, or more
we hitch up the team, Frank and Charlie
to the bobsled.
I can't comprehend the fact
that these huge hunks of oak wood
must have weighed hundreds of pounds.
We would roll those logs up onto the sleigh
and we would haul them up to the back of the house
put them in an enormous pile.
Then Pa would get on the phone to Allen Davis and Bill Miller
and Freddy Rapp, and he'd say
"Can you guys come over and help saw wood on Saturday?"
"Sure."
The expectation was that each one of them
will have the same thing some time or another
because everybody changed work with each other.
Guy York, a neighbor a half-mile away, had a circle saw.
It was about four feet across
and it would be the loudest noise you could imagine
as that circle saw bit into the oak wood.
One man was in charge of throwing away
meaning, he stood holding the piece of wood to be cut off
and then threw it in a pile.
It was dangerous.
My gosh, it was dangerous.
There were no guards of any kind.
That big circle saw ran free, its teeth cutting into the wood
or cutting off your arm, if it got in the way.
They all go home, tired.
It's a miserable job.
Now here's this big pile of wood.
What's the next thing we're faced with?
One thing I learned very early on
as in almost everything else in farming
there's a skill to doing it.
Splitting wood is right up toward the top.
One of the things that my dad taught me
was how to read a piece of wood.
You strike that block of wood with a splitting maul
so that you work with the wood
rather than against it.
What a thrill it is when that happens!
Because, when you're learning
you either strike over the block
or you miss the block, or you hit it on the side.
It requires a fair amount of eye/hand coordination
to do this.
We piled the wood in the wood shed.
Then the duty of the kids
when we were three, four, or five years old
was to take wood from the wood shed
and put it in the wood box
in the kitchen and in the dining room.
There was a lot involved in making wood.
Sometimes people say things
like, well, when you make wood, you're twi warmed.
How foolish that is.
You are many times warmed when you make wood.
Want to race?
Not me!
It's all I can do to keep going.
I remember so clearly
a year, on about the 15th of November.
My dad had an uncanny ability to predict the weather.
He watched the direction of the wind.
He watched the sunset in the evening.
He watched the formation of clouds.
He never talked about this.
He never talked about how he did it.
But he would say one morning, did say one morning
when we were getting ready to walk to school
he said, "You'd better wear your boots today.
It's gonna to snow."
We looked at him like he was nuts.
It hadn't snowed ever so far this season.
So we'd take our boots and we'd troddle off to school.
At about mid-morning, we were looking out the window
during long division, or whatever I was working on.
Here was this first little flake of snow
and then there would be another one, and another.
It would hit this big, long window
and then you would see a little trickle of moisture
come down when that snowflake melted.
Then another, and another, and another.
We all perked up and looked out the window.
We're supposed to be paying attention.
Because it was the first snow.
We were like young calves
let out of the barn in the spring.
We're all outside
and we're looking up at the sky.
It sounds so silly.
The snow is coming down ever more
and we are running around and yelling.
One kid says, I think we have enough snow
to play Fox and Geese.
Fox and Geese is a game that you play in the snow.
We played it in our little softball diamond.
You walk a big circle
everybody one after the other.
Then you cross that circle
and then there's a place in the middle.
That's home spot.
Fox and Geese means that one person is the fox.
It's a kind of tag game.
The kids run around and the fox tries to catch them.
When you get in the middle, the fox can't catch you.
That's a free spot, but only one person can be there at a time.
You get there and the person has to leave
and you're back running around.
The fox is tagging these kids as they're running around.
The last person to be tagged
that person becomes the next fox.
Oh, what fun it was!
We'd been waiting all fall.
We'd been playing Ante Over and Run Sheep Run
and all those kinds of outdoor games
waiting, waiting, so that we could play Fox and Geese.
[children talking and playing]
Then the snow accumulated enough
and somebody said that we ought to have a snowball fight.
Well, a snowball fight in a country school
was something to behold.
[children all yelling and playing]
We had a rule, a number of rules.
You never, ever hit a kid in the head with a snowball.
That was an out and out no-no.
Whenever somebody was hit in the head
which they were on occasion
we, as a group, sort of determined
if, one, it was an accident.
Then it would be overlooked.
Or if it was on purpose, which it was sometimes.
Now a collective judgment had to be made.
Did this kid deserve
to be hit in the head with a snowball?
Had he done something to the kid throwing the snowball
that deserved a punishment in return?
Or, had this kid throwing the ball
done this maliciously?
Once we'd figured that out
and kids have an uncanny way of figuring things out.
If we figured out that the kid deserved it
nothing more was said.
If we figured out that this was a malicious act
we would grab this kid that threw the snowball
throw him down in the snow
wash his face with snow and push snow down his neck
so he would never do this again
and would remember that there are rules in snowball fights.
Child: Throw a snowball in his face!
That was something very democratic, I would suggest.
We were learning early on
how to care for problems within our midst.
We were very fortunate.
Our grandmother was a knitter.
Almost every year for Christmas
we would receive from Grandma, new wool mittens.
She also made for each of us
a woolen scarf, a huge scarf
that you could wrap around your head three times
to keep your ears from freezing and your nose from freezing
and anything else from freezing on your head.
Well, after one of these snowball fights
wearing our woolen mittens.
And most of the kids had woolen mittens.
I don't remember anybody having gloves.
Most everybody had mittens.
All these wet mittens were hung around the wood stove
in the back of the school.
If you've ever smelled a wet sheep
that was the smell in the back of our school room.
Because there was this tremendous smell of wet wool
as these mittens were drying
mixed in with the hint of oak smoke coming from the stove.
If it was close to noon
on top of the stove was a pan of water
into which those of us
who brought jars of soup from home.
All of that was bubbling.
The smell of the soup that was warming
and the wet wool, and the oak smoke
provided a kind of intermingling smell
that I've never forgotten.
Smells are something
we often don't think about in our memories
but smells have tremendous impression on us.
They are embedded in our memories.
I can think about these kinds of smells forever.
Well, you should be out here when it's 10 below zero.
You know, cold weather-like.
How much ice have you got there, 6-8 inches?
Right now?
Yeah.
There's 18 inches of ice right now.
Oh, my gosh.
The whole spoon will go down.
Really?
Oh, yeah, the whole spoon will go down.
Look at that, yeah.
I guess you don't have to worry about falling in.
No!
As soon as the lakes froze up
which would happen in those days by mid-November.
Ice fishing really was best early in the season
when the fish were more active.
We'd do all the chores by, oh, 9:00 or so in the morning.
We would load into our old Plymouth car our tip-ups
which are the devices used to fish through the ice
and an ice chisel and some minnows.
We were off to Mount Morris Lake
our favorite lake that we had gone to many, many times
just east of Wild Rose.
In those days, you could build a campfire on shore.
We would do that.
Then we would chop holes in the ice.
Now the hole, that was a tough job.
We didn't have a fancy auger, or anything like that.
The ice chisel that my dad used was really interesting.
It was the rear axle of a Model T Ford car.
The blacksmith in Wild Rose
Arnold Christiansen was his name, a Danish chap.
He heated the end of that steel, flattened it out
and made it sharp as a knife.
In the other end, he drilled a hole through it
and we put a leather piece in there.
The embarrassment
that is of considerable magnitude
if an ice fisherman punches a hole in the ice
and forgets to put the leather thong around his wrist.
Then the ice chisel punches through
that last quarter inch, or so, of ice
and goes into the water
if you are not holding it properly--
In other words, if you don't have it around your wrist
it will sink to the bottom of the lake
to be there forever.
We would chop the holes, maybe 8-10 inches across.
A big embarrassment
if the hole's too small or the fish is too big.
What do you do now?
[laughs]
We all hope for that!
We set up all of these tip-ups, which are little wooden devices
which when the fish takes the minnow bait
it tips up
and there's a little flag that waves in the wind.
Then you know that there's excitement.
When all that's done
then we all assemble around this little campfire
that we have smoking away on shore.
There's my Uncle Fred and my Uncle Ed and my Uncle Wilbur
and my dad, my two brothers, and sometimes the Kolka boys.
We all sit there looking out at the lake
on this cold, wintry day.
There's maybe a few flakes of snow coming down.
The men, the uncles, start telling stories,
stories about deer hunting, stories about rabbit hunting
stories about making hay
but stories mostly about ice fishing.
Ice fishing in another day and another year
when the fish were bigger
and the cold was stronger
and the snow was deeper and the ice was harder.
Everything was more than it is now.
I would listen to all of that and marvel
at how these guys could lie to each other.
They are just sitting there lying to each other!
They're telling these wonderful stories.
They're trying to top each other.
In the middle of a great story, one of the flags goes up
and we know there must be something going on out there.
We all race out on the ice.
We gather around the fisherman
who strips off his gloves and grabs that wet line.
It's colder than thunder.
We're all watching
because this is going to be an exciting moment.
He gives a gentle pull on the line
and the line shoots out of his hands
because, indeed, there's a fish on it.
It trolls, the line is just going.
We are all going, my gosh, that must be a big one!
"I'll bet it's five pounds."
"I'll bet it's ten."
I stand there with my mouth open, watching.
So he's pulling, hand over hand.
The wet line is gathering on his boots
and it's freezing solid
almost by the time it hits the ice.
He's pulling, and he's pulling.
The fish has gone out some great distance.
We're wondering if it's still on or not.
"Is the fish still on?"
"Yeah, it's still on."
You can feel it, and more tugging.
We're just all standing there.
The audience is saying, pull him faster!
Pull him slower! Let him go! Pull him in!
It's full of more contradictory advice
you ever could imagine.
Then we looked down in the hole
and there this massive, massive head appears.
Now a Northern Pike with its mouth open
is something to behold.
It has the sharpest teeth.
It's the most vicious looking fish you could imagine.
The fisherman unhooks the hook from the Northern Pike
puts another minnow on, and feeds that frozen line
back down into the hole to wait for the possibility
that another fish may come by yet this day
and that he may have one more fish to add to his collection
and to his repertoire of stories.
Every fish caught has a story.
Now we're all back
sitting around the fire again.
We're commending and complimenting
and slapping the guy on the shoulder
that he's done a wonderful job.
He doesn't have to say much of anything
because he knows he's done a wonderful job.
He knows that he's listened to his own advice
on how to catch a fish.
Because there is a considerable skill
to catching a Northern Pike through the ice.
He knows that.
The audience knows that, too.
That process was repeated again, and again, and again.
If fishing was good and the day was right
there might be a half a dozen times, or more, in a day
that that little episode would be repeated.
Each time, exactly like the previous time.
Each time, profoundly different from the previous time.
About the day after Thanksgiving
we began thinking about Christmas
because it was about then
that the first Christmas catalog arrived.
We could not wait.
The three of us would literally fight
over who got to see it first
because it was from that catalog
that we were able to select one toy
and one item of clothing for Santa Claus to bring.
Everything under the sun was in this catalog
and in full color.
We had to pick out one thing from all of that.
How in the world did I select
among all of these many, many choices?
Now it wasn't something that one did easily.
It took days, probably a week or more, to decide.
The first considerations was, if I remember correctly
it couldn't cost more than two dollars, maybe three.
That puts all that stuff aside.
But then you'd sort through all these other things.
I was always fond of books.
I never had enough.
Our library in Wild Rose in those days
didn't allow us to check out books.
Our school library had very few books.
So generally speaking, I would ask for a book.
Christmas was a big deal.
We would go to church on Christmas eve, generally.
For many years, before we had a German Lutheran church
in Wild Rose
we went to the Holden Lutheran Church
which was Norwegian.
My dad wasn't quite sure, nor my mother
if that was appropriate for us as good German Lutherans
to be messing around with these Norwegian Lutherans.
Isn't that weird?
They were our neighbors, we knew them all.
[laughs]
Different from city kids
on Christmas morning, we didn't rush downstairs
and tear open our packages and shout with glee
over the presents that we got.
No, indeed.
The cows always came first.
No matter what was going on, milking the cows
twice a day, on time
feeding them and caring for them
was the most important thing that we did.
Indeed, the most important.
It came before everything.
So Christmas morning, it's out to the barn.
The Christmas tree is in the dining room.
Presents are under it.
We can't touch the presents
until the cows are milked, the cows are fed.
We're in the house after all of that's done
and then we can open our presents.
I tear open this little package, and there's my book
"Fun For Boys."
I have it to this day.
A book about things that boys can do.
Everything from how to throw your voice.
That's what they called ventriloquists in those days
people who were able to throw their voice.
How to identify foreign airplanes
which really intrigued me
because we were at war with Germany and Japan at the time.
I envisioned the German Messerschmitt
coming over our farm and strafing our cattle.
I mean, that was the worst possible thought.
All of that was in this book.
You could look at the configurations
for these airplanes
and plan for that terrible day when airplanes would come.
They never did.
I never saw an airplane, ever, whether it was German or U.S.
I never saw any kind of plane!
But we were prepared.
I had a second present, too.
That year I got a sweater.
Now my brother Donald he got what was called a Crow Shoot.
That's what he picked out.
A Crow Shoot was a little pop gun.
You cracked it open and you put a cork in the end.
You pulled the trigger and the cork flew out about six feet.
There were a bunch of crows
silhouettes of crows on a little thing.
You hit a crow and it'd turn around three or four times.
He was, bing, bing, bing, pretty good.
He was turning these crows over one after the other.
Pretty soon, he got bored of that.
Well, my dad was sitting by the stove,
the Round Oak heater in the dining room.
He's reading the paper
while we're mussing around with our toys.
My brother--
What got into him, I don't know!
My dad used to smoke cigarettes
and he was smoking a cigarette at the time.
My brother Donald takes aim with his little cork gun
and goes, "bloop"
and darned if he didn't hit that cigarette straight on.
It flew out of my dad's mouth onto the floor.
My brother Darrel and I were aghast!
This would be the most severe punishment
that could ever be meted out.
I mean, we couldn't wait
to see what was going to happen to my brother Donald
who himself was so surprised
that his shot had been so accurate.
My dad picks up the cigarette, puts it back in his mouth
and looks over at Donald
and says, "That was a pretty good shot."
Only Christmas morning, I think, saved the day.
One of the interesting things
that we always did on Christmas day
after we'd opened the presents and we'd had our noon meal
we had neighbors just to the north of us.
Alan lived there with his daughter.
His wife had died some years earlier.
And they were poor as poor could be.
On Christmas day
my mother always baked an apple pie for them.
She would buy a couple of little presents.
My brothers and I would go down there in the afternoon.
They would welcome us.
Oh, they would welcome company!
They were wonderful people in that respect.
Going into their house, there were no decorations
no Christmas tree
no sign that it was Christmas at all.
They would be sitting by the wood stove.
We would sit there and we would talk with them.
They would ask us how things were going
and what presents we got for Christmas.
I would give them the apple pie.
My mother had purchased
a pair of work gloves for Alan
which I gave him.
She'd gotten a little frilly handkerchief
which she had for Kathryn.
I knew, as did my mother know
that's the only presents that they got.
When my brothers and I left, Alan said, "Thank you."
"Thank your mother."
And Kathryn said, "Thank your mother for me, too."
She had tears in her eyes.
That helped me understand
there was a lot more to Christmas
than receiving books and sweaters, and other presents.
My dad would say, "There's a big storm coming."
The sky was just cloudy, there wasn't anything unusual.
The wind wasn't blowing, and yet he knew somehow.
So, this particular day
he said, "Boys, we're in for a bad one."
It was snowing just ever so little bit
as we were walking to school.
Didn't amount to much.
As the morning wore on, and we were doing our lessons
and the snow is coming down ever harder
we can feel the wind.
The wind is rattling the schoolhouse windows.
The wind is sending the snow under the windows
and it's building up on the window sills
on the inside of the school.
It did that at home, too, by the way.
It's marvelous, really.
As a kid, you look at that
and say, that's just really kind of interesting.
As we got to recess time
Miss Thompson, our teacher that year, said
"I don't think you ought to go outside for recess."
She never said that.
But she knew what was going on.
You cod not see ten feet in front of your face
by recess time, it was snowing so hard.
Around 2:00, maybe 2:30, the fathers began arriving.
Mind you, nobody drove anything, they all walked.
My dad finally comes and he stomps off his boots.
It's cold, it's getting really cold, too.
Every father is all gathered around the stove
and they're slapping their hands together
and they're warming them on the stove.
Miss Thompson is saying, well, "What's it like out there?"
The fact that it was dangerous, we all knew that.
Nobody talked about that.
You didn't worry much about that
because we'd been there before.
Well, now we're heading out the door.
Of course, we've got our big boots on
and Pa is making the trail.
You learn in the winter, in the deep snow
you don't everybody walk alongside of everybody else.
You walk in a single line.
Pa's at the head of the pack and Darrel is next
Donald's next, and I'm bringing up the rear.
I can hardly see Pa in the front
and it's only a few feet in the front.
The snow is blowing.
It's hitting us in the face, and it's hitting us in the eyes
and it is terrible.
The wind is howling so, that we can not hear each other.
Pa says, "Don't stop
for whatever reason without telling me."
So, we go almost to Miller's place, which is mostly halfway.
And Pa calls a halt, and we stop and rest
by a huge snowbank
that the snowplow had made from earlier snowfalls.
The snow sifting over the top of this big snowbank
and sifting down on us.
We're not terribly uncomfortable.
We're sort of excited by it all.
Then we continue on.
The first notice that we're getting home
is you catch the smell of wood smoke.
I can't see the buildings, but I can smell the wood smoke.
Finally, we trudge up along the driveway
and get up to the house
take off our boots on the porch.
We swept the snow off of each other
because we looked like snowmen, each one of us.
Into the kitchen, and there on the kitchen stove
was a big pot of homemade vegetable soup, steaming away.
Oh, what a wonderful, wonderful thing it was
to come into the house, be warm by the stove
and have vegetable soup.
That was just the beginning, of course
because we were safe
but now we've got to contend with the chores.
We found our way to the barn, did the chores.
It was eery
because when you go up in the barn
to throw down the hay
to hear the wind howling. rattling the barn
roaring around the corners, it was unbelievable.
I don't know if it was fearsome, I suppose
but I can't remember being terribly afraid
other than just being amazed at all of these unusual sounds.
The cattle, they didn't seem to mind.
You'd throw down the hay and the silage
and they were content and happy.
It was always warm in the barn.
Then back into the house.
You might ask, well, what about happened when the power went out
in the middle of all of this storm.
Well, the power didn't go out, because there wasn't any power.
We didn't have electricity.
We went to sleep with covers just thick on us.
Again, hearing the sound of the wind howling
and wondering how long this is going to last.
By the next morning, the wind had stopped.
The landscape had been completely transformed.
All the sharp edges were gone.
It was a land of black and white
and a blue sky.
It was kind of pretty.
Colder than thunder.
After these big blizzards, the temperature would plummet
10 below zero, 20 below zero, 30 below zero.
Colder than anything.
So what would we be doing the next morning?
Well, we would be shoveling paths.
Path to the pump hou, path to the barn,
path to the chicken house, path to the granary,
path to the outhouse, paths everywhere.
Now the problem that we had was what to do with the milk.
Because we had enough storage space for maybe two days.
We knew that the roads
were completely impassable.
We didn't know how long they would be
so the milk truck could get in.
So, we filled up all the cans with milk by the second day
filled up the washing machine and the wash tubs
filled up all the pots and pans, and everything we could find.
We even made butter.
My mother said, "Let's try and make some butter."
So we made some butter from some of the cream.
She made some cottage cheese from some of the milk.
Finally, I don't know, the third or fourth day
in the middle of the night
we could hear the roar of the snowplow.
The snow was as hard as a rock.
You could hear this
big four-wheel-drive diesel truck snowplow
charging forward and backing up
charging forward and backing up, again and again.
That was the sound that we heard all night long.
But we knew
we knew that the next day, the milkman would arrive
and things would come back to normal, mostly.
My dad would sometimes remind us
that if you think you're in charge of things, you're not.
There's something else in charge
and that's Mother Nature.
She's going to dictate, if you live on a farm
she's going to dictate much of your life.
You better get used to it,
and you better be comfortable with it.
You better learn how to adjust to it.
There were a lot of mental health problems
for many farm women in winter
because they were so isolated
and didn't have a chance to talk to anybody
other than their own family.
The men would go to the mill or the cheese factory
but the women, well, they'd get to church
and maybe to town once a week or every two weeks.
So they would do things like quilting bees.
That means all of the neighbor women would come to our house
in the dining room
with this great big thing they'd set up
a big framework with a quilt on it.
All these women
would sit around and sew.
They spent all afternoon.
They would do that for many days.
It was as much a social event as it was a quilting bee.
It was wonderful
because great fancy quilts came out of this.
The interactions of people
who are now somewhat isolated
because travel is more difficult
becomes very important.
Winter enhances that.
Sometimes I think we've forgotten
in our hurry-up society
the importance of neighbors and the value of community.
Winter forges, in our minds
the importance of those relationships.
There were housewarmings, new neighbors moved in
we would all go over there and welcome them.
One of our neighbor's daughter was married.
They had a reception for us at their house
on a cold winter Saturday night.
They lived about a mile away from us.
Everybody walked.
We walked everywhere, day and night, we walked.
If it was two miles or less, we walked
sometimes even more than that.
As we approached the Rapp farm
we could hear on this cold winter night, music
so we knew
that our three musicians in our neighborhood
were performing.
These guys played at all kinds of different things.
They played at the school.
They played all over the place.
All farmers, they weren't full-time musicians.
Let's see, there was Harry Banks, an Englishman
he played a violin.
He had a finger missing on his left hand
so he could somehow work the violin
I don't know, just like this finger was missing.
He'd got it caught in a mower accident.
He's playing his violin.
Then we've got Pinky Eserhut, who played the banjo.
His real name was Alvin.
None of us knew that until he died
and it was in the obituary, it said Alvin.
I could see why he didn't want anybody to know that.
He had red hair, so he was Pinky Eserhut.
German. Banjo.
Then there was Frank Kolka, a Czech.
Czechoslovakia. Bohemian.
He played a button concertina.
All three of these musicians could not read a note of music.
There was no music in sight when they played.
So, we're coming down the country road
hearing this music.
We come to the Rapp farm, and all the neighbors are there
and they're congratulating the married couple.
There's free beer, and these three musicians are playing.
All the furniture is pushed aside.
People are dancing.
Dancing the polka, dancing the old-time waltz
dancing the schottische.
One, two, three, hop.
One, two, three, hop, hop, hop, hop, hop, hop, hop.
I haven't danced a schottische in years.
But that's how it goes.
Then, in the middle of it all
Frank Kolka knew all of the Czech folk songs
tunes from the old country, haunting songs.
Frank would sit there and play
and people would just listen.
Then someone would say it's time for the polka
and Frank gets back on his concertina
changes the mood entirely.
The fiddle starts going, the banjo starts strumming
and everybody is dancing and having a wonderful time.
This goes on until midnight, or so
at which time there's this enormous meal
that comes out sausa and dill pickles
and rye bread, and sauerkraut,
of course you were always hungry as kids.
We were looking forward to that big, big dinner afterwards.
Watched people dance
thought that was kind of strange
to see people jumping around like they were goofy.
We always enjoyed seeing somebody
that maybe had one beer too many and how stupid they were.
[laughs]
Now, there wasn't any problem
with people being caught for driving under the influence
because nobody was driving.
Besides, once you were outside
if you had a little too much to drink
after you walked for about a quarter of a mile
and it was five below zero
you were in good shape, you were fine.
[laughs]
We would do that once or twice a winter, maybe three times.
I don't think people really realized what was happening
other than they knew it was good.
Everybody came, people who liked each other
and people who didn't like each other.
During those times
the latter years of the Depression
when things were really tough all over this country
and in Waushara County especially
because western Waushara County, where I grew up
was a sandy, poor farm community forever
and the Depression was especially difficult.
Then after that, immediately comes World War II
when everybody has relatives or sons in the war.
So, it's a tough time.
But with these three musicians
oh, how valuable they were to our community.
You could see they were having a grand time themselves.
They were laughing and kidding each other.
I don't know who was in charge, I guess nobody.
They just said, let's do an old-time waltz
or let's do a schottische.
Today, I so much want to give credit to these rural bands
and especially Frank, Pinky, and Harry
who made life so much more pleasant for us
during times when life wasn't that pleasant.
I enjoy winter.
I like to see a snowfall.
I enjoy the quiet.
Oh, the quiet of winter is just wonderful.
When you stand outside and there's no sound at all
and maybe a little breeze will come up
and you hear that wind
rustling the bare limbs of the trees.
Nobody said to do it
that when you are out, you should stop and listen.
Nobody ever said that, but we did.
It was a wonderful way
of just getting in touch with another side of nature
that you don't see in the summer.
It's a profound experience.
You begin to understand the nuances of winter
the sounds of winter that are special
the sights of winter that are special.
Winter creates
for those who have grown up with it
an attitude, a perspective
a way of thinking that is different
I believe, from those who've not had that experience.
Now, just as we were anticipating
the coming of winter
we are anticipating the coming of spring.
The sun is higher, and we are waiting
for the first southwest wind to begin blowing in
because when the wind switched
from the northwest to the southwest
we knew that weather was about to change.
Now, winter was always reluctant to leave.
So sometimes, it would be way into March
before we'd wake up one morning
and the eaves would be dripping
and walking to the barn, the snow would be mushy.
In the barn, you could tell
that not only did I feel spring
the animals were anticipating spring, as well.
You could tell. They were antsy.
They wanted to get outside.
When you leave them out there
they are running like they are crazy animals.
The cows are running with their tails up in the air
and they're jumping up and down
and they're feigning little fights with each other
and the young stock are roaring.
They're running around the place like crazy animals.
There's a great excitement now with anticipation of spring.
So it wasn't just the people.
Now, walking to school, spring was a mess
because the road was muddy.
It was good in the morning, because it was frozen
and you'd walk on top of the ruts.
But in the afternoon
you'd come home, and everything was mud.
My mother hated mud, and there was mud everywhere.
The geese are flying north.
That's another sure sign.
I remember from horizon to horizon,
when the sun is setting
there are geese, Canada geese
flying north.
They knew that there was spring in the air.
They were happy and they were talking to each other.
I can imagine what they were saying.
"Well, Mabel, what do you think it's going to be like
in Manitoba this summer?"
[laughs]
By May, the whippoorwills are calling.
My dad said, "Do you know what they're saying?
They're saying, 'Plant your corn.
Plant your corn. Plant your corn.'"
[laughs]
From the first day of spring
everything that we did all summer long
was in service to winter.
From the last day of winter
to the first day of the next winter
it was preparation for that season.
As I reflect back on when I was a kid
way back in the '30s, '40s, and early '50s
winters have changed.
Our winters are not as long as they were.
It's been a long time
since I've experienced 35 below zero.
In recent years, we've not had the snowfalls, either
that we had in the early days.
Though we may on occasion have a hint of a blizzard
I don't think I've seen anything
like we had back when I was a kid.
So the season itself has changed.
Also, today, there are not very many people anymore
who grew up on farms.
We are in a definite minority.
There are only about, oh, two percent of the population
in the country that live on farms and actively farm.
So it's a very small number.
The number of people who've had a direct experience
with nature in the country
that number is much smaller.
And thus, unfortunately for many, their view of winter
it's an annoyance.
It's something that prevents them
from doing what they want to do.
It interferes with schedules.
We had problems on the farm.
The pipes would freeze
and the water heater didn't work, and the tank
but that's a part of it.
One of the characteristics of farm people
especially of my generation and my dad's generation
the closeness to nature I think was never more.
Why?
Because the very survival of farm people
depended on an understanding of and appreciation for
an irreverence toward nature.
The idea that you can control it somehow
was not in anybody's vocabulary.
We are, as human beings, not apart from
but a part of nature.
Once we realize that the connection of human beings
to other life, to the land, to the weather, water, air
once we realize that we are a part of that
we can relax, enjoy,
appreciate, and not be so upset
when things don't go the way we think they should
because of the weather.
I learned all that from my father.
We were reluctant to get up in the morning
on those cold winter days
because we knew the room was colder than thunder
and the hallway outside the room was colder still.
You don't have any heat there at all.
You knew that the house downstairs wasn't all that warm
because Pa would've started the fire
maybe a half an hour before.
He took the stove poker and rapped on the chimney
which was my alarm clock.
One foot out of the bed, thump, thump, thump on the floor
he knew what I was up to.
"Time to get up. I know you're not up."
So, I'd finally get up, gather up my clothes.
Of course, I slept with my long underwear on and my socks.
Run down the hall as fast as I could, down the stairway
and parked myself in front of the Round Oak heater
with the front of me ce and toasty
and the back of me freezing to death.
A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps
was funded, in part by
Holiday Vacations;
Ron and Colleen Weyers;
the Edward J. Okray Foundation;
the Wisconsin History Fund;
with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities;
and the Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.