[clock ticking]
*[funky pop with sharp guitar]
[chik-chik-cha- chika-cha-chik]
- How ya doin'?
My name's Mike Perry.
Wisconsin born and raised.
Cheesehead from day one.
[pitchfork clangs]
Grew up on the wooden end of a pitchfork.
Educated by farmers,
loggers, and public-school teachers.
Owner of one nursing degree, two broke-down pickup trucks,
and, occasionally, some pigs.
I've written some books,
sung some songs,
and told some stories.
Outside my duties as a father and a husband,
the most meaningful thing I've ever done
is serve beside my neighbors
as a volunteer firefighter
and emergency medical responder.
But through it all, I've been a clodhopper.
The term is part euphemism for "flat-footed roughneck
"who can't even polka
and who could never pull off fancy ,"
[sassy, sinuous crooning] - * Ooh, ooh, oh, ya, ya
* Ah, ah, ah ow
- But it's also true
I grew up hopping from dirt clod to dirt clod
in my father's farm fields;
sometimes in shoes,
sometimes not.
So, a few years back,
when Wisconsin Public Television asked me
to file some reports from my part of Wisconsin...
How ya doin'?
You're not from around here, are ya?
...it just seemed natural to call it
the Clodhopper Report.
[ax thwacks] There you go.
It's called a 'four-banger'.
Now that's [chicks peeping] what I call a Twitter message.
We did a bunch of 'em.
[metal clinks] Some in my backyard,
some in the swamps, some in the trees,
and at least one
from the back of a manure spreader.
We're gonna take a little time now
and look back at a few of those old Clodhopper Reports.
See what you still recognize,
see what I still recognize.
From back when this beard wasn't so white,
and this hair...
Well, you'll see.
[man singing] - * Woot, ooh, ya, ya
* Ah, ah, ah, ow
* [happy, bouncy, quirky acoustic guitar] *
- Funding for Michael Perry: How Ya doin'?
was provided by
Ron and Colleen Weyers,
Stanley J. Cottrill Fund,
Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programming,
and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.
*
* [Free-spirited indie folk]
From the get-go, I hoped the Clodhopper Report
would reflect the people and part of the state
that shaped me--
mainly the area north of Highway 64.
But I also wanted to weave in things that any Wisconsinite--
be they from the city, the cornfields, or coasts--
would recognize.
For instance, many of our warm-state friends
think that snow equals cold,
whereas us ear-flappered Cheddarheads know
that the worst cold is cold without snow.
And whenever possible, I wanted to work in a little humor.
Humor is a form of self-deprecation.
And where I come from, if you don't self-deprecate,
somebody's gonna do it for you.
One of the self-imposed forms of self-deprecation
is comparing the old you to the...
even older you.
So, let's go back in time
[wrestling with mailbox]
and get this over with.
[chik-chik-cha- chika-cha-chik]
* [earthy wavering Blues] How ya doin'?
Oh, it's been cold up here north of 64!
It's cold and brown.
Cold and brown is a whole different deal
than cold and white.
Cold and Brown makes a guy kinda wanna grouse.
* [guitar slide twangs]
Grousing's like--
It's like whining, only with coffee and donuts.
You can kinda' hang out and grouse.
The expert grouser never plays the first card.
It's a high-stakes game.
And he who goes first, gets trumped.
- Stormy Kromer hat: So, is it cold by you?
- Packers cap: Ah, yeah, it's 22 degrees below.
- Stormy Kromer hat: Ah, well, it was 24 below up by us.
- Packers cap: [gulps]
- Stormy Kromer hat: 'Course that was on
the milk house thermometer,
and that always reads about 3 degrees high.
- Packer cap: [resentful breath]
- Stormy Kromer hat: Yeah, froze the manure spreader up,
broke the worm gear.
How much you figure
a little chunk of steel like that'd run ya?
- [Packers cap groans audibly] Tangible evidence of tragedy.
- Stormy Kromer hat: 127 bucks.
- Packers cap: Mmm, out-groused!
- Stormy Kromer hat: Well, that's farming.
- Packers cap: Ooh, out-martyred.
- Grousing martyrdom,
a favorite Wisconsin winter pastime
playing now at a café near you.
Man, it's cold!
Is it cold by you?
* [playful Dobro slide twangs]
* [fun guitar-picking blues]
O, sweet innocent youth.
You know, I still have two of those three hats.
The hair?
Well, I don't mean to grouse,
but let's just say there's a reason
I keep all that extra headgear on hand.
Around here,
staying warm
is a way of life.
[chik-chik-cha- chika-cha-chik]
[driving banjo-pickin' folk]
[breathing heavy, brushing snow]
How ya doin'?
It's wintertime and we're splitting wood like mad.
I don't know,
splittin' wood's kind of a multi-disciplinary activity.
It's kind of your tai chi, your yoga,
your Pilates
all rolled into one.
Not for this winter.
A little late for that.
No, this is firewood for next winter.
I know there's been a lot of talk
of climatic creep and global changes.
I ain't no meteorologist,
but I'm betting that the winter of 2010
is going to be cold.
*
There you go.
[exhaling vigorously] It's called a 'four-banger'.
Oh, I like splitting wood.
My wife wants me to have a wood splitting bee
where we get in an automatic splitter
and have a bunch of family and friends over
and she'll make some chili
and she says we can get it all done in one day.
But where's the fun in that?
No, I like to get out here and chop
and feel the bones and muscles do the work.
Get a little bit sweaty out here in the cold.
That's alright.
Kind of a peaceful thing.
Kind of rhythmic.
And I like to take a break
and just kind of gaze off over the territory
like I'm some kind of hardy woodsman on the frontier.
Just another Abe Lincoln,
albeit a little shorter and a little dumber.
And unlikely to change the course of human events.
A lot of you firewood snobs are probably wondering
what I'm doin' splitting box elder,
which basically burns like a bad cigar.
But what happened is we had a whole bunch of these
growing up against the barn
and they were rubbing the shingles off.
So, I cut them down and now we're going to burn them.
Get over it.
Of course, I spend most my time
splitting big manly chunks of oak.
By the way, if you've got yourself a problem teenager,
here's what you need.
You need to get yourself a great big gigantic splitting maul,
send 'em out in the backyard with a huge round chunk' a elm.
You won't hear from him for a week.
A lot of reasons people split their own firewood.
I split my own firewood because I'm a man
and with every stroke of the ax
I'm providing for my family.
Our first year on this place, I'd be out here splitting wood
and my wife would come out and she'd say,
"We're not going to have enough firewood."
I just kept splitting.
She'd say, "We're not going to have enough firewood."
I just kept splitting.
Of course, we didn't have enough firewood.
Had to have a man come with a load of firewood.
It's a humiliating thing for a man
to have to stand beside his wife
in the middle of 37 acres of woodlot
and write a check to another man
for wood he didn't split.
* [guitar plays resigned tone]
*[dreamy, optimistic folk rock]
My belief in firewood as a parenting tool
has only deepened
since the day we filmed that piece.
Having now raised one child into adulthood,
I can't tell you the number of times
we started stacking in steam and silence...
and by the time the wood was neatly arranged,
so were our feelings.
I still run this thing.
Split a truckload with it last winter.
Ain't gonna lie to ya though.
There are easier ways...
[log splitter's engine sputters and chugs]
One of the things the Clodhopper Reports--
silly as they are--
have caused me to consider is:
What do we fight to preserve,
and what do we graciously let go?
[chik-chik-cha- chika-cha-chik]
- Fifty-eight! [auctioneer chants quickly in rhythmic monotone]
Fifty-eight dollar, fifty-eight now-now!
Fifty-nine dollars! Sixty, y'abletabid
Sixty-one dollars, sixty two, how about three, raised to four?
How about five dollars, sixty- two, how about three, four?
Sixty-five, somebody on the end, seventy!
- How ya doin'?
I don't want to brag,
but I picked up a couple of bargains last week,
didn't have to go anywhere near the mall.
Got them the old-fashioned way.
Went to an auction.
Try and find yourself one of these at The Sharper Image.
If you're going to go to an auction around these parts
you got to work on your nod.
You know, a lot of folks think ya got a wave,
wave your little paddle,
but you just gotta give him the nod.
My buddy Mills goes to a lot of auctions
and he says about 12-degree tilt is about right,
just go...
That's a bid right there.
Saw these babies on the hay wagon
and this is the first object that I bought.
These are logging tongs.
These are for hauling your, ah, your log outta the woods.
And, boy, you know, I started bidding on it
and I realized once the bidding started
I really didn't know how much one was worth
so I just kept bidding
and I think I got it for about 30 bucks.
Of course, as soon as I won it,
I walked away carrying it proudly,
and this guy comes up me, goes "Whaddya pay for that?"
And I looked him right in the eye and I said, "Twenty dollars"
because when someone asks you
what you paid for something at an auction,
you lie to 'em.
I ain't telling how much I paid
'cause if you tell them how much you paid,
sure enough, he goes,
"Aw, cripes, you can get those for eighteen dollars brand new
down to the Farm & Fleet."
I don't want to know that.
Don't tell me that. That's not helpful.
Then I was--
They had one of them deals where they just kind of--
They hold up a bunch of junk and you bid on 'em
and I've been looking for a corn knife
and I saw a corn knife in this mess of stuff here.
And they held it up.
Two bucks for this whole assortment
and I want to tell you something I scored.
This right here
is an aluminum case for putting notebooks in
and kind of like what we use on the ambulance.
I always wanted one around the farm here
to put my notebooks in 'cause...
'Cause I'm not sure why, but I always wanted to have my own.
And I had my eye on these.
They were on a big pile of stuff on a hay wagon.
And I wandered off somewhere
and when I came back, they had already sold that pile.
And I was looking at the pile
and the guy who bought it,
he looked at me and he saw my long face
and he said, "Did you have your eye on something in there?"
And I said, "Yeah, I was kind of looking at them,
them aluminum folders there."
And he said "Well, what will you give me for it?"
I said, "I'll give you two bucks."
And he said, "All right."
He paid five bucks for the whole pile
and I paid two bucks for these aluminum folders.
But he said,
"You gotta take the computer."
So, I got a computer.
The other thing I wanted was a mattock
and they had one there
and a mattock is a pickaxe.
It's got a flat blade on one end
and several of the old timers said,
"You know how to run that thing, son?"
and my standard joke of the day was,
"Well, I keep looking
and I can't find the starter on it."
And I said that joke about four or five times,
got a nice laugh.
About the sixth time, I met somebody funnier than me
and I said, "Well I can't find the starter on this thing"
and he looked at me and he said, "She's at home."
It was cold and rainy at the auction that day.
Perfect weather
because the farmers couldn't get into the fields,
so they all came to the sale.
They had a great turnout.
But the mood sort of matched the weather.
I've been having a good time talking about auctions here
and I, I like going to the auction,
I like bidding for stuff,
I like giving them the old nod.
But the truth was we were participating
in the end of the line
for a long-time hometown family business.
This was the place where my dad bought his first tractor.
I'll try to keep that in mind when I use that corn knife.
[auctioneer announcing in background]
* [peaceful guitar music]
Time rolls on.
We try to preserve some of it by buying old things
and even using old things.
When the beloved old white pine that sheltered our family's
farmyard for generations came down,
I used these to haul off the chunks.
Made me feel good to know that they were still doing the work
for which they were intended.
You know what would have been really cool, though?
Is if I'd had an old tractor to match.
[chik-chik-cha- chika-cha-chik]
How ya doin'?
* [upbeat gentle country pop]
Up here north of 64, the past has become the future.
The local implement dealer sells more used tractors
than new tractors.
Did I say "used"?
Vintage!
The farmers who bought these tractors new,
they're not buying tractors anymore.
These days, your average tractor buyer
is looking for something that will go nice with the gazebo.
They get a little patch of land up north.
Pretty soon, they get the tractor bug.
I understand.
Tractors are time machines of the heart.
First tractor I ever drove was a John Deere B.
Johnny Popper.
My dad let me take it through the gate.
Man, I pushed that hand clutch forward
and I was the captain of the Queen Mary.
First tractor my dad ever bought new
was a Massey Ferguson 135.
A little smaller than this tractor.
Same beautiful color, same excellent logo.
Man, I spent a lot of hours on that thing.
Cutting hay, plowing,
pulling a drag,
thinking about love.
I even wrote a poem once.
"And that tractor would be a plunging white charger,
"in plowing daydreams
"where you waited to be rescued
at the end of every row."
Yeah, everybody wants to be
the knight on a shining Massey Ferguson,
or an old Ford,
or a Minneapolis Moline.
The old ways are going, going, gone.
They always are.
But on an old tractor, you can go back for another round.
Why didn't I ever write a poem about manure spreaders?
[loud diesel passes]
[speaking breathily] Wow!
You catch that last part?
I have made a lot of mistakes in my life,
but the one I will take to my grave
is allowing some fancy-pants television producer
talk me into pronouncing it "mah-noo-ure" spreader.
Every clodhopper knows
it's "mah-NERRR".
That's a signifier is what that is.
A word or words deployed in order
to connect with a sub-segment of folks.
Like, for instance, the phrase
"pickin' rock."
[chik-chik-cha- chika-cha-chik]
* [rockin' country jam]
How ya doin'?
Hey, if you're running around north of Highway 64 this summer,
keep an eye out alongside the roads or out in the farm fields
for big old piles of rocks.
The Welsh and the Irish refer to them as cairns.
Who built these symbolic stacks of stones?
What vanished tribe?
Who were these mysterious people?
Polish farm kids mainly.
These piles represent a tradition
that a lot of farm kids would probably just as soon forget.
Every spring they were sent out into the field
to clear away the stone so that the farmer
didn't tear up his machinery during plowing season.
And when you look at these piles,
keep in mind that every rock
has probably been handled at least twice:
once when some poor kid picked it up
and tossed it on the hay wagon,
and the second time
when he picked it up and threw it in the pile.
We call it "picking rock."
You might think that if you pick all the rocks off a field once
you'd never have to do it again.
But every spring the frost heaves up a new crop.
The rocks just keep coming.
Year after year after year.
Some of the old timers will tell you that rocky ground
made good farming ground 'cause it held water.
Not sure what the kids loading the wagons full of rocks
would have said about that.
It wasn't just the country kids who got to pick rock
where I came from either.
When I was in grade school,
they put in a new football field
and they marched all of us little grade-schoolers out there
into the hot sun to pick rock
and whoever had the biggest pile at the end of the day
got a prize.
It was like a Slo Poke or something.
Can you imagine if they sent little grade schoolers
out into the hot sun to pick rock today?
This isn't picking rock.
This...
IS picking rock.
I'll get that one later.
* [rowdy party bluegrass rock]
Here's the beautiful part of this story:
Farmers tell me that lately people from Minnesota
have been showing up looking for these rocks.
They put them on their patios
or decorate their gardens with 'em.
They're willing to pay money for these rocks.
I think we can work something out.
* [high-octane bluegrass rock]
* [mellow acoustic guitar]
I got no idea
of the state of the decorative stone industry these days.
But when I watch that piece
I remember how my neighbor Barry cackled
when he told me about those folks from Minnesota
willing to pay him cash for the bane of his existence.
[chuckles]
Barry's gone now,
but his story plays on.
That's why we tell stories.
To draw threads of the past
into the present.
* [country outlaw blues rock]
How ya doin'?
[birdsong]
* [sweet, gentle country pop]
I not only love being from Wisconsin,
I love being of Wisconsin.
I feel the same about my hometown.
But I'm not as susceptible to romanticized reminiscence
as I used to be.
When I watched this next video
all these years after filming it,
I smiled in recognition,
but I was also braced by all the things
that no longer apply, or perhaps never did apply.
But one thing hasn't changed:
I'm still grateful to be from around here.
[chik-chik-cha- chika-cha-chik]
How ya doin'?
* [sassy mid-tempo blues rock]
We're in the midst of a kind of a 'back to the land' movement
up here north of 64.
And this time, it's not just hippies.
Well, we do get some hippies.
They're on their second go around.
This time, they've got retirement plans.
If you come up here to live or even just to visit,
at some point, somebody is going to look you over
and then they're going to say,
"You're not from around here, are you?"
Did you ever wonder how we know?
Perhaps you used your turn signal on Main Street.
No need.
Could be you keep calling the town hall
to see how long it'll be before the snowplow comes by.
Or maybe somebody asks you how Boober Olson's corn was doing,
and you said you hadn't noticed.
[speaking in incredulous tone] You don't know Suzy Johnson?!?
The one who run off with the pastor?
You can't back up your boat trailer?!? [laughing]
You passed a load of hay on a double yellow?!?
Slow down!
That's why you moved up here.
The number one dead giveaway
that you're not from around here.
Ya keep mooing at the cows.
Please, don't moo at the cows.
I don't know why they moo at the cows.
They don't bark at the dogs.
They don't squeak at the muskrats.
They don't uff-da at the Norwegians.
* [thick rock guitars and breezy banjos] *
I make a lotta hay over my "around here"
being cow-crossing country,
but I try not to be reverse-snooty about it.
Wisconsin simply wouldn't be Wisconsin
without the vibrancy of its big cities.
Big cities defined by a guy like me
as any settlement
with more than three digits on the population sign.
Yeah, I like going to the big city,
catchin' some of that energy.
Especially if it's the state capital
and it's being overrun
by vintage trucks and tractors of a certain make...
[chik-chik-cha- chika-cha-chik]
How ya doin'?
You know, I woke up at 6 a.m. this morning
three-and-a-half-hours south of my chicken coop
and I looked out my hotel room window and there on the horizon,
I saw a beautiful sight.
* [rowdy country bar music]
This is my favorite version
of the International Harvester logo.
I don't know if I want to touch it.
We've got little peanut tractors
and great big ole honkin' tractors.
We're down here in Madison, Wisconsin
for the International Harvester Red Power Roundup.
This is the biggest collection of red paint
you're going to find in the entire United States of America.
It's a long haul from
a horse-drawn reaper in 1831 to this in 2009.
[engine rumbles]
This is a farm boy's dream come true here.
You know, what'd be really terrific
is if someone would take all these beautiful tractors,
find a bunch of old International pickup trucks,
and have themselves a parade.
- Did anyone bring a tow strap with 'em?
Good, because that means
nobody will break down.
[crowd laughing]
- When you're offered the opportunity to be
the marshal of the International Harvester Red Power Parade,
there's really only one answer.
* [good-humored polka music] And away we go!
Follow that tractor! - Wrong lane.
- This isn't just a parade; this is a pilgrimage.
We've got folks from all over the U.S.
have come to this event.
If you like red paint, this is your day of worship.
Sometimes you're in the parade
and sometimes you're IN the parade!
- Bystander: What happened?
- I think we ran out of gas.
All red, all the time.
I should mention that I do have friends who have a fondness
for agricultural equipment of another color.
But today is our day and we'll still be friends tomorrow.
There's a self-help group
for people who are obsessed with Internationals.
It's called the International Harvester Collectors Club
and you are looking
at member number 429.
It's not a tractor show.
It's not a truck show.
This is an art show.
Anybody who says an International isn't beautiful
hasn't seen that truck.
I'm not much of a gearhead but I'm here today
because I love International Trucks.
I love 'em so much I wrote a book about one.
It was called Truck: A Love Story.
And people ask me sometimes, they say,
"Is that a love story about a truck or about a woman?"
and I always ask the question in return,
"Is there not room enough in a man's heart for both?
I mean, look at her."
For a farm boy, this is like going to the Loo-vra (Louvre).
* [guitar-picking country]
Country boy goes to the city
to see the country!
A show like this is, by definition,
about the past.
Old trucks, old tractors, old times.
But this next episode
is unfolding right up into the present.
Isn't that right?
[buck, bok, bok]
[chik-chik-cha- chika-cha-chik]
[bird chirps, door rolls mechanically]
How ya doin'?
Feed mill called yesterday and said, "Your chicks are in."
Now that's what I call a Twitter message.
* [sunny, relaxed reggae]
How was your trip? [chick peeps]
A lot of folks don't realize it, but these little chicks,
they come in the mail.
You'll get a call from the Post Office,
or in this case, down at the Feed Mill,
and they'll say, "Your chicks are in."
It's one of my favorite things.
It's kinda like Christmas right in the middle of summer.
OK, kids, gonna leave you to it.
Put the safety screen over the top.
That's intended to prevent varmints and 2-year-olds
from getting to the chicks.
Weight it down a little bit.
And then, put out the heat lamp.
Give 'em a little sun to soak under, as it were.
And you come back in about 15 minutes
and they'll be all together
in one little yellow fuzzy cluster
right under that heat lamp.
The stock tank is just the first stop.
That's the crib, that's the nursery.
The next stop is the pullet house.
[rooster crows]
Hello, ladies.
I call it the pullet house, but, actually,
it's just our old chicken coop.
You may remember this building from the day I remodeled it.
* [vigorous electric guitar]
That was a long day.
Alright, ladies, here you go.
These are pullets which means that they're young hens
and they should start laying eggs sometime in the fall,
at which point they can earn their keep.
So, these young ladies
will be in this coop for a few more weeks,
and then, when we think they're ready to go pro,
we'll move 'em to the big house.
* [Rat Pack big band jazz]
How about this baby?
Welcome to the rolling poultry palace!
A chicken coop on wheels.
This is clearly an upgrade on other properties.
[boc-boc-boc-urrrk, bok bagok]
Take special note of the sill-less construction
which allows hassle-free by-product extraction.
Centralized food distribution center.
Detachable porch!
Hand-crafted portable gate unit
with auto-lock.
Fully cleated, detachable ramp.
Fully interiorized pocket door componentry--
simply remove, raise,
and insert to hold.
And how happy are the residents
of the Perry Portable Poultry System?
[kuh-kuh-kuh-kuh] Let's ask them.
What do you think, ladies-- Oh, look at the joy!
You can feel the joy in their wings,
you can hear the joy in their voices.
Are ya happy? [boc-boc-bawk-buck-bok-bagok]
Do ya like where you live?
Are ya happy with that?
Are ya satisfied? How about you, sir?
Are you happy with your Perry Portable Poultry System?
[cluck, cluck, cluck, cock-a-doodle-doo]
[chicks squeak contentedly]
From the stock tank,
to the pullet house,
to the big house,
it's all about one thing.
* [sunny, relaxed reggae]
[rooster crows]
[hens clucking]
[tuk-tuk-kah]
[cock-a-doodle-doo]
Remember when I said
firewood was the perfect parenting tool?
Chickens come a close second.
*[fun, carefree, jaunty music]
[boc-boc-boc-urrrk, bok bagok]
[clucking tuk-tuk-kah]
Chicken chores, sure,
but the birds are also instructive
regarding entrepreneurship, profit-sharing,
government regulation of the free market,
and gumption,
as it pertains to sticking your hand
in the nesting box of the one that pecks.
[clucking]
[assertive clucking buck-bok-ba-gaw!]
[chik-chik-cha- chika-cha-chik]
* [romantic, swirling country blues] *
[crunching underfoot]
How ya doin'?
It's been mighty dry up here north of 64
and that's bad news for the farmers
but its good news for me because
I can go sit in the swamp without getting soggy shorts.
It's a great place to hide,
a land where no lawnmower ever comes.
There's too much mowing in this world.
I like it out here,
just laying in the grass, looking at the sky.
Maybe a cloud comes by, maybe it doesn't.
It's kind of like playing hooky.
You can muse out here or you can pout.
No bill collectors out here.
Nobody banging on your door.
Nobody calling.
No email.
I like grass that's taller than I am.
Given half a chance, some lawn loony would mow this,
I guaran-dang-tee it.
Probably stick a gazebo right over there,
run some pavers through here.
Put a couple of plywood Packer cutouts over there.
Probably run the edger up and down Five Mile Road.
Believe it or not, they did mow all this at one time.
The old timers tell me that during the Depression
the drought was so severe
that the hayfields all dried up
and so they went out into the swamps
and cut whatever they could.
And I myself can remember back in, I think it was, 1976
we had such a bad drought
that dad sent us out into the little swamps
that surrounded our farm and we cut the hay there.
I remember banging off across the swamp
knocking the tops off
the saw grass clumps with the hay cutter.
You can faintly see where the old road
used to run out across the swamp.
This wasn't a swamp
until they put a dam in and backed up Beaver Creek.
And there was a time when
there was a farm up there somewhere.
You see this old road running out between the cattails.
The smell of the swamp
is one of my favorite things.
I've described it before as salty sweet.
Kind of reminds you of
decay and life and the ocean.
Sometimes, if you're out here at night
when the sandhill cranes come in, they'll bugle,
and it's a real spooky clotted sound
and you can convince yourself that you're living
in the time of pterodactyls when they come in to land.
Of course, after you spend some time out here
collecting yourself,
you want to remember that you're also collecting ticks
and kind of go over yourself when you get home.
Oh, you'll have some bugs out here and a few mosquitoes,
but really nothing too severe.
The cool thing about Wisconsin is
it gets so bitter cold during the winter that
all the really nasty animals and insects and little beasties
get frozen out...
'cept for snapping turtles...
and brown recluse spiders...
pine rattlers...
black bears.
[huffing and puffing]
* [sweet, gentle country pop]
[laughs]
Gosh, I run like I was raised by farmers.
My secret weapon is: I may be slow,
but I can be slow
all
all day
all day long.
That'll get you through life.
But that piece was also a testament
to the idea of stopping,
of the pause,
of just sittin' there.
And one Wisconsin tradition
has allowed me to do just that--
deep in the trees--
for years.
[chik-chik-cha- chika-cha-chik]
[opens door]
* [brass band plays sunny, whimsical song] *
[closes door]
How ya doin'?
C'mon.
Up here north of 64,
everybody's getting ready to go deer hunting
and I'm going out to check my deer stand.
I've been deer hunting since I was a kid.
It's part of my culture.
I'm not a trophy hunter.
I mean, I'll take a crack at the big buck if he runs out,
but basically,
I'm more interested in putting something in the freezer
than on the wall.
Of course, before I can put meat in the freezer,
I got to put my seat in the stand
and this thing has been sitting here for a year,
so some safety checks are in order.
[shaking and knocking]
Like a rock.
* [moody Southern blues]
By the way, I know you're dying to ask about the hat.
It is, after all, highly stylish.
This is a very special hunting hat for me.
I have a head problem.
I have a very huge melon.
See what I mean?
So, I got this problem.
When I go to buy hunting caps
they're always too tight.
I'll be on the stand for about two hours
and then I'll develop this hat rash.
And then, for the rest of the week
nobody wants to eat beside me.
So, I was in this store about
two weeks after deer hunting one year
and I went past the clearance table
and there in the middle
of a pile of mittens and hats and everything else
was this cap.
And I opened it up and I looked inside at the tag
and I saw
X-
X-X-
X-X-L.
And I thought, "Could it possibly be?"
And I raised it above my head,
and I let it settle gently down over my ears
and I heard angels sing.
Alright, I got the three basic ingredients
to hunting comfort.
Ingredient number one:
collapsible chair.
Ingredient number two:
blaze orange heater seater.
And ingredient number three:
cheapo sleeping bag.
[exhales deeply]
[old fashioned brass band performs playful melody]
Well, stand's good to go.
Got my shells.
Got my rifle cleaned.
Wonder what I did with my license?
[humph]
Now, as long as I make sandwiches.
Sandwiches are the key to a pleasant hunting experience.
That and a couple of granola bars.
You want your hunting trip to be a civilized experience.
* [country music with a Down South rap beat] *
Well, that's a wrap on my Wisconsin.
There are plenty of other Wisconsins,
and I respectfully commend you to them.
As time passes,
I am ever more grateful to share my stories,
but I also feel it is my duty
to help amplify the stories of others.
To honor the past
while holding the door open for the future.
Things change, and for the most part,
that's OK.
I've changed...
I hope!
Although I am always and forever...
a clodhopper.
How ya doin'?
Grousing's like whining
only with coffee and donuts.
Mmm!
I like it out here,
laying in the grass, looking at the sky.
Up here north of 64,
the past has become the future.
This is a farm boy's dream come true here.
How ya doin'?
*
[chik-chik-cha- chika-cha-chik]
* [punchy electronic folk]
[wood tumbling]
How ya doin'?
Welcome to the family wood shed.
The reason I call it the family wood shed
is because my dad helped me
put in the foundation and the stud walls,
my buddy Mills helped me put on the siding.
Let's see, our friend Carissa helped paint it
and our neighbor Jeremy
help me put the tin on the roof.
And my wife and two daughters
helped put the wood in the wood shed.
[wood clunks]
I have to work on my shot.
Most of all, I'm just grateful
we had a roof over our firewood this year.
This is the first year on the farm
that I haven't had to dig it all off from the snow,
and we had a lot of snow this year.
Pretty much finished, although as you can see,
we're missing the door there,
and there's no door over here either,
although I've got the lovely
Farm & Fleet tarp hard at work.
Well, I'll get those doors on maybe next year.
What happened is
I ran out of friends and relatives. [chuckles]
I think we're in pretty good shape this year.
That stuff over there that was from the County.
The County trimmed back the road here
and me and the Zich brothers
got out their old buzz saw,
and we buzzed a bunch of that stuff off.
That was fun 'cause when I grew up
buzz saws were pretty common.
And there are all these old-timers
and they had buzz saw stories.
And pretty much the punchline to every buzz saw story
went something like this:
Over here, I got a piece of white pine.
We don't burn a lot of white pine.
It's fun to watch burn, but it goes real fast.
It's kind of like burning firecrackers.
It's kind of a quick deal.
I have had a couple of years where
the calendar and the woodpile
were meeting at a rather abrupt intersection.
[clunk, clunk]
But we're at
that time of year where a guy comes out
and you do this kind of 3-D calculus
where you lay an imaginary calendar
over the stack of wood
and decide if you've got enough cubic cellulose
to make it through.
And I think we'll do fine.
[chik-chik-cha- chika-cha-chik]
[meow]
How ya doin'?
Well, we've had piles and piles
of snow up here this winter.
And you know what piles of snow means!
Snow tunnels.
Well, this here is a little mini snow tunnel.
It was dug by my daughters and their babysitter
right after the big blizzard.
I'm proud of my little girls.
I like the fact that I've got little girls that,
in the face of the blizzard,
they want to bundle up and go dig a snow tunnel.
I'm proud of the babysitter too, for that matter.
That's what you want in a good babysitter.
Can you do CPR?
Can you dial 9-1-1?
Can you dig a snow tunnel?
You're hired.
I don't know where the babysitter
learned to make snow tunnels,
but I did my training up there in Chippewa County
with the Perry brothers and sisters.
[shovel scraping snow]
Yeah, c'mon.
[yaa-aaa-aghh]
Got to see if the old man still got it.
Phew!
So, what is it about snow tunnels?
Why are we fascinated with them when we're little kids?
I suppose, it's obviously something about adventure
and tunneling through the new world.
Every kid talked about digging a hole straight to the earth
and coming out in China.
There's a little bit of danger to it.
You know, you're crawling through a tunnel
under a big pile of snow.
Well, we're getting close.
The best part is that build up
to that moment when you finally break through.
That's what we're looking for
pretty much all our life,
the moment when we break through.
We'll take it wherever we can get it,
even if it's a snow tunnel.
Pretty nice job.
Looks almost like it was dug by a machine.
It was dug by a machine.
[sniffles]
Well, all that philosophy is all well and good,
but if you want to get any work done,
you got to get busy on the wooden end of a shovel.
It's about time for the big moment
what every kid digs for:
the punch through.
* [classic Americana feel-good rock] *
Hello, there! [cackles "ha, ha"]
The punch through.
I love the punch through!
[groaning]
A little snug.
[jovial laugh] Yes!
Success!
Perfect!
*
[chik-chik-cha- chika-cha-chik]
* [upbeat guitar, banjo, mandolin, bass, and drums] *
[birdsong]
How ya doin'?
It's spring here in Wisconsin,
sort of.
If you take a look over there on the horizon,
you can see that the bare bones of the trees
have started to thicken with buds.
You can see that the bud scales on the maple,
which are dark red,
put a sort of smoky maroon haze over everything.
You do hear more birds.
The garlic's coming on.
We got some early onions up.
And here, in this old cold frame
we've got a great head start on the dandelions.
I figure that's what it must be like
to be a dandelion in Tennessee.
[rooster crows]
It's a time of rediscovery,
including things you should have taken care of last fall.
You can feel the countryside just itching to bust loose.
And maybe by the time you see this, it will have.
But for now,
we're cautious.
*[plucking strings watchfully] Yesterday, it was 70 degrees.
Today,
it's not.
That's the trouble with spring around these parts.
You love it, but you just can't trust it.
In short, it is a dysfunctional relationship.
I, for one, am prepared to make a commitment.
Today, I put the snow shovel away.
* [quirky, twitchy, plucky strings] *
[rooster crows]
* [soft energetic pop-country]
* [happy, bouncy, quirky acoustic guitar] *
- Funding for Michael Perry: How Ya doin'?
was provided by
Ron and Colleen Weyers,
Stanley J. Cottrill Fund,
Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programming,
and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.
*
[birds chirping]