June Is A Special Month

Across the Fence #501

The month of June is when spring ends and summer begins. Where better to experience June than in the country, living on the land.

Author Scott Schultz wrote, “To truly know the land, a person must walk through Wisconsin pastures in the wetness of a cool June morning and allow Earth’s life to soak through shoes and jeans.” 

I love that statement. I know many of us have experienced the feeling of our shoes and jeans being wet with the morning dew as we walk through the fields. I remember heading for the pasture in the morning to get the cows. We always let the cows out in the pastures during the summer. They usually came when we called them, but sometimes we had to go and herd them to the barn, especially when they were in a new, lush pasture. As we walked the well-used cow paths, the tall grass would brush against us and leave our jeans soaked, but the warm, June days would quickly dry them out.

June is when the gardens start to come alive and provide us food. It’s also when rhubarb emerges and provides those delicious stalks that become pies, bars, jam, cakes, and sauce, to name a few uses. I love everything rhubarb. This year our rhubarb plants have been as prolific as zucchini and cucumbers. We’re into our second crop and have much more than we can use. We’ve given armloads away to anyone who wanted some. June is that time of year when people, who never lock their cars, keep them locked or they may return to their car and find large bags of rhubarb sitting on the back seat. We love rhubarb, but you can only eat so much. 

June is when the land comes alive again and blossoms into more shades of green than you’d find in any Crayola box of crayons. Thick foliage fills the woods, creating great shelter and hiding places for animals and birds to build their nests and start their new families. If you’re lucky, you may encounter a doe and her young fawns.

I only got one chance for a photo before they headed into the woods.

June is also when the pesky bugs return. When I was young, June bugs were always numerous around our farm. We’d sit outside in the evening and thousands of them would be swarming around the yard light. Sometimes there were so many on the ground, you’d hear them crunching under your feet as you walked to the barn. I’ve seen very few of them lately. They deposit their eggs in the ground. The young larvae bury themselves in the soil in the fall and stay there for two years, when they emerge in late May or early June as adult beetles. This year when we were planting flowers in the cemetery, I dug up two full-grown June bugs. I guess they were ready to emerge after their two-year nap. Those are the only ones I’ve seen this year. They’re good size beetles so it’s hard to miss them.

June is also a great time for small bugs, especially the tiny gnats. This is “gnat” a good time to be outside without my old “bug hat” on. They’re so bad again this year they’d drive a teetotaler to drink! Before I go outside, I grab my bottle of Absorbine Jr. and use the applicator to dab the liquid on the brim of my hat. Then I’m ready to do battle with the pesky gnats. As long as I wear my bug hat I have a chance of winning the battle. I’ve tried sitting on our back deck without my hat and in a matter of minutes I retreat into the house to grab my bug hat. If you’re having gnat problems, it’s worth a try and Absorbine Jr. isn’t harmful to you. Farmers have used it for years to relieve muscle aches and pains. They probably discovered it kept the bugs away when they used it. The irritating bugs are not going to keep me from being outside and enjoying the summer.

June is also the smell of new-mown hay. They cut the field across from our house last week and the sweet smell brought back memories of hot, humid days on the hay wagon, loading bales as they came up the chute of the hay baler. Then lifting those bales again as we piled them in the hot haymow. We emerged after each load, covered with chaff, clinging to our sweat-drenched skin and headed for the windmill to get a drink of cold water direct from the well. There’s nothing that compares to that cold water. Now people drink bottled water that costs up to a dollar and a half or more per bottle. If someone had come to me back then and said, “I’ve got a great investment opportunity for you. We’re going to put water in plastic bottles and sell it for $1.49 per bottle. Do you want in?” I’d have said, “Are you nuts? Nobody would pay that much for bottled water that we can get for free from the well.” Little did I know!

June, the month of rebirth, when the land becomes alive again with new growth, new life, flourishing rhubarb, and wonderful days. We also get to experience pesky gnats, mosquitoes, and June bugs, while we walk through the dew-soaked grass in the early morning hours. 

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Rural Communities Are Still Relevant

Across the Fence #500

This is “Across the Fence” column #500. I guess that’s sort of a milestone. I’m very lucky to have had the opportunity to write this weekly column for almost ten years. Most of my stories deal with rural living, what it was like growing up in a rural community, and how that life we once knew has changed.

Several years ago I attended a talk by author Ben Logan at the Boscobel Hotel, where he discussed rural humor and storytelling. He was worried that we’re losing the rural community. I have that same concern. Each year, more and more farms disappear and suburbs pop up on what was once farmland, just like the dandelions that appear on our lawn each spring. Some people look at them as beautiful yellow flowers, others regard them as weeds that are encroaching and destroying what was there before.

Times have changed in rural America. There was a time when all the neighbors got together to help each other harvest the crops. Threshing became a community event. Now neighbors aren’t needed to help each other during harvest. Huge pieces of machinery have replaced bodies. But as Ben Logan said, “Just because we don’t need each other as much any more, it’s no reason to isolate ourselves and be alone.”

Many of my stories speak of those times when rural life and farming was still an entire family activity and the community was another member of the family. Just like some families, everyone didn’t always get along. But it was a time when farm people and small town rural people worked together. I’ve always resented it when someone makes snide or condescending remarks about farmers and small town people. The old saying that you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy, is still very true in my case! Who else would admit to having been knee deep in a manure pile and even brag about it!?

When I’ve explained to some newspaper editors what I write about in my stories, they have no interest in even reading them. “No one’s interested in those subjects any more,” they tell me.      

Ben Logan also said, “It’s a funny time. You know, The Land Remembers has sold over a half million copies. A publisher said if I were trying to get it published for the first time today, there would be no audience for it now.” Fortunately, people are still discovering and reading it.

Perhaps the publishers and editors think no one would be interested, but I beg to differ. There are still many people who enjoy taking a trip to the country via the print media. I think the problem is that so many publishers and editors have no rural background these days. They only know cities and urban people and think the rest of the world is a wasteland, devoid of culture, humor, and stories to be told. They’ve never experienced rural life. They don’t understand rural values and rural humor. They’ve never looked at a night sky without city lights blocking the majesty of it. They don’t seem to understand that the world is full of people who DO HAVE rural and small town backgrounds and memories.

Times like this have changed, except in Amish Country.

I sent several stories I’d written to a young editor of a weekly newspaper. He wasn’t interested, but at least I know he read “Night Lights” because he said in an email, “What’s your point? I don’t get it!” 

That editor wanted me to spell everything out and tell him what he was supposed to think and feel. I replied to him that rural people are smart enough to know what the point is. They bring their own life experiences and feelings to the story and the story becomes their own. They don’t need me to tell them what they should think and feel.

I found it interesting that “Night Lights” even touched a woman who was raised in New York City and had no rural background. She wrote, “This is a very soothing and lovely story. I especially love the metaphor of the neighbor farmers’ lights being like the lights of ships out in the sea. Also, without explicitly emphasizing the difficulty and harshness of the work farmers do, you still get that hardship across somehow. This story makes the work sound fulfilling and even heroic. As a ‘city kid,’ I enjoy reading these slices of farm life very much! Makes me feel I missed something by not growing up in the country” –Lisa

Ben Logan tells of a similar experience. A New York City book reviewer wrote that he loved The Land Remembers, and said, “How can I be nostalgic for a life I never lived?”

Is there still an interest in rural stories? I think there is if they’re given a chance to be read. Not just by those who were raised, or still live in rural and small town settings, but also by big city people like Lisa, who can learn about a slice of life they never experienced.

I believe the rural community is still relevant. It may have changed in character from what it once was, but it’s still alive and well. It won’t be lost completely as long as we remember it, celebrate it, and yes, I’ll even keep writing about it.

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Grocery Shopping In the 1950's

Across the Fence #499

Do you remember when there were several grocery stores in every small town in rural America? When I was young back in the 1950’s, Westby, Wisconsin had seven that I remember. There was Storbakken, Ballsrud, Goettle, Hagen, Skundberg, Southside, and Jefson’s Meat Market. 

Now there’s only one grocery store in Westby, Hansen’s IGA. We’re lucky, many small towns don’t have any left. It’s hard to believe that a small rural community could support seven grocery stores. They all seemed to have plenty of customers to keep the doors open. Everyone had their favorite places to shop. Our family went to Storbakken’s and Ballsrud’s most of the time. On Sunday after church we’d often stop at the Southside Grocery to pick up some items and get a treat, like a popsicle or candy bar. It was located just down the street from the Coon Prairie Lutheran Church. 

My mother never learned to drive a car so Dad had to pick up the groceries when she couldn’t ride along. She would give him a list of things to get. When we got to the store, Dad would give the list to the owner of the store, who was usually the clerk too. Ed Storbakken or Mr. Ballsrud would then go around the store collecting the items on the list and setting them on the wooden counter. If things were on a higher shelf, they used a wire hook to snag the item, pull it off the shelf, and then catch it. Needless to say, those weren’t cans or breakable items.

Can you imagine giving your grocery list to a clerk in a big supermarket or big box store today and expect them to round up the items for you? They’d probably show you where the carpenter made the door and tell you to use it. Life has certainly changed a lot since those days of the friendly, small town grocery stores where everyone knew your name and what kind of food you ate. If you didn’t have enough cash or your checkbook with, they’d even put it on a tab for you, unless you were known to be a real deadbeat.

 Hagen's Grocery Store

My favorite part of the grocery store was the cookie display. I guess I’ve always had a sweet tooth. The various cookies were in large, glass jars for your viewing pleasure. When you finally decided which cookie you wanted, they lifted the lid, selected the cookies, and gave them to you in a paper bag. It was a far cry from the sealed, sanitary packaging we buy cookies in today. One of my favorites was the chocolate pinwheel with marshmallow filling. I still love them today. I know what some of you are thinking — That’s not exactly a healthy food and Howard doesn’t need any extra calories. He should be munching on lettuce and carrots. Sometimes you’ve just got to select something from the “That’s a No-No” shelf of life, sit back, enjoy the cookie, and wash it down with a big glass of cold “whole” milk, not the watered down, no-fat kind, because you only go around once in life. Never allowing yourself that piece of pie you love or enjoying a chocolate chip cookie, is like saving your best china to use at your funeral lunch, what’s the point? 

Another attraction at the grocery store was the pickle barrel. It was just as it sounds, a barrel filled with pickles. You could reach in, select a big juicy pickle and eat it right there if you wanted. You had to pay for it, of course. 

Either I was too young to remember lutefisk in a barrel sitting on the sidewalk outside the store, or my mind has conveniently blocked out the memory as being too gross. This was usually around Christmas time. I’ve been told by a reliable source, that dogs could roam freely around town in those days and didn’t have to be on a leash. Sometimes a dog would mark his territory on a barrel of lutefisk. They probably had poor eyesight and mistook it for a fire hydrant. The wonderful lutefisk wasn’t thrown out after such episodes. Today we’d have to discard the entire barrel as unfit for human consumption. Just remember, lutefisk is a lye-soaked fish and has to be soaked in water for several days to rinse out all the lye, so what’s a little puppy pee to go along with it? Just thought you’d like to be aware of all these pertinent facts before sitting down to your next delicious meal of lutefisk.

As long as we’re talking about food and shopping, Saturday night was the big social night in rural America. That’s when all the farmers came to town. After the chores and milking were done, usually around 7:30, it was time to head for town to shop and visit, but not exactly in that order. You had to arrive early to get a parking place on Main Street in order to observe all the activity. Men visited on the street or in the bars, while the women sat in the cars, visiting and watching all the goings-on. The later the evening got the more interesting the activity on the street became.

Much has changed since the days of seven grocery stores in a small town. Those days are gone and I doubt if they’ll ever come again.

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Nature and Memories Are Soul Food

Across the Fence #498

From where I’m sitting on our back deck as I write this I can look across the fields and see Birch Hill. Just down the road, east of Birch Hill, is where Smith School used to be located. There’s nothing on that corner near Highway 14 anymore. The school house had to go to make way for the four-lane Uffda Bahn. Even the one beautiful tree not destroyed by the DOT, that stood in the school yard, has been destroyed since the road was built to make way for a couple more rows of corn. Across the road from where the school house stood is where Oscar and Julia Hanson, my grandparents lived. The trees and building are still standing, except for the barn that was taken down a few years ago.

Beyond their place I can see the farm where I was born and lived until I was around ten years old. The same house and barn are still there. As I sit here looking out across the rolling prairie I’m thinking that I’ve spent time in other places around the world, but I’ve come full circle. There are a lot of memories out there in the land around our home. 

Birch Hill view from our back deck.

When I look at Birch Hill in the spring, I think of the times we walked there from Smith School and our teacher would conduct classes in a clearing among the rocks, bushes and trees on a large, flat rock that served as our classroom. For those of you who didn’t have the opportunity of attending a one-room school, we had one teacher who taught all eight grades. At Birch Hill, when our grade wasn’t in class, we got to play among the rocks and hills with all the other kids. Birch hill had a lot of heavy undergrowth and trees, and there were many rocks to climb on. I think we played a lot of hide and seek because there were all kinds of great places to hide. Of course, it was even more fun if you could hide with a girl you liked. I remember one year we even spotted a fox while we were playing. Luckily no one ever ran into a skunk. 

Classes held at Birch Hill were like going on a spring break trip for us. I wonder if any schools had spring breaks back in those days. I know our country school didn’t have spring break, but those were fun times for us country kids. We organized our own games and probably made up the rules too. Everyone was included unless they didn’t want to play. 

Yes, there was some bullying back then too, but kids dealt with it as a part of life. When I started school, Smith was a pretty tough place. That year they hired a male teacher to deal with the fighting and students causing problems. It wasn’t just the guys, there were some tough girls too. When we had a Smith School reunion a few years ago, one person told me she wouldn’t be attending because she didn’t have any good memories from those years. She had been bullied by another female student. I guess we weren’t as sensitive to those situations as we should have been. Another student and I sometimes got into arguments and wrestled around and pounded on each other for a while until someone got a bloody nose or the teacher broke up the fight. I guess we looked at those disagreements as part of the school experience. When I look back at my eight years at Smith School, the good times far outweigh the bad. 

When I sit on our back deck and look around me, there’s a lot of personal memories, besides our fun at Birch Hill. We spent many hours in these fields cutting, raking, and baling hay, plowing, disking, cultivating corn, harvesting oats, and chasing heifers that spent the summer in the back forty. We also spent many hours searching for calves that were hidden in the corn fields next to the pasture. David and I got chased by a skunk one time too. We managed to outrun it. I think I’d be in deep trouble if I ran into an angry skunk today on one of my walks. Lots of memories.   

As dusk begins to settle over the landscape, a cool breeze washes over me and birds are singing all around me. A pheasant just called from down near the pond. The trees next to the house are alive with the sound of music. I don’t know what the birds are talking and singing about, but they sure sound happy. 

Two rabbits have arrived under the bird feeder looking for a bedtime snack of spilled bird seed. Lightning just streaked across the darkening sky to the south, followed by rolling thunder. I just realized the trees that only minutes ago had been alive with singing are now silent. I guess the birds all went to bed. It reminded me of the Walton’s TV show. At the end of each show they showed the outside of the house as the lights went out and you heard, “Goodnight John Boy, goodnight Elizabeth, goodnight Erin, goodnight Jim Bob,” and on and on it went. Maybe all that chatter was the birds telling each other goodnight too.  

Sitting here in the country surrounded by nature, watching and listening, is good for the soul.

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