The First Peoples

Across the Fence #558


Recently I watched a PBS program called “First Peoples,” a documentary series, that covers the evolution of man in light of recent discoveries, such as the ability to sequence gnomes and ancient DNA studies. 200,000 years ago we took our first steps on the African savanna. Today there are 7 billion of us living on every corner of planet earth. How did our ancestors beat the odds, spread from continent to continent and survive? 

Researchers now think that early man evolved simultaneously in a number of places across Africa instead of just eastern Africa. The series includes clips with biologists and other researchers who explain their work and the new discoveries that are directly related to their work.

Scientists are beginning to realize that ours is not a pedigree species, but a patchwork quilt. We are all hybrids. I found this out when I took a DNA test and found out I carry 2.6% Neanderthal DNA. It shows that in prehistoric times, about 50,000 to 60,000 years ago, our ancestors met and mated with Neanderthals. As someone who has had a great interest in the technology and findings of Anthropology and Archeology, I find it interesting that for years we thought Neanderthals were wiped out by modern humans, because Neanderthals weren’t as intelligent as we were. Now we know that instead of fighting and killing each other when they met, as we tend to do today, they decided they would try to intermingle and get along together, instead of fight. Isn’t that a novel idea? They decided to make love not war, and that’s why I have 2.6% DNA from those ancient ancestors who were a lot smarter than researchers thought they were. 

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, during the scene in the churchyard, Hamlet holds a skull and says, “That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once.”

Many times I’ve held a piece of history in my hands and wished it could speak also.

The PBS show got me thinking about objects that often show up in plowed fields. I think I should have gone into the field of archeology or history instead of art. I’ve always had a fascination for old things and their history.   

When I find an arrowhead I wonder about the person who created it. Someone had to sit down and chip the stone into that pointed shape. Next, they fastened it to a wooden shaft they also made. Then feathering was added at the other end to stabilize the arrow’s flight. That took a lot of time and craftsmanship.

Then I wonder how the arrowhead came to rest where it was unearthed hundreds or even thousands of years later. Was it fired at a source of food for the family?  Did it hit the target or miss and end up lost in the brush? There it lay for years, the wood shaft and feathers long ago having returned to the earth. All that survived was the stone arrowhead.

Another possibility is that it was fired at an enemy. Did it hit or miss? Did a battle between opposing tribes take place where the arrowhead was found? Or was it fired at a white man encroaching on the Native’s land?

So many questions, so few answers. As author Ben Logan once told me, “It’s the writer in us that wants to know the rest of the story.”

If only the skull that Hamlet held could talk. If only the arrowhead I hold could tell me the rest of the story.

Artifacts, including tools, artwork, and jewelry have been found. It’s believed that Neanderthals may have created the first jewelry. Necklaces made of bones and animal teeth were strung together and appear to have been bound with leather bands. Carved figures also have been discovered. Bones with holes punched in them were used as musical instruments. Those Neanderthals were not as dumb as people thought. These discoveries show that they were able to think and use their reasoning in ways to create usable items. One of those artifacts found among Neanderthal sites is a hide scraper that looks very much like one I have that was used by the Lakota on the Great Plains of North America 1,000 years ago. The one made by the Neanderthals was used 50,000 years ago. It’s interesting that an item created so long ago can still be used for the same purpose today. 

How many things that we create today will still have a use 50,000 years from now? I don't think very many of them will. That's another thing that I find fascinating about archaeology as they find more and more evidence of what our ancestors were able to do. These same weapons and items can still be used today. They’re still functional. My laptop is over eight years old and is considered a double antique. It certainly won't be working in 100 years, not even 10 years.

Another thing I think about; many of the artifacts that are found in archeological digs have to do with the arts, music, sculptures, and cave art. I find it disheartening that the arts, that were so important to our early ancestors, are being relegated to the non-essential subjects in schools today, as budgets are cut by our politicians. There’s always money for new sport stadiums, but not for the arts. 

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Haying Stories Keep stacking up.

Across the Fence #557


This is haying season and my stories about haying, haymows, and stacking bales, brought some great memories from “Across the Fence “ readers that I thought you would enjoy hearing about. 

Lets start with the empty haymow before the new hay crop was harvested. My friend, David Giffey wrote, “We built a new barn in the early 1950s, long before we had indoor plumbing in the house. Barns were always considered more important on small family farms because barns were our source of income.

When the new barn was built, my older brothers put up a basketball backboard at one end. I enjoyed playing basketball, and I assumed the barn was built for basketball. Yes, we'd fill the hayloft every summer with baled hay. But we'd start to feed the hay in the fall from the end underneath the basketball hoop. Some of your readers might recall that there were serious basketball games - even leagues - played in haylofts around Central and Northern Wisconsin in the early and mid 19th Century. 

In our barn, we played basketball wearing mittens and ear flaps because it was cold up there. Sometimes the leather ball was frozen, so dribbling was a challenge. But we played nonetheless.

I'm always happy when I see kids playing basketball on playgrounds in cities or villages. And I hope some of them still get to work on their moves in the hayloft of old barns.”

My brothers, David and Arden remember that they played basketball in the haymow of Danny and Ila Olson’s barn. I don’t remember playing there. I think I had left the farm and headed for school in Madison by the time they and Rod Olson were playing basketball in the haymow. We had a basketball hoop on the side of the old log house, but it was always a challenge dribbling on the uneven lawn with a ball that was usually under-inflated. I guess we should have put the hoop in the haymow.

Rainy days were special in an empty haymow, when you couldn’t work outside. I remember taking a paperback book up in the haymow on a rainy day, laying back in a soft pile of sweet-smelling alfalfa and clover, and listening to the rain beating on the roof and tin cupola while I got lost in the adventures of a good book. There was something special about reading in the solitude of the haymow on a rainy day. I hope other kids had that experience too. Those are some wonderful memories. 

My friend, author Jerry Apps, has some great rainy day haymow stories too. Check out this blog story: http://jerryapps.blogspot.com/2015/06/rainy-day-in-june.html

I also heard from people who remembered stacking hay.  My cousin Eric Olson, remembers when he was 15 they baled for 16 hours straight– a 1000 bales.  His Dad had Uncle Maynard build heavy-duty wagons that could hold 150 bales. “I lifted every bale 3 to 4 times, loading and unloading, so at 40 to 50 pounds each, that was at least 60 tons. No wonder 47 years later, I have back problems.”

My friend, John Cotter wrote, “One of the things I remember about baling hay is the way the wagon would move back and forth as each bale was made. A ca-chunk, ca-chunk, ca-chunk sound was made by the baler. As the pistons moved back to pack the hay, the wagon would stop a little and then go forward. You were swaying on the wagon all the way down the field. You had to time your steps to walk the bale back to where the stack was so you wouldn’t slip or drop the bale. I also remember as the wagon filled, it got more difficult to stack the last row. You had to reach down standing on wobbly bales and lift the bale to put it in place. We made sure the load was full before the next wagon was attached.

Erik and Amy in the haymow by the elevator.

Another memory I have is after the load was put in the mow, the fastest way to get down to the outside and some relief from the heat of the haymow, was to slide down the elevator. You had to make sure to keep your butt up so you wouldn’t catch it on the elevator cleats. At least that is what we called them, but that is what held the bales in place as they went up to the mow.”

I remember exiting the haymow by sliding down the elevator just like John did. Then we made a direct line to the windmill and a cold drink of water.

John also had memories about how we never thought about germs. “There was a metal cup on the pump that hung outside all the time. Never washed, that I remember. We would start the pump and each take a turn getting a drink. Sure couldn’t do that today. We also would take water to the field in a glass gallon jug that was wrapped in burlap to keep it cooler. Not cold, just cooler.”

John said, “Your stories really invoke some good memories, even if they were hard work. It never killed us, which is another story. 

How do little boys become big boys? Sounds like that’s a story for another day too.

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Searching for Coulees and the Northwoods

Across the Fence #556

We take many things for granted and never give them a second thought… that is, until someone asks us a question.

I have a friend, Elmer Wischmeier, from Sedalia, Missouri, who visited us several summers ago  in Madison before we moved back to Westby. Elmer and I now go back 50 years together, but I hadn’t seen him since we left Vietnam in July, 1967.

 Going adore in Vietnam: Harlan with glasses on left, Elmer in center. I took photo.

 Still alive after spending the night on an ambush patrol! Harlan, seated, Elmer, reclining. I took photo.

During his visit, we drove to Westby one day to visit Harlan Springborn and Larry Skolos. The four of us had been in the army together. We were in the same basic training company, went ashore in Vietnam on the same landing craft, and were in the same unit while in Vietnam and spent nights together on ambush patrols in the middle of enemy territory. The four of us have a lot of history together!

L-R: Larry Skolos, Howard Sherpe, Harlan Springborn, and Elmer Wischmeier.

Before we met Harlan and Larry for lunch, I took Elmer for a ride around the Westby and Vernon County countryside to show him how beautiful Wisconsin is. We drove down Timber Coulee and I pointed out other coulees as we drove along. Then we went back up the tree-lined road through Spring Coulee with huge hills all around us. I mentioned that we would swing up on Spring Coulee Ridge Road, so he could get a different view of the coulees.  

That’s when Elmer said he had a couple of questions for me. “Doc, What’s a coulee and is this the Northwoods?” I think all the rugged, forested country we were driving through, and my pointing out every coulee we passed, raised his curiosity! 

This brings me back to my original statement that we take things for granted and never give them a second thought. I grew up around coulees and never thought to question what they were. They were just coulees. There was Timber Coulee, Spring Coulee, Mormon Coulee, and Rulland Coulee, to name a few. They were just names of places. No one had ever asked me what a coulee was before. Maybe they didn’t have coulees in Missouri, or they referred to them as “Hollers.” 

I wasn’t sure what to tell Elmer. I said it probably meant a valley. All the coulees I knew had high bluffs on both sides. “Maybe that kept it cooler in the valleys,” I said. “So they called them ‘coolies,’ meaning it was cooler there. Maybe someone who wasn’t an A student in spelling, wrote it down as coulee!” It sounded like a good, logical, Norwegian explanation to me. Never let it be said that I can’t come up with an answer to every question, even if it seems to be a lot of hot air… or cool air in this case!

I found out later, from Elnor and Marjorie Haugen in Coon Valley, that coulee is a French word. The coulees must have been named by early French fur traders. When all else fails, read the directions, or in this case the definition of coulee. I found the word “coulee” comes from the French Canadian “coulée,” from the French word “couler,” meaning “to flow.” 

In Wisconsin it refers to a gully or ravine; a narrow and steep gorge formed by thousands of years of erosion, found especially in the Driftless Area of Southwestern Wisconsin. Coulees also provide shelter from the wind, and a concentrated water supply to plants that would otherwise have a hard time surviving in areas more exposed to the sun and heat. So, at least I was right about the valley part, and according to that, it is cooler in the coulees!! 

In Vernon and Crawford Counties the coulees are certainly not little gully washers or ravines, like the definition mentions. They are “real” valleys with big hills and steep bluffs. Not only that, but they generally have a stream running through them, or as the French would say, “flowing” through them. Some people might say it’s a “creek” or a “crick,” not a stream, but that’s a whole other story! 

Now for the second part of his question, “Is this the Northwoods?” 

Well, that depends on your perspective. If you live in Missouri, like Elmer, the coulees and hills of Vernon and Crawford County, Wisconsin must seem like the Northwoods. If you live in Vernon County, Black River Falls might be considered the Northwoods. At least it was back in the days when my grandfather and many young Norwegian immigrants became lumberjacks in the winter months and cut timber in the “Northwoods” to make a living. 

If you live in Black River Falls, you might travel to Woodville to be in the Northwoods. As I said, it all depends on your perspective and where you’re at when asked the question!

The Northwoods… it may not be a specific place at all, but more a state of mind. I like to think it is, and we can go there any time we want. At least that was my explanation to Elmer.

I’d never given much thought to coulees or the Northwoods before he asked me about them. I’m glad he did. Too often we don’t appreciate or notice the uniqueness of our own surroundings until someone points them out, or asks us a question about them.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna’ head out in search of a coulee with a nice trout stream running through it.

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The Art of Stacking Hay Bales

Across the Fence #555

 Once upon a time, hay bales were the norm when it came to harvesting hay. Now hay is chopped into wagons and stored in long “white worms.” There are still some bales, but they are huge, round bales that need a forklift to load. There are also some very large rectangular bales that get wrapped in white plastic. All those bales are not the ones I want to talk about. Lets talk about the ones that were held together with baler twine and one person could lift them from the baler chute and stack them on the hay wagon.

That stacking became a real art, in order to keep the load straight so it wouldn’t tip. If that happened, we had a real problem and Dad was not a happy camper.

I'm old enough to remember when we used horses that pulled the wagon and hay loader. The loader had twines that raked the windrowed hay onto the loader where other twines raked it up and onto the wagon. Then the big load of loose hay was hauled to the barn where we used a harpoon-like fork with two “spears” that went into the hay, and a series of pulleys and ropes. Dad set the fork into the hay and the horses would pull the rope that went through those series of pulleys. The hay went up into the haymow. When the load reached the point in the mow where Dad wanted it dumped, the person in the mow would yell, “Dump” and Dad would pull the rope and trip the load. The person in the haymow had the hot, dirty, dusty job. Using a pitchfork, he spread the loose hay around the haymow.

The introduction of the hay baler certainly revolutionized the harvesting of hay. Around 1950, a John Deere B tractor replaced King and Queen, our draft horses. The John Deere B took over the heavy work the horses had been doing for all those years.  

The introduction of the hay baler is when we became “experts” at loading a wagon so it wouldn’t tip before reaching the barn. There was an art to the stacking of the bales so they intertwined and held the load together.

Dad drove the tractor and pulled the baler and wagon. David and I were on the wagon. We worked with no gloves or shirts. Our hands became as tough as leather. We took turns pulling the bales from the hay chute of the baler and carrying them back to the end of the wagon, where we piled them in rows. Then we piled another layer perpendicular to them on top of that row. If everything was squared up, we had a very secure load. We piled those loads seven or eight layers high. If we got in a hurry, our load wasn’t as secure. We did have a few times when we lost half a load when Dad made a tight turn on a sloping piece of ground. Then the fun began, as we had to unscramble the mess and restack all the bales that had fallen off. The ones that had busted had to be fed through the baler again.

The introduction of bales certainly changed how we got hay from the wagon into the haymow. We no longer used the hayfork and rope and pulley system. Instead we used an elevator. Dad was on the wagon and loaded the bales onto the elevator. David and I were in the hot, dusty haymow and piled the bales as they fell off the elevator. It was hard keeping up at times because Dad tended to get in a hurry and sent the bales up one right after another. Then we began the art of stacking the bales in the haymow. 

To gain access to the haymow, we went up a homemade wooden ladder and through a small door in the side of the haymow, located above the main door entrance to the barn. When we stacked the bales, we had to make sure we left an opening to that door and we ended up with a shaft with steps made from the way we stacked the bales. It was an art. The higher up the bales went the longer and steeper the shaft became. When the haymow was full, we had bales stacked to the roof of the barn and right up to the track that ran the length of the barn. That was a lot of weight on the floor and old beams of that barn. It must have been built much stronger than we thought. 

It became very interesting in the winter when it was dark and we had to go up and throw down bales to feed the cows. There wasn’t any light in the haymow and it was really dark. We only had a flashlight to find our way around, and the light made a lot of strange, scary shadows dance among the bales. You never knew what “monsters” might be lurking among the dark shadows, waiting to pounce on you.

We didn’t spend a lot of time in the dark haymow. We threw the bales down the chute as fast as we could and then shimmied down our entrance shaft and escaped out the door and headed down the ladder as fast as we could, before some monster could grab us and pull us back into the dark haymow. 

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