Snowshoeing In A Winter Woods photos

Two Voices Struggle Within

Across the Fence #270

Help! I’m trapped inside and can’t get out. You’re probably thinking I’m referring to all this snow and the cold temperatures we’ve been blessed with this winter. You’re partially right. It’s been a tough winter so far. At least with winter, we know each day is getting longer and the sun will eventually chase the snow and cold weather away for a few months.

Unfortunately, the prison I’m trapped in won’t disappear along with the melting snow. I once heard a statement that inside every old person is a young voice yelling, “What the hell happened!?” That’s pretty much where I found myself this weekend. I suspect I’m not alone in feeling like a younger spirit that’s trapped inside an aging body. I know mine sure doesn’t work the way it once did.

Since I work all week and it’s cold and dark when I get home, the weekends are my time during the winter to spend outside. I had planned to do some snowshoeing at Norskedalen and go cross-country skiing on the groomed trails at the Snowflake Ski Club in Timber Coulee. I was looking forward to it. You younger people are probably thinking, that old bugger shouldn’t be trying to do all that physical stuff. Even Linda worries about me overdoing it.

Maybe they have a point. I hate to admit it, but age is starting to take its toll on my body parts. I started having left knee pain Friday afternoon. Actually, I shouldn’t complain. The left knee pain helps offset the pain I have in my right hip. But it’s kinda’ tough. Now I don’t know which side to limp on. At times I look like I’m doing the Tim Conway shuffle. That comes in handy when everything is snow-covered and icy. But it makes me look like an old man shuffling along as I’m walking. “You are an old man,” a second voice from within reminds me.

The recent snow and slippery streets may have contributed to some of my aches and pains. I slipped on a patch of ice hidden under new snow and performed some moves that would have made Dancing With the Stars contestants envious. I managed to stay on my feet, but it may have been easier on my body to just fall. However, as those of you who have a few years behind you know, we don’t bounce as good as we once did.

Is it any wonder that the retired crowd makes a mass exit and heads south for the winter? While they’re sitting on the beach in the sun and sipping Mint Juleps, I’m still working here in the Frozen Tundra and wondering why I’m not down there with them.

Those were my thoughts on Saturday as I felt trapped in my house and this aging body with a sore knee and hip, not to mention several other aches and pains.

But that was yesterday, this is Sunday. It’s a new day and the first day of the rest of my life. This morning I couldn’t take it any longer and decided I had to escape. Five degrees above zero, a very cold wind, out of shape with a tender knee and hip… no problem. It was time to cross country ski. I rounded up my clothes and equipment and headed for Timber Coulee and the new cross-country trails in the shadow of the huge Snowflake ski jump. This was the first time I’ve been skiing in two years. This is a guy who used to ski 40 miles every week during the winter.

As soon as I stepped into my bindings and glided down the well-groomed trail, I felt like I’d died and gone to Heaven. I didn’t set any speed records. I don’t have the stamina I had when I was younger. As I skied around the trails, the young guy trapped in my body wanted me to speed up and see how fast we could go. The old guy, who also resides inside me, pushed the young guy aside and said, “Whoa now Sherpe, pace yourself, this isn’t a race. Don’t kill yourself, you’re sucking wind already.” Having gained both weight and a little common sense with age, I decided to listen to the older voice, even though I wanted the younger one to kick butt and break free.

Two other skiers were on the trails. I watched with envy as they flew across the snow like well-oiled machines. The young voice inside me said, “We used to ski like that. Lets kick in the afterburners.” Then the old voice spoke up again. “Those guys were probably in diapers when we used to race in these hills. You’re old enough to be their father. Just be glad you’re still physically able to be out here skiing on a beautiful morning and having fun.”

I had to admit, the old guy had a point. Even though it was cold, the sun was shining, and the snow on the trails was in perfect condition. My warm breath turned into clouds and filled my mustache with icicles as I glided through a beautiful, silent, snow-covered landscape of hills, trees, and water rippling under bridges that I crossed. The young guy and old guy within me were both happy. All aches and pains were left behind and life was good. It was very good.

Snowshoeing In A Winter Woods

Across the Fence #269

It's the first day of a new year. We’ve got more than enough snow and it’s cold… VERY COLD! What a frigid entry into 2010. Tonight we’re expecting a low of 15 degrees below zero. Factor in the wind chill and it feels like 25-35 below. This weather is expected to be with us for several days. Uff da, this IS the frozen tundra you hear about. On the bright side, this will give us bragging rights for years to come as we tell everyone about how cold it was at the start of 2010.

Today I had two choices. I could sit inside where it’s warm, be a couch potato and watch football games all day, or go outside where it’s cold and get some exercise. I decided to strap on my snowshoes and go for a hike.

I’ve mentioned before the old Norwegian saying, “There’s no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes.” I dressed appropriately, starting with long underwear, using layers of clothing, and topping it off with a facemask that I’ve used for cross country skiing, to avoid frostbite on my face. I was very comfortable.

I purchased snowshoes just before Christmas. I’ve been out on them several times and love it. I’d highly recommend it as an activity for anyone who wants to get outside in the winter, get some exercise, and enjoy nature.

Author Jerry Apps says, “Listen for the silence of winter, when the snow buries the land and the cold tightens its grip, turning breath into clouds and thickening ice on the lakes. There is great beauty in silence, something that we have little of these days.”

How true his words are. I have the good fortune of being able to walk out of my garage, strap on my snowshoes or cross country skis, and take off in any direction. Today I decided to head down along the fence line of the back forty. It didn’t take long before I came across animal tracks in the snow. I followed a pair of tracks that appeared to be coyotes. They were too big for a fox and a fox usually travels alone. The tracks disappeared into a neighbor’s cornfield that will have to wait until spring to be picked. There were plenty of other tracks to explore and I continued on. I love trying to read the stories written in the snow.

I was able to move easily over the crusted snow that had a two-inch layer of new snow on top. Before when I’ve tried walking through heavy snow, it’s been a real struggle as I kept sinking in. What a wonderful difference snowshoes make.

Whenever I stopped I would listen to the silence of winter that surrounded me. The sun was out, and the beauty of the snow-covered landscape with all the animal trails was exhilarating.

I continued on my hike and decided to head for Birch Hill and explore the places where I had spent many winter days in my youth. At one time, Trygve and Joel Thompson, along with David and I, built a ski jump on one of the hills.

I worked my way through the brush and trees, following a deer trail until I reached the area on top of the hill where we had constructed a scaffold about eight feet tall. We built a jump out of packed snow, farther down the hill. The hill was now overgrown with brush and trees… big trees. What do you expect after fifty years? Times change. It’s a good thing we were young and adventuresome. We were also lucky that we didn’t get seriously hurt. It looked more dangerous now than I had remembered. There was a rock outcropping along one side and trees had lined both sides of the jumping hill that we had cleared as best we could. I should also mention that the hill had a curve near the bottom because of larger trees that we couldn’t clear out of the way. It’s surprising that none of us ended up straddling one of those trees.

As I stood in the silence of the woods, I remembered how we crawled up the ladder to the platform on top of our rickety scaffold and launched ourselves down the hill and off the jump. I wondered if the rotting remains of the old scaffold was buried somewhere under the snow, like a lost civilization buried under volcanic ash. Just like those lost civilizations, only those of us who once played in these woods and hills know what we did here.

Others may pass through these woods and never know what adventures we had. Tracks in the snow disappear with the seasons. Wood from an old scaffold returns to the earth. New growth of brush and trees alter the landscape. Human intruders like me come and go, but nature remains the one constant, changing with each season. These hills and woods will remain long after my spirit has departed this world and my tracks are no longer found in the snow.

I hope we never destroy areas like this. It’s important that those who leave their tracks in the snow after us can also enjoy the silence of a winter woods. I hope they find and enjoy the beauty of nature that we found during our journey through these woods filled up with snow.

The Good Old Days?

Across the Fence #268

I had several responses to my column about looking back. Most people appreciate the memories, but wouldn’t want to go back to living without the modern technology we’ve become accustomed to. One exception to that is my old army buddy, Kenny Lee, who lives out in California.

Big Lee wrote: “Doc, I’m sorry but I ‘Would’ like to go back in time. Nancy told me one time, ‘you’d miss what you have now.’ I told her I wouldn’t have all the things I have now, so I couldn’t miss what I didn’t have. I do miss the tight families, and simple, uncomplicated times. I miss not being able to go anywhere and not get a dang phone call. I miss going for a walk and not being afraid of getting my butt shot off. Doc, think back, we sat down and took the TIME to see what was happening around us; like kids playing touch football on the school playground, walking a girlfriend down the street in the evening. I can go on and on, Doc. Technology has made us, for the most part, lazy, and slower to use our imagination. Yes, I would like to go back to a more uncomplicated life. I think technology has cost us more than it has helped us. I just HAD to TAKE THE TIME to tell someone how ‘I’ felt about the good old days. Thank you, my brother, for being there to listen.”

Big Lee brought up some interesting points. They are some of the same things I was thinking about this Christmas season.

He mentioned tight families. That was also on my mind. I can look out the windows of our home and see the farms where most of my aunts and uncles and grandparents lived. Not that many years ago, that was the norm instead of the exception. Extended families lived close together. Birthdays and holidays were always family get-togethers. The only ones on my mother’s side who couldn’t be at every event were my uncle and aunt and their family who lived in Indianapolis, Indiana. All the rest of us “Hanson Cousins” grew up together near Westby. We’re still close even though we’re scattered to the four winds these days.

Now we find families all over the country. Few families live on adjacent farms any more. It makes it much harder for even immediate families to get together for holidays. Yes, times have changed. Because of the mobility we have these days, I think we’ll see families grow even farther apart, to the point where cousins won’t even know each other. That’s a far cry from when we Hanson Cousins grew up together. Christmas Day was always spent at Grandma and Grandpa Hanson’s home. I can still see that farm, across the fields from our back windows. I have many good memories from those days. Just like Big Lee, I’m thankful I grew up in the time period I did.

Another point Big Lee makes is that we used our imagination. I was thinking about that too. I guess Big Lee and I think alike in many ways. Lets consider radio as opposed to television. We had to use our imagination and visualize the action and what the characters looked like. I guess that’s why I still like listening to Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor. When we visit Lake Wobegon, each of us has our own idea of what it and the characters that inhabit that fictional area look like.

Our kids used their imaginations when they were young. During Christmas, we were all looking at old photos. One of them had the kids sitting in empty boxes that they’d lined up and were pretending they were on a train. That’s using your imagination. I suspect they got just as much enjoyment out of playing in those old boxes as the presents they received. How many of you can relate to a similar experience?

When we were young, David and I probably had as much fun playing with the tobacco lath toys we made as we did with store-bought toys. We also did a lot of climbing and playing in trees, an activity that is frowned upon today as being too dangerous. So much has changed.

My friend, Lowell from Madison, reminded me of several other things from our past that are no more. He said, “Mother always bragged about the fact that we had running water. We ran out to get it and we ran out to throw it away.” I liked that saying. They didn’t have a refrigerator when he was young. When they sat down to have coffee, someone had to go out to the well and pull up the bucket that had all the perishables in it. He also mentioned how hard it was to get water for the cows in the winter. Sometimes it would freeze in the barn. I remember those days too in our old barn, especially the time a door had blown open and even the manure was frozen in the gutters. Not a good way to start the day!

Somehow we all lived through those days, and I think we’re better and tougher because of them. Thank you, Big Lee, for taking the time to tell what you were feeling. It gives us all something to think about.

If You Start At the End

Across the Fence #267

Happy New Year everyone! Here we are at the end of another year and the beginning a new one. Each year as I open the door on a new year, I wonder what adventures await me on the other side of that door. If we could start at the end of the year and look back, there wouldn’t be any mystery associated with it. We’d already know the story. We aren’t able to foresee the future, but we can glance in the rearview mirror once in a while.

We do a lot of looking back as we visit here, across the fence, each week. It’s important that we live in the present, but it doesn’t hurt to look back and remember where we came from and where we’ve been.

I recently received a book in the mail from Frank E. Studnicka, who lives in Lancaster. He reads my column in the Boscobel Dial. The book he sent is titled Happenings In the Hollow that he wrote about his life, growing up on a farm near Blue River, Wisconsin in the 1930’s and 40’s.

Frank says, “Another reason for penning these words is nostalgia for a way of life that once was. It’s not likely any of us would like to go back to that way of life; modern technology has spoiled us. But I believe that people as a whole were happier then and life was so much simpler. What every person wants out of life is happiness, but in their pursuit of happiness they lose sight of what happiness really is. I do not have a definition for it but I know my young life was a happy one and I have few regrets as I look back.”

I feel the same way that Frank does. There is nostalgia for the way life was when we were growing up. I hear that all the time from the readers of this column. It did seem to be a much simpler time, but maybe it just seemed that way because I was young and had a lot fewer responsibilities. I think he’s right. Technology has spoiled us and I doubt if very many people would want to go back in time and live without the many things we’ve become accustomed to.

Let me cite just a few examples of why it’s good to live in the present and not in the past.

Lets start with water. We take water for granted. In those days that many of us remember, water had to be pumped from a well and in many cases, carried to the house in a bucket. Hot water was obtained by heating it on a stove. You didn’t just step in a shower and turn the hot water on. You didn’t go to the bathroom and flush a toilet. We didn’t have indoor plumbing until I was a sophomore in high school. We used an outhouse. All cooking and washing of dishes was more difficult because you had to heat the water first. Washing clothes was a major task using a wringer washer. Nobody carried around a personal plastic bottle of store-bought water to drink. We drank well water. We shared the same cup. We all drank out of the same glass water jar when we worked in the fields. I don’t remember any of us getting sick because of those drinking practices. How many of you want to give up the way we use water today and go back to those days?

Lets talk about communication. Many of you remember when we listened to the radio because there was no such thing as television. Then television came along and we were thrilled with one black and white channel on our one TV set, even if the reception was horrible much of the time. How long has it been since you had to adjust your horizontal or vertical hold? Remember when you got a second channel, you had to get up and change the channel on the TV? No remote controls in those days. Now we have color TV and most of us have over 100 channels that are clear the majority of the time. There’s even high definition TV. If the picture isn’t perfect all the time we complain. Many homes have multiple TV’s. Maybe we all need to go back to having one TV with one black and white, snowy channel, without a remote, for just one week. I think everyone would better appreciate what we now have. Sometimes it’s good to look back.

Then there’s the telephone. At one time we were lucky to have a crank phone on the wall. Now everyone seems to have one attached to their hip or in their ear. We have voice mail, call waiting, and answering machines, so we don’t miss any calls. But we also use those devices so we don’t have to answer those calls. How many of you could go back to not having your cell phone handy?

Now we have computers, e-mail, and every other type of instant communication device. How many of you could go back to doing without them?

What other changes will we see and experience? What new adventures await us in the New Year? We’ll soon know. It’s important that we live in the present, but it’s good to look back once in a while, to better appreciate what we have now.

Memories of Christmas Eve - 1966

Across the Fence #266 (Extra)

As this Christmas approaches, I’d like us all to take a moment and remember all those servicemen and women who won’t be home for Christmas this year. Many will be spending it in a war zone in Iraq and Afghanistan, just as I spent Christmas in Vietnam in 1966. Five years ago I ran this column. A couple weeks later I received a call from a woman. She said she had read my column and had finally gotten up the nerve to call me. She told me that her brother had been killed in Vietnam on Christmas Eve in 1966. She said this story had finally given her some peace in thinking that maybe her brother had shared some of the same thoughts on that Christmas Eve before he was killed. She hoped he had also experienced the peacefulness that I had felt. Talking with her made me aware, once again, of how lucky I am to still be here. We need to appreciate each and every day we have. I’d like to share these thoughts with you that I wrote back in 1966, so many years ago.

25 December 1966 (Christmas)

Merry Christmas to me. I imagine it’s Christmas Eve about this time back home. I wish I was there with them. We just finished Christmas dinner.

Sidney just left on patrol. I returned from an ambush patrol before dinner. It will be one Christmas Eve that I’ll never forget. It was a quiet night with no contact. I sure had a lot of thoughts as I sat out there in the boonies after it got dark. It was a beautiful, starlit night. The song “Silent Night” kept going through my mind. I thought of my family and how things always looked at Christmas back home. The tree all decorated and lit up with the bubble lights, the angel that has been on top of our tree for as long as I can remember, snow, and the decorated stores and streets in town.

I remembered the Christmas programs we put on back at Smith, our one-room country school. It seemed like we practiced for weeks. Then the big night finally arrived and all the parents, grandparents, and neighbors crowded into the little school to watch us perform. It was one of the most memorable times of the year. It was also real scary to stand up in front of all those people and try to remember what to say. I think the audience got a bigger kick out of our goof-ups, than when we remembered our lines. They couldn’t see our poor teacher cringing behind the curtain that was strung on a wire across the front of the schoolroom. I bet even she had a good laugh about our performances once the program was over!

Santa would show up at the end of the program and hand out candy and apples. I have some great memories from those old Christmas programs.

I also remembered how we always fed the cows extra feed and hay on Christmas Eve. It was their special night because the baby Jesus had been born in a manger with all the animals looking on. It was such an exciting, special night. On the radio we’d hear reports of Santa’s progress as people spotted his sleigh and reindeer heading our way. We always left some milk and cookies for Santa. He even liked lefse! Santa ate everything we left for him and even took the carrots we left for his reindeer!

A person sure has a lot of thoughts sometimes. I know next year on Christmas Eve I’ll be thinking of how I spent this one. I may have been out on a jungle ambush patrol, but sitting out there with everything perfectly quiet, it all seemed so peaceful, as I remembered and thought of what Christmas is. For a while there was peace on earth in the middle of a war. “Silent Night, Holy Night,” kept going through my mind. The sky was so clear and the stars were so bright I felt like I could reach up and touch them. There were millions of stars. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many stars at one time. I looked to see if one stood out much brighter than all the rest, but couldn’t find one. I used to love looking at the stars back on the farm, but over here it seems like you can see so many more. There are no lights of any kind to interfere with being able to see them. Everything is black around you and the only lights are the stars above. The universe seems so vast; it really makes a person feel small.

Since I’ve been here and experienced war, I’ve questioned the existence of a God. Sitting out there on Christmas Eve I felt like I was peering into the face of God as I looked at the millions of stars and galaxies. I don’t know what God is, where he is, or why he lets this killing go on, but last night I felt a peacefulness that I’ve never experienced before.

It seemed so strange. There I sat with a rifle in hand, along with five other guys, waiting to kill people, while the words “Peace on earth, goodwill toward men,” went through my mind. It’s no wonder my thinking and beliefs are so screwed up and confused anymore.

I wish I was home for Christmas. We all wish we could be. I’ll just have to celebrate Christmas in my mind, with memories of how it used to be.

One more thing, I finally received the package of Ma’s chocolate chip cookies! It was the best Christmas present I could have received! After weeks in transit, they were still edible. I shared them with my friends and they’re already gone. Cookies don’t last long around here. I’ve got to write Ma and tell her thanks. That’s about all on this Christmas day, 1966.

May this Christmas, 2009, bring you happiness and joy, and may the world one day experience “Peace on earth, goodwill toward men.”

An Old-Fashioned Blizzard

Across the Fence #266

Uff da! We really got dumped on. This has been one of those old-fashioned blizzards. An old farmer once told me, “Big snow, little snow. Little Snow, big snow.” He was right again. The snow started on Tuesday afternoon. “Little” flakes, almost like sleet. Sure enough, it ended up being a very “Big” snow. It came down for at least 24 hours, accompanied by 40+ mile-an-hour winds that created blowing and drifting snow, not to mention whiteout conditions. We had all the ingredients for an old-fashioned blizzard. Not the mother of all blizzards that many of you remember from 1959, but this gave us a good taste of one.

Luckily I put new tires on my Cavalier last week. I needed them today. And... I bought a snow blower the day before it began. It did pain me to do it, especially in the pocketbook, but thank heavens I did. We had three-foot drifts through most of our 75-foot driveway. The snow blower had its hands full, but I was able to sort of clear it early this morning. It drifted back in about as fast as I made a path. No matter which direction I blew the snow, it came back in my face. I must have looked like an overdressed snowman by the time I finished. Luckily, a neighbor came with his skid steer and pushed the snow way back from the driveway. It only took a few minutes. Who needs a snow blower if you have a skid steer?

The phone company is like the post office, no matter what the weather, we’ll be there, so I headed to work. I managed to buck the drifts on Sherpe Road with my “Silver Bullet” Cavalier with four new tires and didn’t get stuck. We did shut the place down an hour early so everyone could get home before it got dark.

At least the plow had gone through Sherpe Road, but I had to clear the driveway again. The drifts were just as big as they had been in the morning. That’s too much stress on a new blower and an old operator.

As I finished clearing my driveway, I thought of what my brother, David, had written me on a recent, foggy, case weather day. He said, “On my drive into work this morning, I couldn’t help thinking about taking down tobacco. I remember Pearly Stenslien helping us at his shed one year. When we took down the last lath he said, ‘If we had started with that one first, we’d have been done a long time ago.’” I wonder if that reasoning could apply to clearing our driveway too.

It’s really gotten cold too. I think I’ve had enough snow now and I’m ready for spring!! Enough with the song, “Let It Snow.” I should never have mentioned it last week. It’s really blowing up here on the prairie. Imagine tomorrow morning we’ll have to go through the whole process again. Now that we have snow, it’s going to be so cold for the next week that it’s dangerous to stay outside very long. So much for the wooly caterpillar predicting the winter weather and being right 70% of the time. This was supposed to be a mild winter, according to the length of their black “wool.”

I’ve often wondered about the sanity of our ancestors. They had this whole country to choose from when they came from Norway and they decided to settle in the frozen tundra. Uff da, we Norskies could be sitting in the sun on our porch down south, watching those poor devils “Up Nort,” suffering through a cold and snowy winter. But, here we are.

I guess I shouldn’t complain. The way it looks now, we’ll have a white Christmas. When you’re used to having snow at Christmas, it wouldn’t be the same with brown grass and warm weather. Santa needs some snow for his sleigh and reindeer to land on.

When I think back to when I was young and Santa was very real, I never questioned how a chubby guy in a red, furry suit, could get into our house with his bag of presents. We didn’t have a fireplace, just a stovepipe that attached to a hot kitchen stove and a hole in the chimney. If Santa slid down our chimney he would have to squeeze through that stovepipe, and then exit into a blazing, hot fire, and somehow kick open the door of the kitchen stove and crawl out. I knew it would take some real magic to accomplish such a feat. There was a flue you could open in the side of the stovepipe. Maybe he squeezed through that little opening. For a kid who liked to question everything, it’s surprising that I accepted Santa performing such magical feats. When I finally asked my mother, she said he came in through a door or window if people didn’t have a fireplace. That made sense to me.

I don’t recall that we ever had an old-fashioned blizzard on Christmas Eve, but I’m positive Santa would have found us with the help of Rudolph. I still associate that song with Gene Autry who recorded it in 1949, when I was five years old.

We all have lots of memories associated with blizzards, songs, and Christmas. May you have a wonderful Christmas and create many new memories.