Rabbit War

I thought we had an agreement. Twenty years ago when I moved my garden to its present location the rabbits and I worked out an accommodation. At least I thought we had. I would leave wild and untouched an area just west of the cabin where the bunnies had a stone pile for security and easy access to a two-acre grassy field for their grazing.

In return the rabbits would forever leave my garden alone. No chewing on my fresh lettuce, my cabbages and all the other rabbit-tasty vegetables.

But last week the bunnies broke the agreement. They chewed off four rows of beans. Almost to the ground. The hungry little buggers feasted on my hoped for winter bean supply.

Broken agreements lead to war. And war it was. I drove to Waupaca and bought a spray bottle of “Liquid Fence.” A rotten egg smelling deer and rabbit repellent with a 100 percent money back guarantee, although I’d rather have my beans back.

I sprayed my badly injured little bean plants, holding my nose for the smell was as advertised. I am waiting for the lead rabbit negotiator to contact me and see if a cease fire is in order, or if I must look for further attacks. In this gardening business, if it isn’t one thing it’s another. I’m getting a little long in the tooth to be fighting a war.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: When you make an agreement, best to have it in writing.

UPCOMING WRITING WORKSHOPS:

Writing From Your Life. The Clearing, Ellison Bay, WI. August 2-8.

Writing From Your Life. Sheboygan Public Library, August 23, a.m.

Writing From Your Life. The Clearing, Ellison Bay, WI. October 17. a.m.. & p.m.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

June 30, 7:00 p.m. Prairie du Sac Library. Old Farm.

July 16, 2:00 p.m. Wisconsin Historical Society Museum, Casper Jaggi, Master Cheese Maker.

August 15. Creekside Books, Cedarburg. 12-3:00. Old Farm.

August 16. Railroad Days, Stonefield Village, Cassville.

Five Strawberry Plants

I have five strawberry plants in my front yard, in the flowerbed. My brother-in-law, Clarence gave them to me a couple years ago when he had some extras.

I expected little from them, perhaps a handful or so of berries in June to put on my morning cereal. Or maybe fewer than that, for after all it was a flowerbed with mums and day lilies and roses all clamoring for attention and their share of sunlight.

Cabot is the strawberry variety. According to the Jung’s seed catalog: The ideal strawberry for northern gardeners who want huge strawberries with great flavor. Yeah, right, I usually say when I read such hyperbole.

The strawberry season has a week or two to run its course. I have so far picked six quarts of strawberries from my five plants. I must eat my skeptical words as I enjoy my sweet, juicy strawberries.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Expect little and then be pleased when you receive more.

UPCOMING WRITING WORKSHOPS:

Writing From Your Life. The Clearing, Ellison Bay, WI. August 2-8.

Writing From Your Life. Sheboygan Public Library, August 23, P.M.

Writing From Your Life. The Clearing, Ellison Bay, WI. October 17. A.M. & P.M.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

June 30, 7:00 P.M. Prairie du Sac Library. Old Farm.

July 16, 2:00 P.M. Wisconsin Historical Society Museum, Casper Jaggi, Master Cheese Maker.

August 15. Creekside Books, Cedarburg. 12-3:00. Old Farm.

August 16. Railroad Days, Stonefield Village, Cassville. Old Farm and more.

potato bugs

The potato bugs are back. Colorado potato beetles to be more exact. Leptinotarsa decemlineata. In case you haven’t encountered them, I can’t image any gardener raising potatoes who has not, they have bright yellow/orange bodies with five brown stripes, and are about the size of a fingernail.

They are a menace to potato growers, whether you have a few plants in your backyard, eight long rows in your garden as I do, or several hundred acres, true of many Wisconsin potato growers. Given an opportunity, these hungry buggers will eat every last potato leaf leaving behind a few naked stems and no hope of a potato crop.

What to do? Well, when I was a kid, we’d walk the potato rows and pick off the adult potato bugs one by one and drop them into a little can with a couple of inches of kerosene on the bottom. Does in the little potato-eaters real well. Sort of labor intensive though if you have five acres or more of potatoes, as we did.

I still walk my potato rows, twice a day this time of a year, if I can. Today, I wear gloves and when I spot a potato bug, I give it a gentle squeeze and drop it to the ground. Well maybe not so gentle as I have no love for potato bugs.

All kinds of sprays, dusts and other potato beetle killers have come on the market. The result: some of the toughest, most resistant potato bugs on the planet.

Some years ago I remember seeing a potato bug killer advertised in a magazine. Guaranteed to work it said, or your money back. Send five dollars. Someone I know sent in the money. In a few days the bug killer arrived. It consisted of two small blocks of wood. The instructions said, place the potato bug on block number one. Strike block number one with block number two. By golly, it worked. Every time. But you had to work quickly because potato bugs have a tendency to not stay put on a block of wood.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice: not likely.

UPCOMING WRITING WORKSHOPS:

Writing From Your Life. The Clearing, Ellison Bay, WI. August 2-8.

Writing From Your Life. Sheboygan Public Library, August 23, P.M.

Writing From Your Life. The Clearing, Ellison Bay, WI. October 17. A.M. & P.M.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

June 30, 7:00 P.M. Prairie du Sac Library. Old Farm.

July 16, 2:00 P.M. Wisconsin Historical Society Museum, Casper Jaggi, Master Cheese Maker.

August 15. Creekside Books, Cedarburg. 12-3:00. Old Farm.

August 16. Railroad Days, Stonefield Village, Cassville.

Country School Visit

My brother Don and I visited our country school, Chain O Lake, west of Wild Rose, on Saturday. The woman who had made the old school her home had a moving sale, an excuse for us to stop by and look around. On the outside the school building was much as we remembered it. And some of the inside was familiar, too. The entryway was the same. The place where we left our muddy boots, and stored our lard pail lunch buckets on shelves. It seemed a little smaller. But I was a little smaller then, too.

We could see where the woodstove had stood, the source of the heat for the drafty building. I saw the back corner where our meager school library took up a few book shelves. And in the opposite corner a Red Wing water cooler once stood that provided us drinking water. We had to carry water from the outside pump.

Back outside we examined our softball diamond. I spotted what had been third base, a white oak tree in my memory, a scraggly, skinny, white oak. Now, 63 years later, it is a magnificent stately tree.

It was here under the tutelage of a string of teachers, starting with Teresa Piechowski my first grade teacher and ending with Faith Jenks, my eighth grade teacher that I learned how to read and write, and do my numbers. Eight years in that building, no electricity the first years, never indoor plumbing, no central heating, one teacher for eight grades where I and many other kids gained a solid foundation for future learning.

Today, the old school building stands on the corner of County Highway A and 15th Road. A building filled with stories and memories.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: You are never too old to learn. And remember, what you learn will forever be yours to keep.

UPCOMING WRITING WORKSHOPS:

Writing From Your Life. The Clearing, Ellison Bay, WI. August 2-8.

Writing From Your Life. Sheboygan Public Library, August 23, P.M.

Writing From Your Life. The Clearing, Ellison Bay, WI. October 17. A.M. & P.M.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

June 30, 7:00 P.M. Prairie du Sac Library. Old Farm.

July 16, 2:00 P.M. Wisconsin Historical Society Museum, Casper Jaggi, Master Cheese Maker.

July 19-24. School of the Arts, Rhinelander.

August 2-8. The Clearing, Ellison Bay, WI.

August 15. Creekside Books, Cedarburg. 12-3:00. Old Farm.

August 16. Railroad Days, Stonefield Village, Cassville.

August 20. Sheboygan Public Library. Writing Workshop, P.M.s

Colorado Garden

My Colorado grandsons, Christian (11) and Nicholas (9), watched carefully by their sister, Elizabeth (5) planted a vegetable garden back of their Avon, Colorado home last week. In between rain showers.

Avon, elevation above sea level about 7,500 feet and a growing season of about 65 days, presents special challenges to the gardener. Frost is a danger until about the middle of June. Autumn frosts start by mid-August.

For that narrow window of growing season we planted lettuce, radishes, green beans, carrots and a few other cool weather crops and hoped for the best as this will be the kids’ first vegetable garden.

For a Midwesterner, the Colorado soils are a mystery to me. I bought an inexpensive soil testing kit at the local Home Depot and Christian and I tested the soil. As I surmised, no lime would ever be necessary as the soil is naturally alkaline with sufficient amounts of potash and potassium. As for nitrogen, their soil essentially had none. We bought several sacks of compost and some nitrogen fertilizer, which we worked into the soil before planting.

Of course each day after we planted the kids were checking to see if anything had come up. Gardening teaches patience. I hope this high country garden also does not teach disappointment.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Doing something that is especially hard gets a lot harder if you do too much thinking about it.

UPCOMING WRITING WORKSHOPS:

Writing From Your Life. The Clearing, Ellison Bay, WI. August 2-8.

Writing From Your Life. Sheboygan Public Library, August 23, P.M.

Writing From Your Life. The Clearing, Ellison Bay, WI. October 17. A.M. & P.M.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

June 30, 7:00 P.M. Prairie du Sac Library. Old Farm.

Bean Patch

Anyone who has read Walden knows about Thoreau and his bean patch. He devoted an entire chapter to beans and wrote eloquently about his bean rows and how they attached him to the earth.

Not to be outdone by Henry David Thoreau, this year I devoted about a quarter of my large garden at Roshara to beans. Not snap beans, not pole beans, but navy beans or field beans as some call them. They grow until they ripen, then are harvested and threshed. I tried this a few years ago and they grew well. I planted a lot more this year. My new son-in-law to be is a cook and a darn good one. I have not told him yet, but I will have beans for him this fall. I hope lots of them. And I will encourage him to make baked beans with molasses and a little bacon. I can taste them now.

NOTE: Off to Colorado until the end of the May. Time for Ruth and me to check up on the Colorado grandkids.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Knew a fellow once who was so dumb he did not know beans when the bag was open.

UPCOMING WRITING WORKSHOPS:

Writing From Your Life. The Clearing, Ellison Bay, WI. August 2-8.

Writing From Your Life. Sheboygan Public Library, August 23, P.M.

Writing From Your Life. The Clearing, Ellison Bay, WI. October 17. A.M. & P.M.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

May 19, 7:00 P.M. Book Vault, Oskaloosa, Iowa. Old Farm: A History, In a Pickle and more.

June 30, 7:00 P.M. Prairie du Sac Library. Old Farm.

The Plunge

My friend Jim Kolka said about my unintended dunk in Gilbert Lake last week that I had done it on purpose so that I’d have something to write about.

Believe me, it wasn’t on purpose. The water was way too cold for that. But it did evoke considerable response.

Jeanne Engle wrote, Oh my, glad only your pride was hurt. (More than my pride got wet.)

Linda and William Schlaak wondered if brother Don all along knew the boat seat clamp was loose. (From the way he laughed, I suspect he did)

Fellow writer Howard Sherpe from Westby said, using Westby Norwegian language. The Plunge. Uff da, Jerry. What an adventure! Now if you had gone in the lake trying to land a trophy fish . . . (Yup, that’s what I was doing. Going for a trophy Northern Pike. Right.)

Kathryn Moore from Savanna, Illinois said: Talk about Two Stooges!!!!! What a laugh, at least from my seat. Sorry you got cold but you gotta admit it makes for a giggle for someone else. (Taking about giggling, my dear little brother, Don, is still laughing so hard he cannot even talk about the event, to say nothing about finding time to fix the boat seat.)

On a different note:

Yesterday, in Milwaukee, I was pleased to receive the Ellis/Henderson Outdoor Writing Award for my book OLD FARM: A HISTORY (Wisconsin Historical Society Press). The awards ceremony was sponsored by the Council for Wisconsin Writers. Always a humbling experience to win an award when I know there are so many good writers in Wisconsin.


THE OLD TIMER SAYS: One of the most important things we can learn is how to get out of our own way.

UPCOMING WRITING WORKSHOPS:

Writing From Your Life. The Clearing, Ellison Bay, WI. August 2-8.

Writing From Your Life. Sheboygan Public Library, August 23, P.M.

Writing From Your Life. The Clearing, Ellison Bay, WI. October 17. A.M. & P.M.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

May 13, 7:00 P.M. Hartford Public Library, Hartford. Old Farm: A History.

May 16, 10:30 A.M. – 2:30 P.M. Dregne Gift Shop, Westby. Old Farm: A History

May 19, 7:00 P.M. Book Vault, Oskaloosa, Iowa. Old Farm: A History, In a Pickle and more.

June 30, 7:00 P.M. Prairie du Sac Library. Old Farm.