37th 2013-2014 Snowstorm

I am not sure it is the 37th snowstorm of this winter, just as I am not sure if we've had 41 or 45 days this winter that were below freezing, and 2 that got into the 30s, but it is certainly one of those winters to remember.  

By 10 pm last night, the snow was drifted in and roads all closed.  No more traffic until 6:30 when the Sterling snowplow truck went by--just barely light yet.  I wonder if the snowplow driver takes the truck home at night, as it would be hard to drive down to the corner of Evergreen and River Road to the Town garage.  

Living on Evergreen is good--one of the first roads plowed as it is the lifeline of the Sterling Barrens to get to Hwy 87 and on to work or for us older folks the morning coffee out at the Cushing Corner station.  

Deer taking a last supper in the orchard as the snow storm moved in.  They like the orchard pruning twigs and all the apples I left on the ground -- pretty deep down, but insulated by all the snow. 

10 pm and still snowing

After an hour of blowing snow with the Cub Cadet, the driveway is open, and the car could get out.  After some breakfast, will gas it up and finish the yard.  Margo is headed back Saturday, roads willing, and so I am doing this all on my own!  

The Cub Cadet came from Margo's Dad's farm, when he moved into town a few years ago, he gave us a good price on it and some other items from his garage.  The Cub is really quite wonderful at moving snow--it clears a path in front of it.  Much better than the back blade on the Ford 2n in deep snow.  

Although the winter is getting old, there is still something about a big snowstorm, the fresh deep white snow, and rising to the challenge of getting plowed out that I look forward to.  Having the right machinery is great.  My friend Buz, shovels his whole driveway by hand.  He also thinks of it as a challenge, and unlike me, he gets a good workout doing it.   

Back in the early days on the farm, in the BT days (before tractor), Dad shoveled our long driveway by hand when he had to.  However, that was rare, as in those days the milk hauler from the Cushing Creamery had a snow plow on his milk truck, and loaded  full with milk cans, could pretty much get through anything.  We boys loved to wait for him to roar up the driveway in a cloud of blowing snow,  making the loop around the pump shed and then a few extra pushes to clear our yard before pulling along side the milk house, loading our filled cans and replacing them with empties (#72 was our can number as I recall ).  

Well, my fingers are warmed up, the coffee is kicking in, so it's time to move some snow!

1924 Dodge with Cushingites --needs a snow plow to finish the milk route!

Pheasant Behavior changing?

Boss of the Bass Lake Pheasant Commune?

For about a month or so, since I noticed a few pheasants coming into the orchard to scratch around in the snow to find fallen apples, I have been feeding a little corn each morning, both to enjoy watching them as well as giving them a little free food in this hard winter.  

Most mornings, 10-13 show up and spend 30 minutes eating.   I spread the corn out under several apple trees, so there is overhead cover.   

The pheasants fly in from the north about the time the sun comes up, first landing in a row of trees along the road, pausing a few minutes and then running 50 feet to the next group of trees where I have spread 4 quarts of crack, shelled corn with a few sunflower seeds mixed in.  I spread it widely and thinly under several of the full size apple trees, trying to give an uncrowded feeding area, all under cover, and making it difficult for the deer to find easy pickings.  

Each night, about dusk, 1-7 deer have started to show up to browse on the apple trees (and the branches on the ground from my pruning efforts), and to pick up the remaining scattered corn.  The area under the trees is packed down from deer and pheasants, so has a hard crust--although every week a few inches of new snow build it higher.  

This morning, still 31 degrees after 2 days that got up to 40 and days fast approaching 11 hours of light, I noticed a different behavior.  

One large male flew in at 7:15 am to the lower row.  He waited 2 minutes, then flew up into one of those apple trees, about 4 feet off the ground and perched there for another few minutes, then flew into the feeding trees, landing on the ground and carefully looking all around, began feeding.  He was alone for over 5 minutes. 

Another pheasant

Across the driveway in the further trees is the feeding area

Feeding area on the right, row to left is where the pheasants come into the orchard, hide out, and leave. 

flew in about 7:25 and stayed in the lower row.  Then over then next 5 minutes 8 more flew in; one group of four, and the others coming in gradually, all from the north.  Each stayed for a while in the lower row, moving west down the row until just south of the feeding plot.  Then each made a dash for the food, and began eating.  

When several were in the feeding area, the original big male started rushing around chasing away other males--one ran off, one flew a short distance away, and after about 5 minutes of this, all of the pheasants except the male (I think it was the original one), were gone from the food plot, back into the shelter row.  

Another five minutes and they were all back feeding again, and a few minutes later, all were back in the shelter row, then all gone.  I didn't see anything that scared them.  Possibly they had all they wanted to eat, as each could have quickly picked up all the food they could fill in their crops in a few minutes.  

Speculations:   Possibly the warm weather has started some territorial behavior by the males.  I had noticed a little of this before, but not so pronounced as this morning.    

For two mornings, the pheasants came in before I got out to spread the corn (they used to come in about 8 am, but seem to follow the sunrise and are coming earlier.)   Those two days, there was not much food available, as the blue jays, crows, and other birds ate on it all day and the deer in the evening.  Possibly with a scarcity of food for a couple of days, some survival of the fittest is being played out.  (I purposely got up and spread the food at 6:45 am, before full morning light).  

Post meal warmup on a -20 day in the lower cover row

View out the "picture window" Mom had put in the old house 40 years ago so she had some light.  On the left is a covered deck with a wheelchair ramp put in for Dad back in 2003 when his Parkinsons got so he used a wheel chair and scooter.  The tree just beyond the deck is a Catalpa, leaning heavily to the north.  Catalpa's are at the northern edge of their range, and don't make very good trees here, freezing off many years, but always trying again from the root.  They are a beautiful late blooming tree with huge leaves and full of long seed filled beans that nothing seems to eat.  

The other wildlife activity picking up in the big old farmhouse--box elder bugs and asian beetles are crawling out of the wood-work and onto the south windows attempting to get outside.  Some have shown up each day of the winter, but just 2 or 3.   Yesterday I personally wiped out 17 box elder bugs and 3 ladybugs desperately trying to get outside.   I suppose I should have practiced catch and release, but letting them outside this winter would have surely been a hardship.   

I think they spend all fall trying to get into the house and then all winter trying to get back out with increasing desperation as spring arrives.  

The puddle on the sidewalk was firming up early this morning; the weathermen in a tizzy over coming snow, I have gassed up the tractor and snowblower, so let it come.  By now, 6-12 inches of new snow is barely noticeable.  

I have been filming the pheasants coming into the orchard in the morning.  Set my camera on a tripod, zoom it into the area I want, and leave it sit pointed out the east window.  Lots of film but so far, very little useable action.  Eventually I hope to select and combine the interesting parts into a short video. 

Pruning for the deer

Started pruning the apple trees yesterday.  Huge job as they haven't been pruned for many years.  Can't do it all in a single year--can't cut too much off.  Lots of dead branches to remove along with the live stuff to open the trees up a little. Some of the still hanging apples came down and were part of the attraction.  Most of those left are on the Wolf River--big pie apples.  

The deer immediately moved in last night to munch on the down branches.  I took a few photos as the light was fading.  

The post in the foreground is Mom's string supply--for birds to make their nests each spring.  The small trees are fenced in as is the garden to try to keep the deer out. 

The little fawns get pushed out and come to clean up around the bird feeders next to the house.  

Mustache?

The deer sinks down in the very deep snow.  

Kenneth Armstrong 1932-2014

   Kenny Armstrong was my school bus driver, and a fellow member of the Sterling Eureka and Laketown Historical Society as well as a neighbor and friend.  He had a long struggle with cancer. A year ago he and Margo ran into each other at the radiation treatment center in Mayo Clinic at Rochester as he was completing a round of treatment.  

   As a kid, we classified farmers as to the kind of tractor they drove.  Dad was a Farmall man, Raymond Noyes (a cousin to Ken) was a John Deere man, and Ken liked Allis Chalmers! He farmed the land around the Cushing School (community center) and we often watched him with his machinery out in the fields while we were students, and talked to him about it when he drove the bus.  He took the time to explain how a WD had two clutches that made it good for an Allis round baler and the other advantages of an Allis.
  
   He supported the Sterling Eureka and Laketown historical society and often visited with us at the museum.  His grandfather, Sheldon, was an early settler in West Sterling and then in Cushing. He had a fine appreciation for his own family history as well as that of the area.  

    In the 1950s, his father Ray, hired my Dad, Vivian Hanson and his brother Maurice Hanson to put a foundation under a part of the historic house at Cushing.  I remember Dad telling how the center of the old kitchen was sagging, with a crawl space under it.  They got in and found the center of the floor had been resting on an old stump that after 100 years had given way.  The Armstrong farm historical sign along the road says 1872 as the starting date for the farm on the plains north of Cushing.

   The big hills on the west side of the farm are gravel piles left by the glaciers.  I think they would be called either eskers, drumlins or whatever means a series of hills with gravel deposits. In fact, the big hill just south of the farm that Cushing sits on is really a pile of gravel too.  Ray and then Kenny sold gravel to the neighbors for their driveways, for road building and fill.  Watching them load a truck with gravel was pretty exciting for us kids.  

   Ken was a good school bus driver.   We kids liked him and were pretty well behaved when he drove us on those long trips to St Croix Falls from out on the Barrens.   Driving a school bus takes a great deal of patience and a great deal of care--to watch over all the kids safety and rambunctiousness.  He did it with grace, and cared for his charges as if they were his own children.  
 He was a good man and Cushing will miss him.

Obituary From the Rowe Funeral Home website. 

Kenneth L. Armstrong
(January 7, 1932 - February 12, 2014)

Kenneth Lynn Armstrong of Cushing entered his eternal rest on Wednesday, February 12, 2014.  His journey on this earth ended in his home surrounded by the love and support of his family.

Kenneth was born on January 7, 1932 to Ray and Sophie Armstrong of Cushing, WI.  He grew up and attended school in Cushing and St. Croix Falls.

Ken married his wife of 54 years, Marlys Jorgensen on September 11, 1959.  Together, they proudly raised their four daughters and were eventually blessed with 7 grandchildren and a great-grandson.  They lived and raised their family on the Armstrong Century Farm.

Farming was an important part of his life.  Most of his life was spent as a dairy farmer with a fine herd of Holstein cows.  As the years passed, the Holsteins were replaced with beef cattle.  In addition to his farming endeavors, he enjoyed driving school bus and drove for St. Croix Falls School District for 35 years.  He enjoyed his Allis Chalmers equipment and operated a backhoe and a gravel hauling business.

No matter how busy the farming was, he found time to be a loving Dad to his daughters and “Papa” to his grandkids.  He had a great sense of adventure that took him to the air in a hot air balloon, flying in a private plane, and went deep sea fishing.  He enjoyed his grandkids’ activities, such as horse shows, sheep shows, pig shows, hockey games, basketball games and ski races. Ken and Marlys enjoyed making new friends during their casino visits.

He had the priceless gift of instilling strong values in his family, not by words but by living those values each day of his life.  He will be greatly missed in all of his roles, but most especially in that of devoted and loving husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather.  It is in those roles that he leaves us a unique and unforgettable legacy.

Kenneth leaves behind his wife, Marlys Armstrong; his four daughters, Debbie Petzel (Mark Petzel) of Centuria, WI, Tara Yunker (Jay Yunker) of St. Croix Falls, WI, Jill Armstrong (Jeff Bohn) of Amery, WI and Jodi Bergstrom (Cary Bergstrom) of Cushing, WI ; his grandchildren, Lindsay Anderson (Neal) of Bagley, MN, Katie Petzel, Emily Petzel, Haley Yunker, Joshua Bohn, Grace Bergstrom and Joseph Bohn and great-grandson, Morgan Anderson; his sister, Lucille Anton and many nieces and nephews.  He was preceded in death by his parents, Ray and Sophie Armstrong; his brother, Leon and sister-in-law, Rose; and his brother-in-law, Cal Anton.

Memorial services will take place at 2 pm on Tuesday, February 18, 2014 at First Lutheran Church in Cushing. WI.  Pastor Elaine Silpala will officiate.  Visitation will take place at the church on Tuesday from 1:00 pm until the time of service.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be given in Ken’s name to First Lutheran Church in Cushing.

Online condolences may be left at  www.rowefh.com  or  www.wicremationcenter.com.  Please refer to these websites for updated information.

Arrangements have been entrusted to Rowe Funeral Home of Luck and the Northwest Wisconsin Cremation Center in Milltown, 715-472-2444 or 715-825-5550.

Nellie Belle

The Boys build a car--1959. 

Roy Roger's side-kick, Pat Brady, drove to the scene of the crime in his old war surplus Jeep, Nellie Belle.  While Roy and Dale rode Trigger and Buttermilk with Bullet running alongside, we were more impressed with Nellie Belle!

So, when in the summer of 1959, we decided we needed our own vehicle, it was natural to name it Nellie Belle. It was just as cantankerous as the real Nellie Belle, and with Dad's help, a great adventure in learning about mechanics and engines. 

A few years earlier, when electricity came to the farm, Dad took the single cylinder Maytag engine off the washing machine and replaced it with an electric motor--a really wonderful update.  No longer did he have to spend 20 minutes kick-starting the old engine for Mom, and now the washing machine was quiet, in-the-house and well behaved (without the long flexible exhaust you had to run out the door and dancing a jig back and forth across the kitchen floor with the Maytag putting away).  Mom was so worried about running the Maytag when Marvin was a baby--might cause him to squall and scream, but instead it put him to sleep.  Something about carbon monoxide maybe --might explain something about us boys too ;-)  

The washing machine was Mom's 1942 wedding present from Dad.  He asked her to help him pick out a wedding ring, but no, she wanted a washing machine instead.  Having had to spend endless hours growing up helping do the laundry with her mother on the scrub boards, she saw her mother-in-law's 32 volt electric washing machine that ran off of his electric power plant and realized her life would be much easier with a similar machine. 

Neighbor, Jimmy Rutsch, tries out Nellie Belle.  He was a little too tall for comfort. 

It was hard to find one in 1942--the war was on and production of anything other than military equipment was very limited.  Finally Dad found a used one and made her the happiest bride in the area when he presented it to her a little before Marvin was born and soiling his first diapers in 1944.  

With a spare, small, portable gas engine, Dad tried it for several inventions.   Mounted under a trimmed old oak table top with wheels, a twisted belt it became our first lawnmower.  The engine drove a vertical shaft with a pulley on the top and under the wooden deck, a flat blade with a mower section on each end.  However, at something like 5/8th of a horsepower, not quite powerful enough to mow through our tough and weedy lawn.  It never did start very easy, so was replaced by a more modern Briggs engine on the mower. 

An engine for turning out a wood pulley gave it a little use, and then it sat for a while until we boys decided we needed a car.  Dad explained how we might build one, and suggested the old push lawnmower, no longer used with our home-made rotary one.  

So, with some two-by-fours, the wheels off of our Radio Flyer wagon, barn door hinges (front wheel turning mechanism) and the lawnmower we had the makings. 

We took the reel out of the push lawn mower and mounted a belt pulley on the shaft.  The belt ran from Maytag pulley to mower pulley and the gearing in the lawnmower geared down the speed to the wheels greatly (about 3 mph).   

The Maytag sparkplug was shot, so we got a Model T Ford plug, interchangeable with the Maytag original.  The gas tank, under the main engine and part of the casting, was very small.  a tube with a ball valve on the bottom let the engine suck gas up with each rotation.  That was shot, but Dad knew if you took an alemite grease fitting and took out the spring, it would double for this part.  Luckily, in the pasture next door on Bert's place was an old car chassis with lots of alemite fittings. 

The motor fixed, we needed a clutch.  So, we added an idler pulley connected to a foot lever--the clutch.  Push it down and it tightened the belt; let up and it coasted to a stop--no breaks except feet on the ground.  

It worked pretty good--very slow, but exciting.  We added the canopy in the style of what Grandpa was always talking and singing about --the Surrey with the Fringe on Top.  

We wore out the first lawnmower, a hard rubber-tired modern one with white-metal gears and replaced it with one from either Grandpa or Uncle Maurice--older more durable one with cast iron wheels.  

The usual effort to take a drive:   an hour of kick starting the engine, including cleaning the spark plug, unclogging the alemite gas valve, and monkeying around and then driving it an hour or less before the engine balked again (very much like a balky horse). 

For steering, we mounted two wagon wheels on the frame, connected to it by barn door hinges.  The wheels were connected together with a rod, and turned by a rope wrapped around our steering wheel connected to each hinge.  At first we got it wrapped the wrong way, so you steered hard right to go left, but eventually we re-wrapped it so it steered the right way when neighbor Jimmy Rutsch came over and was crashing into everything because he couldn't learn to steer opposite.   (something that was good for us, as neighbor Raymond Noyes built a wide front for his B John Deere so he could rake hay without driving over the windrow--think he used a Model T front end--and he got it backwards steering too, so our backwardness was really quite helpful in the long run!).  

Grade school report on Nellie Belle -- for Mrs. Ranstrom at Cushing School--What I did in summer vacation. 

Brother Everett has the original Maytag gas engine at his place, and the Maytag washing machine is in the basement at Moms.  Maybe we should put it back together for an emergency if the electricity goes off and Margo can't find her scrub board (my wedding gift to her).  Or, maybe, if we can find some old wagon wheels....

Pruning the apples

Back in the 1950s, Dad and Mom planted 100 apple trees to supplement the 15 trees already around the farm yard.  The goal was to increase the sales of apples in the fall when there was a lull in the harvest and the cows were mostly dry.   

Mom stands under the flowering crab--planted at least 50 years ago and still thriving. 

We tried a dwarf tree, but the deer ate it
completely!

I think all of the original trees are gone, but about 25 replacement trees still remain in the orchard.   I planted a few replacements, but didn't take good care of them, and most are gone.  One of the decisions we have to make is whether we should expand, contract, or maintain those trees.  This is the time of the year that pruning is supposed to be done.  

The U of MN says pruning is to: 

• Remove weak, broken, diseased or unproductive branches, including any that are growing directly upward or downward.
• Keep branches at the top of the tree shorter than those at the bottom.
• Remove water sprouts (thin twigs growing vertically from trunk or branches).
• Remove suckers (vertical shoots growing around the base of the tree). These can be removed throughout the growing season as they appear.
• Remove branches competing with the main stem. The main stem must remain the tallest part of the tree.

The goal is to have an "open" tree where sunlight penetrates to wherever an apple might be found.  Dad pruned the trees until he couldn't anymore, and then didn't worry about it, as they still yielded apples, just had more problems with overloading and crowding.  I am debating whether next week should be devoted to pruning.  

The orchard came about as a way of making money.  A full sized healthy apple tree could yield 10-20 bushels of apple in a good year.  
100 apple trees X 15 bushels/tree X $5/bushel = $4500.  

I doubt that we ever got more than $1-2000 a season, but that was a lot of money 50 years ago.  With 4 boys, no migrant labor was needed!   People generally bought apples in those days by the bushel ($5).  

With the decision to go into apples, we fenced off the portion of the cow pasture directly east of the driveway--a relatively flat piece of the farm that, other than a garden and raspberry bed, was open.  It was a lot of work digging all the holes by hand, carefully planting the trees and caring for them for the next 6 years as they grew big enough to have a few apples.  

The apples were standard size, meaning big trees.  The varieties included Connell Red, Fireside, Macintosh, Jonathan, Haralson, Cortland, Wolf River, Harlared and a few others I can't remember.  We already had a very early variety--Yellow Transparent, a huge old Hibernal that bore 25 bushels each year for pies, and a couple of Northwest Greenings for winter storage, a Wealthy, some Beacons, and others--full sized when we planted the 100 new ones.   

Apple trees can be quite finicky, and so one is never finished pruning, fertilizing, spraying and replacing them.  A hard winter can kill off many, or damage them, especially if days of extreme cold vary with days of sunny warmth in mid winter.  Some varieties handle most winters and others are good for 15 years, and then the 35 below season comes along and kills them off.  You don't just plant them and then pick the apples and get rich. 

By the late 60s, the apple trees were bearing heavily and we were in the apple business.  Our price was $5 a bushel except for Hibernals at $1 per bushel, and of course prices varied as to size, variety and yield.  Generally apple trees yield every-other year, but with pruning and a good layer of rotted cow manure applied annually, most will bear each year.  Wet conditions meant apple scab, lowering the value; dry conditions meant smaller apples, again lowering the price. 

Apples, left to themselves, will be filled with worms most years.  If you want to sell apples, you must have decent fruit--and that meant spraying them with insecticide and fungicide. You need a big sprayer for 100 full sized trees!

Dad and his brother-in-law, Ralph Haselhuhn, had tried a business for a couple of years of white-washing barns.   Farm barns on Grade A were expected to be clean and white inside, and that was accomplished by mixing unslaked lime and water in a barrel to make a white-wash type of paint.  They had a Briggs and Stratton engine connected to a piston water pump to spray the whitewash in the barn.    They went to the farm, swept down all the cobwebs, dust, and scraped manure off the lower walls.  They masked the windows with newspapers, covered the barn machinery with paper bags or sacks and then started the engine and sprayed the walls and ceilings leaving a extremely white barn interior.   Some folks had their porches or garages sprayed too.  The expenses were minimal, mostly labor and a little for the lime.

The problem with this business was two-fold; farmers were notoriously slow or unwilling to pay, and there was a lot of competition--very inexpensive to go into this business.  So, after two years, they decided to quit, and Dad converted the engine and pump to spray the apple trees.  Before this, he had tried to use the hand pump sprayer--very slow and really unable to reach the top of the trees. 

By this time, the old dangerous sprays of lead arsenate, DDT, and harsh chemicals had been replaced by Sevin--a chemical that messed up the neuro system of the bugs, and quickly broke down in outdoor conditions--and continues to be considered a relatively safe spray for food.  

Dad kept a few hives of honeybees to pollinate the apples and carefully avoided spraying during apple bloom season to keep the bees from being exposed.  He sprayed every 11 days from May through September, trying to stop a few weeks before an apple was ready for sale.   Sevin, sprayed before July, can cause apples to fall off the tree, a practice that actually is useful in thinning the fruit to get to bigger apples. 

The current plan:  prune some of the trees moderately this year; plant 10 new semi-dwarf trees, and consider fencing the orchard. We haven't any dwarf or semi-dwarf due to the deer browsing.  I pruned a tree two years ago a little late in the season, and it caught fire-blight and died.  February is fine; March too late.  January too cold.   

The deer are terrible on apple trees, so you have to fence in the small ones until they are 10 feet tall, and then the deer will browse them as high as they can reach.   Dad and Mom didn't have as many problems as they always had a farm dog who believed that the only animals allowed to eat on the farm were him, the boys, the cows, and grudgingly the cats. I think a fence would be less bother. Other than a huge huge expense, that would be the way to go!  Or maybe, will just study the nursery catalog and let the orchard follow me into gentle decline...


  

Pine Plantation

Google image of the Hanson 40 acre farm.  In the far upper left corner (NW) is a red outlined small hillside -- The Pine Plantation. It is along Evergreen Av and was planted with pines in the 1960s and untouched since.  

Back about 53 years ago, brother Marvin was in the St Croix Falls High School FFA.  The FFA was for boys in those days, boys who planned to be farmers.  Along with all sorts of practical skills for dairying, crops growing and other farming skills, the FFA emphasized conservation and wildlife, encouraging wild life and wood lot planting on pieces of land not suitable for crops or pasture. 

The home 40 acres on the farm was intensively used for crops and pasture, so very little land was available for tree planting.  So when Marvin got 100 redpines and spruce, he asked Dad where he could plant them.  

"The NW corner of the 40 along Evergreen, next to Bert's land -- there is a little brushy area I don't pasture, and as it is a hillside and across the swamp, it is unaccessible for anything else.  Back when Nelson owned the whole 80, it was part of the cow pasture, but when the boys split it, this corner has been left idle."

A few years ago, this is the google drive by view of the pine plantation on the left.  In front of it are lots of small ash trees and larger box elders and ash at the end of the corn field.  Much of that has been cleaned out as the farm field has been extended back to its original size after 15 years of being in CRP.  

Dad and we 4 boys took a weekend and cleaned it out.  There were some miscellaneous trees, box elders, elms, pople and lots of brush.  We managed to get it all cleaned off, bare, probably 1/2 acre at the most, next to the Bert's field.  We fixed the fenceline there as Bert sometimes let his cattle into the field, and the FFA said no cows could get in or it would be ruined. 

In April the trees came.  By then we had the patch cleaned off, open, although with some stumps and lots of roots.  We all helped plant the 100 trees in north-south rows on the hillside.  

For the next several years, each year we did a brushing day to clean out everything except the pines.  The soil there was good quality clay loam slanting down to the drain for the swamp, headed north into Leonard and Raymond Noyes barnyard.  The swamp was mostly filled with cattails, having been drained some years earlier by the Nelsons.  

When Dad first bought it, Grandpa Pearl Hanson (Pearl Herbert Hanson--P.H. Hanson was what he went by), came over to re-open the drain to empty it completely, as there was enough drop to the north it seemed that it could be fully drained.  In the old days, swamps were idle land, and every farmer ditched or tiled them out as best he could to either plow them up or at least turn them into cow pasture.  

When Bert saw P.H. starting to dig to drain it, he asked him to stop.  The swamp was partially on Bert's land, although mostly on Dad's side.  "I pasture my young stock there, and on my side is a small pond that keeps water all summer so I don't have to pump water most years.  If it is all right with you, would you leave it."  Being a good neighbor is important in the country, so of course, P.H. let it stay.  

The field ends, a bunch of box elders and then the plantation.  The low area between field and trees is the drain for the cattail swamp.  It could be filled a little and make the cattail swamp a marsh.  Once upon a time, the beaver had plugged it and made it into a small pond, capturing the spring run off on its way to Wolf Creek and the St Croix River. 

53 year old pine plantation, never thinned, grew slowly and no longer give much wildlife cover.  Should Margo get the chainsaw out and thin them for lumber to build her a greenhouse?

P. H. had a big Rumely Oil Pull and in the old days used it to pull the township road grader (in Maple Grove Township).  He was used to grading roads, and making ditches with his machinery, and draining swamps with a tractor and road grader was not a problem.  He would have had to cut through the road and lower the culvert, but it was just a dirt road with an inch or two of gravel, so wouldn't have been much of a problem.  Of course, he wouldn't have needed a permit to do it until many years later. 

So, the swamp stayed semi-dry filled with cattails and watered Bert's Angus and sheep.  Each year the trees grew taller, until in about 10 years, they no longer needed brushing out as they crowded out all else.  

When Everett suggested he thin them to get faster growth (they were very crowded as almost all the trees grew), Dad said, "No, I don't care if I get lumber out of them, they make a great wildlife corner on the farm, and I'd rather have a spot for the grouse, deer, pheasants and birds than a few logs for our sawmill.  So, for 53 years they have been left alone.  We never hunted this 40 acres, nor even went there for any reason.  

A dense redpine plantation can become almost a desert as the shade and fallen needles kill out everything under them, and gradually open up.  That is where it is now.  The question is whether I should take some logs out now or ignore it for another 20 years. 

It being such a beautiful day, sunny, 20 degrees and no wind, I strapped on the skis and plowed my way across the field to the pines and studied them up close.  

On the way out, I decided to follow a deer trail along the west side of the swamp--where the snow has drifted into the cattails and built up 4 feet deep with places even higher.   Staying on the deer track went fine until my left ski went off, and sunk 3 feet down while the other stayed up, tilting me into the deep snow.   

I understand what avalanche survivors must feel like, as I lay there down in a hole four feet deep with soft snow all around, my skis buried, and still strapped on.   After wallowing around (the right word is wallowing), I managed to get my skis up in the air, lying on my back and with the ski poles unsnapped the bindings.   I rolled back and forth a while to flatten out a launching pad, and then rolled on to my stomach, braced with the poles got my self up on my good knee and looked around.  I had been so deep in the snow, I couldn't see out, and had been wondering if I might put my red handkerchief on a pole and stick it up and wave it, hoping someone might drive by on the road and see me signalling.

The snow was so soft and unsupportive, that I finally dug down to the ice underneath to give my poles a firm bottom, and then was able to get up, put on my skis and move along.  Sort of reminds a person that when you get old and fat, things that seemed minor once upon a time, can be major now.  I backtracked my way to the field where it is easier going and continued the survey. 

 The crumpled remains of the top of the 1953 Ford that brother Ev got from Uncle Chan to make into a convertible/bug.  As on many farms, the edge of a swamp was the dump.  Archaeologists will someday dig here and find 150 years of Norwegian and Swedish heritage.   

The cattail swamp looking south from the pine plantation.  Another mostly dry swamp as it has been drained somewhat back in the olden days--just waiting for a beaver to plug it back up.

Below--the one wet spot on the west side that neighbor Bert's cattle could get water.  Still enough to support a duck family each summer. Looking Southeast--to my field edge with a row of box elders along the edge that was used as a dump for 150 years of farmers.  I stopped that when I bought it 10 years ago.

Sunrise is earlier

 Although the days are getting longer and even at 5 above, the sun has enough power to melt a little snow off the dark house roof, it is still far too cold to enjoy much outside.  

I filmed about 20 minutes of the sunrise this morning and then cut the part out and speeded the video up greatly using Windows Live Movie Maker (free on Windows 7) and posted it on this blog.  The sun still rises in the south, but is creeping farther to the north and higher in the sky each day. 

Margo is heading down to West Bend to visit her Dad next week.  He has been in the hospital with an irregular heartbeat--and possibly a very mild stroke.  He also has a bad cold, so it may be something to do with that. He turns 89 in a couple of months and has been getting along pretty good.  He goes to a couple of funerals per week as a military honor guard--he is a WW II vet.  

We took a run to the Twin Cities Friday to check out the Arden Hills MN and Federal surplus center--looking for a color laser printer for the museum at Luck.  Picked up one for $100 that has a slight flaw--every inch a red horizontal line.  Works good for lists of numbers, but pretty annoying for other prints.  I had checked out the printer, and this is supposed to be easily fixable by just replacing the magenta toner cartridge--so hopefully that will do it (I will order it online).   We have a color inkjet printer, but we don't use it very often and the ink dries out too quickly.  Lasers are not supposed to do this. 

The surplus center requires a bunch of paperwork to become eligible for non-profits, but has low cost furniture, electronics and miscellaneous surplus items including some military trucks.  Can't quite figure out how a 6-wheel drive army truck would fit into the museum list of needs, but surely should be able to think of something.   We do have a huge old butter churn (8-foot long, 6-foot in diameter) from a creamery that would look good being hauled down the street for summer parades....can see it know mounted on the back of one of those trucks, slowly turning like a cement deliver truck!

We try to get as much of our equipment as possible through donations, surplus and our help from volunteers as we get only money raised by donations, fund raising and grants.  This year our share of the utility bill is high -- so very cold. 

Thirteen Pheasants

This morning, 13 pheasants flew in at 7:40, just as the sun was rising, directly into the lower tree line, then ran to the upper line where I had put out 4 quarts of shelled/cracked corn.  They ate for 20 minutes then, not being disturbed by any cars going by, moved to the brushy cover and rested--probably full crops and needing to get some morning sunshine to warm up a little.
My plan for the orchard was to cut all the lower brush and open it up, but maybe leaving some brush and weeds is a good idea. Might plant a few dozen rows of corn along the road to add some cover.  The deer would eat it all up quickly, but the stalks might remain--especially if I get some giant corn.

My newer apple trees are all ringed with fencing to keep the deer from eating the branches.  

After about 20 minutes of eating corn, they huddle in the cover along the brushy row of apples, letting the sun warm them up on this -15 morning. 

The view out the window towards the NE -- the orchard

The pheasants didn't come in until a little later--when the sun was fully up.   Been reading on the internet about pheasants--quite an interesting bird --require equivalent calories of 3-Snicker's bars a day to thrive in the below zero winter.  Have to get a few and see if they actually eat them ;-)

Want to see an early copy of the latest Luck Remembered Newsletter?   Try Luck Remembered Jan 2014

Hunting Pheasants

The old cranberry bog is split by Evergreen Av -- NS and turning west at the end of the swamp.  Over the hill on the right is Bass Lake. It drains down through a notch in the middle of the photo and comes through this swamp on the way to the St Croix River.  Emil Nelson, one of the 21 Nelson kids who grew up on the farm and whose Dad built the buildings, said in the 30s it was so dry the swamp was plowed up for potatoes.  In the early days, someone took advantage of naturally growing cranberries and tried to farm them here -- flooding them from Bass Lake.  Emil said his grandfather, who came to the farm in the 1880s, was used to burning peat in Norway, and cut a little from the swamp to burn until he realized that with no shortage of wood, that worked much better.
Back in 1970, a very dry year, when I was last at home, I drained the lower swamp and we got it bulldozed into Dub lake, a few acre nice pond.  I also drained this one and turned it from a marsh with standing water in the early part of the season into a mostly dry swamp.  Everett and I had upstairs windows that opened to the east and all spring and summer we heard the frogs, blackbirds, ducks--a real symphony.   I really should plug the drain again and turn it back into a marsh instead of dry swamp.  Even have brush growing up that the cows always kept down.  

***
A few pheasants scratch around the orchard most days looking for apples in the area under the trees where the deer have tromped the snow down in their own hunt for apples and browsing on the tree branches.  

Feeling somewhat sorry for the pheasants, we bought some wildlife corn at Burnett Dairy (a mixture of shelled corn, stalk pieces and broken kernels probably derived from screening corn for storage).  It was $7.50 per 50 lb sack, and I figured if I spread a little each day  very thinly over a large area, it wouldn't attract deer and might help the pheasants get through a very cold and snowy (2-3 feet here) winter. 

This morning there were 10 pheasants out there scratching around by daybreak.  They hung around until I went out of the house to feed my regular birds, and then they flew to the east, disappearing down over the hillside where I assumed they must have gone in the big cattail swamp.  But did they?  Where do they hang out when they aren't in our orchard, and do they stay as a flock?  I spread another ice-cream pail of shelled corn for them--but the blue jays and Fluffy the fawn seem to insist on getting their share and are not so wary as the pheasants so hog it for themselves. 

After getting the house cleaned and helping with some baking for Sunday when my brothers and sister-in-laws are coming over to help celebrate sis-in-law Sheila's 2nd day of Medicare (today is her first--her birthday is not until next week--and of course I would never tell how old she is, but Medicare and SS start the first of the month for folks reaching a certain age), I put on the cross country skis and headed in the direction I last saw the pheasants. 

I think there are 4 male pheasants and 6 female who come in.  The males eat corn by themselves, first to move into the area, and then the females come in--waiting either until it is safe, or until the males let them.  The males watch the females feeding, and if a female appears to find good pickings, he rushes over and pushes her aside to claim the spot.  The males seem to spend more time rushing around then eating.  
    The longer the tail, the more appealing he is to the female --a sign that he is healthy and well fed enough to grow plumage that has only display value.  Very much like the human species, where the females are taken in by long tales quite often. 

Heading out through the orchard, I first noticed there were no pheasant tracks walking into the northernmost row of trees where they first show up.  Must fly in and land there.  Pheasants are heavy enough to leave clear tracks in the fluffy snow, so you can easily track them now.   

The skiing was very difficult--snow depths varies from 2-3 feet with drifts higher, and no crust, so I sank down deeply into it.  Realizing I forgot my cell phone, so I couldn't dial 9-1-1 for a heart attack, I took it easy, stopping to take photos often.  No tracks on the lower hillside nor on the edge of the swamp, where I assumed they were seeking cover. 

Were the pheasants seeking cover in the cattails?  Only way to find out is to go look. 

I headed into the cattails from the north end, planning to cross the 1/8 mile swamp looking for tracks.  Ten feet into it, I realized the snow was mostly 3 feet deep or deeper with my skis hitting bottom.  I turned around and wallowed back out, and made the tour of the west side instead, looking very carefully for any tracks or maybe a live pheasant.  Nothing at all.  Several cars drove by, slowing down greatly when they saw me, probably wondering if they were seeing an Abominable.  I tried to pretend I was gracefully swishing along, making the right pose, pumping my arms and sliding my skis back and forth in place--graceful but going nowhere until they were out of sight.  

After skirting the swamp with no sign of pheasants, I headed west up across the corn field behind the barn and made my tour into the house from the southwest side.   When I came into the yard, took off my skis and came in the house, Margo said "you just chased up the pheasants again--they flew off to the east."  My guess--they are in the swamp across the road, further north or maybe over on Gullickson's corn stubble or maybe in the swamp north of me.  This area is part of the pothole country, with every low spot a swamp, many not drained, and many hills and spots in the fields that can't be farmed and provide cover for wildlife.  

Deer trail from the creek coming to the farmyard

Every farm has a bone-yard out behind the barn where the old machinery goes to die.  Nearly buried in the snow is Brother Ev's 1968 Rambler American that was injured at Hwy 87 and 70 and drug itself here before expiring. 

Two single row corn planters have box elders growing through the frame.  A cattle watering tank waits for Margo's herd of bull calves to be back in use.  

The old wood grain drill slowly rots away while the corn wagon adds gravity to the scene.  

Approaching the house from the SW (looking NE) one can see the fuel oil tank along side--only $900 to fill it on December 30th and still half full a month later.  The yard trees on the left are black walnuts, and keep a red squirrel busy digging through 2 feet of snow to find another nut and.  He brings it over to the storage shed behind the tree in the photo.  Heavy crop this year so the building is probably full by now.