Merry Christmas!   We are almost finished with our Christmas newsletter mailings.  The 2019 year was memorable mostly for the ability to have another enjoyable year here on the Farm and to continue with the usual trip south, maple syrup, gardening, clubs etc.  Here is the 2019 Christmas newsletter.

   2019 Christmas Newsletter

For those of you who want to keep up with the Farm, we do a daily post on Facebook Facebook .   I have it set to public, so if you are on Facebook, you should be able to see it without being a friend. 

I occasionally put a video on my youtube channel
   Youtube River Road Rambler

Happy New Year too. 

The River Road Rambler. 

Frost on the windows this morning but not the ground here on the farm as October 2019 still hasn't had a killing frost on the Farm. 
  An update on projects:   The cemetery pipe fence west of us 5 miles on Evergreen had a tree down on 100 feet of it.  I volunteered to replace it freewith used well pipe I had in the MN place.  Two rails replaced of three, and coming along slowly but surely.  
  The new addition to the Wolf Creek Cemetery, where I volunteered this spring to be sexton, is surveyed and we pay the bill and have it registered in the next few weeks.  I am digitizing the old cemetery records to make it easier to figure out ownership and occupancy.  
  The latest project is an upgrade in fluorescent lights to LED lights in the hallways at the Cushing Community Center -- around the museum upstairs. 
  The 14th annual River Road Ramble had a sunny day and a great turnout, and so likely we will do a 15th one.  
  Here on the Farm, our pumpkins and squash crops failed, the melons almost failed, the apples are good. Too much rain seemed to be a problem
   The other project underway is scanning the old Sterling, Eureka and Laketown township records.  We started with Sterling and have done about 100 record books so far, with probably 50 -75 left.  I try to do 20 per month.  
   This is the setup -- a special foot pedal copy camera and a computer and someone to turn the pages and push the pedal.  You can read about the project on the latest Sterling Eureka and Laketown Historical Society newsletter. 
 Newsletter Oct 2019

  Working on a video for the End-Of-Season SELHS lunch, Oct 24, 2019 noon potluck at the Wolf Creek Church.  The program is about local Country Western singing stars from the 1940s-60s, Hank and Thelma Holland.  Thelma Bergstrom grew up along the River Road.  
You can test the video underway at this link   
Hank and Thelma

   I do a daily post of what is happening on Facebook with photos from the Farm. You can look at it without being a facebook friend (I think).  
  https://www.facebook.com/russell.b.hanson

Farm updates

Today's Facebook post

58F, calm. damp after an afternoon thunderstorm dumped another half inch of rain on the Farm yesterday.


Before the rain, got a little outdoor work done-- couple more concreted corners at Wolf Creek cemetery and a little sorting of the pipe fence out at the Cemetery west of us on Evergreen Av, and some of the orchard mowed getting ready for apple season.


The apple orchards around are opening -- Holmes Lake announced Honeycrisp and McIntosh apples for sale. Ours has Wolf River (baking apples) and probably others too, some trees loaded with apples this year.

Scott was busy during the rain boiling down a few bushels of tomatoes into tomato paste for winter cooking. He has some Amish Paste tomatoes for that. Although the tomato plants look terrible as the windstorms broke off or bent over the 5-foot tall plants, they are still bearing fine.
When it dries out this week, maybe will dig some of the potatoes -- looks like a good crop too. Potatoes are best when dug late and "hardened" a little by cold weather. Adds a little sugar and makes them store better. So other than some for sale and some to eat, will leave most until October.

Eating the last watermelon -- very poor yield this year. Only planted 4 vines and two died on the way due to injudicious hoeing by the farmer.

Monday is Genealogy drop in day followed by the Sterling Town Board meeting in the evening. I go to the board meeting to bring back 20 old record books already copied and pick up 20 more for the month ahead. When Sterling is done, have Luck, and Laketown to do next. Goes pretty smoothly as I have a old computer connected to the foot pedal copy camera ready to go when I have some time. Takes about 10 minutes per book. I suppose I should just take the setup to the source and do it there, but I rather enjoy doing it gradually.

 Lots of irons in the fire make each day a choice of many interesting jobs. I expect that all will get done, but in sort of a shotgun approach with sort of the Jack of all trades, master of none approach.

The tomato vines were 5-foot, held up by wire cages and electric fence posts, but two storms broke them off and although they are bearing yet, they lost their wonderful lush look.  

 Lately the swans and geese have been flying around in their vees. It must be the youngsters have gained flight.

The tools to make a concrete marker -- pre-mix concrete, post hole digger, shovels and a tub for mixing it and some water.

 The surveyor left a lathe marking the south boundary of the church yard with a metal spike driven in the ground. Here, as it was in the ditch, I moved 1 foot to the west, dug a foot deep hole (hit a major tree root at that level) and poured concrete and two metal spikes to make a more permanent ground level marker. I still have the west two corners to put a pipe in concrete 1 foot east of the corners. I did all of the markers I put in 1 foot east of the surveyor's pin except this one.

The south boundary of the church yard is about where the big oak tree stands. The old south driveway is just off of the property. Back in the woods, behind the church is the old school yard netting fence, almost all disappeared, but in a few places grown in to trees. The surveyor marked the written boundary about 10 feet east of the old fence. Now, if one wanted to, the old fence could be considered the actually boundary as line fences in for over 20 years are sacrosanct in law -- meant so farmers didn't have to continually move their fences as surveyors changed their measuring techniques and found fences were not quite on lines. Now that would have been important in the cemetery as some graves would have been off the newly surveyed line, but as we bought an extension to the west, we are OK, just our new cemetery boundary is about 10 feet shorter than originally thought. Modern surveyors used gps and satellites and claim to be more accurate than the originals who went with chains and compasses through the area in 1848.

  The finished marker is a deep tube of concrete with 2 spikes embedded that will soon disappear under the sod, but will beep on the metal detector.  

The surveyor marked the south boundary of the cemetery property -- a 100 foot buffer zone south of the old cemetery fence. I dug a post hole 1 foot east of the marker and poured it full of concrete with two giant spikes embedded in it -- all below mowing level. This marks the south boundary -- the east is the road and back in the woods is the west. It will likely grass over, but be locatable with a metal detector. .When you pay a surveyor $2000 to mark boundaries, you want to make them permanent.

In the church yard, a few feet north of the south boundary, east edge just back from the ditch is an old concrete 1922 benchmark survey marker.  It used to have a bronze top marking the height above sea level back in the 1950s when I went to school at the Wolf Creek.  The bronze was knocked off, but the concrete remains, just high enough to dent the mower blades it looks like. 

Facebook Posts

I do a daily post on Facebook--sort of a memory diary so I will know what it is that is happening and what I am thinking.  Have been doing it for many years.  Here is the example for September 12, 2019.  It usually has photos from the Farm, but this time of year I am up ahead of the sun and so have to use photos from the previous day.  

***

East wind, drizzle, about 1/2 inch yesterday pushing us to about 8/10 over the two days here on the Farm. Still a stiff east wind and general rain predicted all day through midnight in Cushing.

Trying to catch up with paper work -- 3 more Sterling record books to scan before the Monday night town meeting where I bring in the finished ones and pick up 20 more. I am doing 1930s and 40s this month. It goes fast when I get at it-- rainy days. Wet days, for me, are inside projects, and lately those have been on the computer.

Typed up 2 sets of meeting minutes -- the Northwest Wisconsin Museum Consortium meeting on the 10th and last month's Northwest Wisconsin Regional Writer's group.  One was fresh in my mind and the other from notes written a month earlier.  I learned that I had better do the typed up notes sooner rather than later.  I have tried to do the notes on my laptop as the meeting progresses, but that seems to take me out of the conversation rather than being a participant, and also is a little distracting to the others as my keying is a little noisy.  I need to cultivate a softer touch.  Those of us who began our typing career on old manual typewriters have developed firm keystroking fingers.

Margo's 2011 laptop quit working last month, and she uses it as her window on the world, so she got a new one, much lighter to handle. It seemed as the old one no longer would charge the battery nor run even when plugged in. . So I bought a junk laptop of the same brand off of Ebay for $12 that seems to at least charge the battery, charged Margo's and put it in and sure enough it works. The connector was OK, so it appears the charging circuitry on the motherboard is shot. I told her to return her new computer and just carry around her old computer and the other old computer for battery charging, but she seemed reluctant (to say the least), so I have another somewhat usable old machine to hookup to a scanner unless I take the two apart and swap parts to make one good one.

The curse of being somewhat handy on fixing things is you really can't ever throw away anything as you might be able to fix it, given a few more parts and a little time. With ebay, the parts are probably available as other people who can't throw away things sell them.

A new project -- A slice of the old cemetery white pine blown over in the storm made into a stool (for display only) with the top smoothed and the growth rings showing a timeline from birth to death (75 years) and an event line. Have to figure out how to drill angled leg holes -- or .

maybe some kind of bracket. Then put one in the Cushing museum and one in the chapel in the cemetery.

The other project is removing the old storm damaged pipe fence from 100 years ago and replacing it with new pipes.  I have several hundred feet of water well pipe at the MN place from twice pulling a 200 foot well and replacing the pipes.  So the materials are available.  The old fence has smaller rail pipes and larger upright post pipes with holes in them to feed the rails.  Far too much work and I don't have smaller pipe, so will bolt the rails to the posts.  I offered to do it for free, so after some cleanup of the fenceline  will try to get the upright posts in before frost.  

The 75 year old white pine has been removed but lots of small branches to clean up and some trimming along the fence before the new fence goes in.  

14th Annual River Road Ramble

September 28th, 9-5 pm, 2019 is the 14th Annual River Road Ramble - the loop tour of Hwy 87 and the old River Road between Grantsburg and St Croix Falls.  Web page River Road Ramble
  Map 2019 Ramble Stops

It looks like we will have about 25 official stops for sales, events, museums, farmer's markets, lunch, bake sales etc.  There are always others too along the way, so get out and enjoy what is likely to be very good fall color in the shortest state Hwy in Wisconsin (Hwy 87 Grantsburg to St Croix Falls), and its predecessor state hwy, the Old St Croix River Road.
   This is a slow scenery drive to spend the day at rather than a rush from sale to sale on the less traveled roads of NW Wisconsin. 
   

Local History Through Township Records

Back in 1970, I had a summer job at the Sterling Fire tower.  I sat 100 feet above the surrounding forest using my eyes to look for smoke.  

I had trouble concentrating on it, and talked to others who had towered.  One said "I read a book," and at the end of each set of pages, stopped and looked around carefully.  That made me a better watchman than just sitting there and forgetting to look around at all."

  "Dad," I asked Sterling Town Board chairman V. R. Hanson, "would it be all right if I took along one of the old Sterling record books to the tower?"  The records from the 1850 and newer were stored in the always unlocked 1888 town hall in the chimney closet, somewhat mouse chewed and moldering away.  

   "If you think you might learn something," he replied, knowing he didn't have to tell me to be very careful carrying them 100 feet up the ladder on the side of the tower, and putting them back when finished. 

   I did a project -- took the 1865 tax roll and made a plat map of land owners in Sterling at the time.  The yearly tax roll books told who owned each piece of land and at the end of the book the personal property of each person living in Sterling (at that time all of northern Polk Co and Burnett and Washburn counties were administered by the Town of Sterling as no one lived there).  

   Most of the land owned in 1865 was along the rivers and streams in the Sterling barrens, much of it still federal land open for homesteading.  The land in east Sterling was already owned, but often by absentee speculators. 

   Over the summer I read the tax rolls, the town meeting minutes, the budgets etc., and got a fine appreciation for the days when the township was almost all of the government folks saw.  The taxes were for roads, for bridges, for the poor, for the cemetery, and for town surveying, town lawsuits, etc.  

   I got to know the names of old roads as they were called by the folks working on them -- Evergreen was Darey road after a local resident.  Hwy 87 was Broadway. 

  I learned that half a dozen families from Dunkerton, Iowa began arriving in 1903 including Great Grandpa Carnes. I learned that the Hanson's migrated in form Barron, WI in the 1930s.  I saw how many horses the Harris family had, how many cows, and how Ida Harris and her sons Floyd and Vedon stayed on the barrens after most of the folks had left by the 19 teens. I saw the depression area influx that included Grandpa Eugene Hanson and mom, folks who had lost their good farms and were hunkering down on the abandoned farms on the sand barrens with subsistence living to ride it out. 

   So this summer, I started a project -- copying all of the Sterling, Laketown, Luck and other local township record books, making digital copies of them and sharing them with others through the magic of cloud drives and the internet. 

   As I enthusiastically told the Sterling town board members, "The yearly Sterling tax rolls are the only yearly record we have of who lived where.  Census records are 10 years apart, church records are on birth, confirmation, marriage and death.  But town records show every year how many cows, horses, buggies, watches, organs, pianos, land and so on that all of the households here have.  A treasure that is far to valuable not to be copied and preserved forever."   

   And so I committed to photographing hundreds of old books in as careful a manner possible--just turning the pages and photographing each page.  

   To do that with a camera seemed possible, but not easy.  So, I spent $300 and bought a book copying camera on a stand that, I have found, to make the process easy.  

   You can see a video of me in action doing this.  CZUR Copy Camera in Action

   Do you want to see some of the results?  I am trying to organize them in easily readable book format, that you turn the double pages and zoom in to read the beautifully handwritten records of our past.  

  Check out the 1943 tax rolls

 
  The rest will be in a cloud drive on Google where you can go to see any of them.  To move these files to the cloud, requires decent speed internet, something that has been sorely missing here out at the very end of a stub line of the Grantsburg phone line.  Rural phone service always lags 20 years behind the rest of the world-- mostly because phone companies are monopolies here and they see much more money going to serve the lake areas to compete with other phone companies there than serving their own monopoly area.  

  But, after a great deal of whining, complaining, and excuses, two weeks ago the fiber was actually put in along Evergreen avenue.  We already have it from house to road as that replaced the phone line strung over the trees we had 2 years ago (yes it was from tree-top to tree-top).  So all that is needed is a few hours to connect our end and the River Road end for it to work.  

  "When?" I asked eagerly as I saw the cable laid.  "Probably yet this year," said the monopoly spokes man.  I already agreed to pay the $100 + service rate per month, but phone companies have a policy of serving the complainers worst, as the spokesman plainly told me. One of these days the overhead satelite or tower service will catch up and we can dump the monopoly service, a dinosaur from the past that has evolved to a turtle on its way to the future. 

Factory Farms -- Coming to NW Wisconsin?

    The past few months here in NW Wisconsin -- Polk and Burnett Counties, along the St Croix River, a movement has been forming.  It all began when nearby in Trade Lake Township, word of an agreement with a local farmer and a big hog factory operation to bring 20,000 pigs to a 38 acre piece of land about 8 miles away.  The movement has been to oppose CAFOs by going to local government meetings and speaking out against factory farms.  

   It got me thinking about the arguments posed in favor by the giant farm proponents.  I have attempted to take a few of them and see if I can find support for the claims and then write a letter to the editor of the local papers explaining the facts as I researched them, with sources. 

   I grew up on a farm, own a farm now, but have no animals here.  Our farming activity is an orchard, maple syrup production, some truck gardening and rental of about 50 acres of cropland on a total of about 140 acres, shrunk from about 200 acres a few years ago. My ancestors for as many generations as one can find have been small farmers.  I generally have thought of farms with pleasant and happy memories, but farming is changing into mass production and massive numbers of animals in concentrated locations, generally becoming dreaded neighbors.  

   Letters to the editor of the local newspapers. 


CAFOs Bring Water Pollution (Aug 12, 2019)


    At the Sterling township meeting last month, here in NW Polk County, an impassioned speaker told us that we must not prohibit giant hog farms in Sterling Township.  He gave the usual freedom-to-farm argument, but added a personal note that I summarize here:
    "My brother has a large hog farm in Martin County, MN.  It is heavily regulated, a very clean operation and is a good neighbor.  You should visit a modern hog farm to see that they are not the problem you think they are. Go to Martin County, MN and look around."
   Although I didn't visit Martin County, MN, I did spend some time on the internet reading about it.  
   Martin County MN is on the border with Iowa, with Fairmont as its largest city.  It is the self-proclaimed hog capital of MN, and an almost completely farmed area in that flat and rich soil of southern MN.   It is home to hundreds of huge feedlots for cattle, turkeys and pigs; the Concentrated Animal Feed Operations (CAFO).
  According to the website https://www.farmprogress.com/marketing/martin-county-claims-bacon-capital-usa-title  Martin county claims the "Bacon Capital of the USA." Martin county has more than 150 pig farms and markets 1.7 million market pigs (2016 data).  Of course there are many more pigs than that counting the sows and boars and new and larger operations since 2016.  
   The county is almost all farmland  It is laced with farmer's drainage tiles and ditches,  emptying into the water rich county with many streams, lakes and ponds according to the local Martin County Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD)  https://martinswcd.net/.  The massive amount of manure generated is spread on the fields and percolates directly into the drainage system, creating massive water pollution that destroys lakes, streams, rivers wells and even city water.
   Reading information from the Martin County SWCD, we find that the primary direction is working with farmers to decrease the water pollution in the county, which is very bad.  Fairmont, a city of 10,000 people, had to issue a "don't let children drink city water" alert a few years ago when their water supply was polluted with nitrates on top of the fecal bacterial load.  Chlorine kills the bacteria so it is safe to drink,although water with dead fecal bacteria would seem to be unappealing.  However the treatment was not setup to remove farm fertilizer nitrate runoff after big rains. The cost of the additional treatment is high.  It is common to Iowa cities too and in both states cities have tried to sue farmer's to recover some of the cost.   
   Another Martin County project underway is setting up rural water systems.  Few wells are usable due to farm pollution from fields where the manure from millions of hogs, massive turkey operations and large cattle feed lots are prevalent as well as giant irrigation wells pump dry local aquifers.   Personal water treatment is expensive, extreme depth wells expensive and so folks in the country plan to get their water from wells with treatment facilities and underground pipes running miles across the scattered farms.  
   Of course the funding for the cleanup projects are funded by the State of MN as the cleanup is not happening by farmers doing it without free funding to do better practices --  regulations are set and then money is paid to bribe the farmer into doing what should be done to be a decent neighbor  
   My own SE MN second home has a 400 foot well, attempting to get below the nitrate polluted 100 foot water table that folks had before large farming came to the area.  We have 3 CAFO dairy operations within 5 miles.  
    The headline last month for SW Wisconsin was 91% of local wells are polluted.  Do we want that to come to our area too?  
    I had planned to sell out in MN, get away from the CAFOs and permanently move to Polk County, Stering Township, but I wonder if it will be any better here if factory farms move in?  


    The next letter is in response to a staff writer's glowing report of the CAFO regulations in Wisconsin and leaving the impression that all is well with them, as regulations will keep everything fine.  

CAFOs Story is Fluff (June 28, 2019)

    Much of the article by Becky Strabel "Four CAFO's already exist in four county area" seems to have been lifted from the website  https://www.wiscontext.org/what-does-cafo-oversight-look-wisconsin-and-who-pays-it    
  However in lifting the information, the writer failed to give a balanced view of the original article.  The original article says there are rules to follow and permits to gain and inspections to pass, but, and this is a huge but, in truth, the CAFO's do their own inspection and reports and the regulators ignore them. 

    "A 2016 review by the state's Legislative Audit Bureau found significant problems with the program's ability to keep up with its workload. One illustration of this issue: In 2017, one-third of CAFOs were operating under expired permits because of a permitting backlog. Two years later, the DNR has closed the gap somewhat but remains unable to keep up with oversight. Nearly a quarter of CAFOs were operating with expired permits in June 2019."
 Two years later, the DNR has closed the gap somewhat but remains unable to keep up with oversight. Nearly a quarter of CAFOs were operating with expired permits in June 2019. "
"Whatever the responsibilities and availability of its regulators, the DNR outsources much of the job of ensuring permit compliance onto the CAFOs themselves. CAFOs are required to conduct daily, weekly and quarterly inspections of various parts of their operations and submit annual records of those inspections to the agency. The 2016 audit of the DNR's water pollution program found that the vast majority of these records, which had been recorded on paper calendars, were not being entered electronically by DNR staff, making for a major compliance blindspot."
The Leader article was a "feel-good" "all is well" view of CAFOs  Ms Strabel should have copied both sides of the issue to present an unbiased look at what is really happening. 

Russ Hanson Cushing, WI 

The third letter is in response to a local township meeting where proponents claimed CAFOs bring good jobs to the area.  

CAFO Job Claims a lot of Hog Manure!  (June 21, 2019)

    I recently attended two different township meetings, Sterling and Laketown, where the issue of giant hog factories coming into Polk County was discussed. The proponents pushed the idea that they should be judged by the creation of good jobs. 

   If one examines the facts of agriculture jobs, we see they are low paying, dangerous, dirty as well as being primarily done by foreign born workers, of which the majority of those are here illegally.  

    Some proponents state that the “average wage” is good. That may be true – a full time veterinary gets $200,000 per year and 10 workers $20,000 per year giving an average wage of $36,363. The median agriculture job in the US pays $12/hour.

  The most recent National Agricultural Workers Survey reports 78% of all agricultural employees are foreign born. Estimates are that 50-70% of the foreign born workers are here without legal documents.  Another six percent of hired farm labor are children 14-18 years old and mostly paid minimum wage.

  Are farmers and farm organizations in favor of foreign workers? YES!

  "The U.S. pork industry needs access to a legal and productive workforce,” said National Pork Producers Council President Jim Heimerl.   “And skilled and unskilled foreign workers have been crucial to maintaining and growing the workforce... We need more of them, not less.”

    Will clamping down on immigration create more jobs for Americans?  NO!

    U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service: “a reduction in the foreign-born workforce – prompted by a change in immigration policy – would not be offset by native-born workers and permanent residents. Instead, the tighter supply of foreign-born workers would reduce overall demand for workers as production costs increase and would decrease agricultural output as farmers abandon labor-intensive operations.”   We see that in the move to robotic and automated agriculture over human workers.

   Should farmers follow the rules against hiring undocumented workers? NO! if you listen to their organizations.    "The Farm Bureau, as one of the largest voices for agriculture, understands that hiring immigrants is essential to fill the critical workforce demands of agriculture.  The official Farm Bureau policy opposes using E-Verify.”

    Can we believe promises by the proponents of local hires and high paying jobs? NO! as in all agribusiness, labor is a cost line item to be minimized.  Owners who are states away are concerned with maximizing profits.  They see the somewhat unregulated NW Wisconsin area as an opportunity to move in with a minimum of regulations to follow, and possibly hope they can get cheap local labor, but we can be sure they will look for the lowest cost workers available.

   There are jobs that fit into a community, good jobs, safe jobs, high paying jobs; jobs that hire local folks. But, sadly folks, big animal operations, as we already know from the few in our area, look for cheap foreign labor that bring a whole new set of challenges and changes. 

Russell B Hanson

Cushing, WI   

As part of trying to understand the issue, I have attended two Sterling township meetings. 1 Laketown meeting and plan to attend a county meeting too.  The meetings are to persuade local governments to put in place an 18 month moratorium on CAFOs while the issue is researched and any new development can be carefully planned for minimal disruption of the neighbors. 
   As a farmer now, although mostly retired, I can understand the gradual expansion of farm neighbors to try to improve their financial status, but the operations we are seeing proposed are from distant conglomerates with no local ties, nor any local presence; just hired managers and workers brought in for their experience or willingness to work for low wages in stench filled working conditions. 

Videos from the Rambler

With Summer soon here, we are gradually catching up with the spring jobs; the new garden fences, the garden and flower bed plantings, and into the lawn mowing. 

January and February were spent in Texas and Louisiana in our pop-up tent camper and we returned just in time for the end of February big snow storm. 

Maple syrup season was mostly in April and good with our usual quart per tap yield.

I have been recording videos of things in our lives for many years and have some of them on a youtube channel.  You can see them at this link

https://www.youtube.com/user/RiverRoadRambler/videos 

Speak Up

    College grades were critical to get into graduate school, so when after the first quarter, I got a B in American Literature I was devastated.  An easy course that I aced the tests and papers, and yet only a B.
    Most college classes meant listening, note taking, reading, remembering and regurgitating it all on the tests and maybe an in-depth paper or two.  All of those were A’s.
    Professor Margaret Odegard included class participation in her grading. She had told us that at the beginning of the quarter, but I had interpreted it as good attendance with excellent tests and papers.   At the time, I did not speak up in any class, didn’t raise my hand, and only answered if randomly called upon, preferring quiet note taking and intent listening as the way to get an education.  If I didn’t understand something, I attributed it to my own ignorance, and didn’t consider interrupting the class just to display that ignorance to everyone. 

  
    My friend, Don, did get an A and the difference, he told me, was he answered questions in class and occasionally asked one.  I decided that was my problem, and for this class only, I would have to speak up.   
    The second quarter began with me determined to talk.  I began raising my hand, but without results.  Mrs. Odegard, her preferred title as she said her Mrs. degree, had been harder to get than her PhD, always called on those who raised their hands.  During the first quarter, that had narrowed down to about eight regulars out of the fifty of us in class.  I think Mrs Odegard was sympathetic to students who might be embarrassed by not being able to answer, and then out of habit called on the same volunteers, and even knew their names.  I doubt she even noticed me in the back of the class, even with my hand raised, and if so, didn’t know my name.   
    I was determined to get noticed and answer a question.   I couldn’t change my assigned seat to the front, as the classroom was full.  I didn’t want to make a fool out of myself either, and our rules were we didn’t speak unless called upon after raising our hand.   So what could I do?
I talked it over with front row A student and friend Don.  “Maybe you should just stay after class and talk to her,” he suggested, being a direct person. “Or you could just bring her an apple,” he joked.  
    “That’s it” I exclaimed.
    “That’s way too corny; she will think you are a bumpkin if you do it,” warned Don.  
    The next day I bought the biggest, best Red Delicious apple I could find and polished it to glow.  When class was over, the other students gone, I lingered, then went to the front desk where Mrs. Odegard was putting away her papers. 
    “Mrs. Odegard, my name is Russ Hanson.  I sit in the back.  I really enjoy this class and the books you have us read.  I have always loved to read, but have done it on a shallow level without looking for deeper meaning.  Thank you for introducing me to a better way of reading.  My name is Russ Hanson.  This apple is a thank you for helping me learn.”
    She looked up at me intently, first with a puzzled look, then the hint of a smile.  “Thank you,” she said as I rushed off, feeling embarrassed about my apple for the teacher. 
    The next day, looking to the back, searching until she saw me, Mrs Odegard began a question:  “Russ Hanson, what do you think the author meant …”
    With that I joined the talkers, and the next two quarters got my “A”s.  It spilled over into other classes too, where I found that answering questions, occasionally posing them and joining in classroom discussions improved not only my grades but my education too.  I found that most of the time if I didn’t understand something and asked the professor a question, I was not alone in my ignorance and we all benefited from those who were brave enough to speak up.   

2019 Maple Syrup Season

We are finishing maple syrup season this coming week.  For us it was a normal season, a normal yield of about 1 quart of syrup per tap, and although it is finishing a little early, and started a little late, we are happy to have another successful year. 
  We used to put out 200 taps, but this year we were just under 100.  We don't have a market for lots of syrup anymore as we don't go to farmer's markets or market it or sell it wholesale as we have in the past.  We make enough for our own use, for some sales, some donations and some gifts. That seems to be the level at which we are comfortable with. 
   Some photos from this season -- we tapped the first trees March 15th and probably will get the last run on about April 15th as the forecast is for extended mild weather after that. 

Most of the trees we tap are 100 years old or more.  We have been tapping them since the 1960s.  Many are at the age where they are in decline and we lose a few each year to windstorms breaking out the tops.  However we have a good replacement crop coming in the 35 years since it was cow pasture. 

We used to use the cabin as our syruping headquarters, but since we moved into the farm 3 miles away, we don't even open it until May when the water system can be hooked up.  When one gets older conveniences are more of a lure!  

  

When we started there was deep snow from a late February storm. 

Two test taps March 15th.  They had stopped running April 12th.  We added 2 more taps to that tree a week later and they are still running good as of April 13th.  Tap holes are good for about a month.  

The sap shed we built in 2009 is reasonably handy.  We use our 1947 Ford 2N for sap hauling.  

The 1958 sap pan made in Dresser WI by the tinsmith made another year without problems.  Dad had it made after trying a big round kettle, then two wood sided pans and finally this one.  

The maple woods is about 40 acres on Orr Lake.  Lots of spring ponds, hills and old maples with many new maples coming up that will be ready to tap in a few years. 

Some mornings the buckets have ice on the sap.  We discard most of it -- the ice is water and the remaining sap gets concentrated with more sugar.

It takes much dry wood to boil all the sap.  We are dissatisfied with our wood storage and need to put it under a roof rather than piling it outside. 

I have been making some videos of activities around the Farm and travel over the past years.    You can see them at 

Youtube Channel River Road Rambler

Traveling Pests

    

    From Lake D'Arbonne State Park on the northern border of Louisiana, starting week 6 of our winter trip south. 

    It appears that most folks here in LA and in Texas travel with their pets. Most of our camping neighbors have the latest Megolith 70 ft RV's that have a separate bumpout just for Rover and Mitsy, and so we rarely see the cats (except at the last park where the neighbor fed his 4 cats outside and a dozen feral cats -- he explained were dumped cats by campers wanting them to have a good home..). 

    This morning, at 40F, the patter of on/off rain on the roof and a mostly empty campgrounds, I was up early to do a batch of laundry, take a shower in the very nice shower/bathroom area and enjoy a little "under the awning" spring rain. 

    Two other campers were up early too. One had his black, ugly, snarling mutt-- evidently a cross between one of those pugs that ran into a wall too many times and smashed his face in and a labrador. Coal black and taking up the whole shower area as his owner, a camouflage wearing man of about 35 finished scrubbing him down. 

    "He got into a mess last night, so I tied him outside as he stunk to much to bring in."

    "Oh, that must be the dog that barked all night?" I commented trying to show some irritation. "Didn't hear him, or I would have stopped him -- can't hear through the Megolith's insulated walls -- one of the reasons we got it," he commented appearing to congratulate himself on his foresight. 

    "I let him out to do his business, and he must have found a dead animal to roll in. Absolutely stunk, so I couldn't let him back in and gave him a shower."

    The bathroom stunk of rotten animal carcass as well as the usual wet dog stench. And of course the shower area was not fit for humans anymore. My shower will wait until after the camp host comes in and does here daily mop down and clean. 

    I figured he would next take all of his towels and wash cloths next door to the laundry, and as I had mine along to do an early batch, beat him to it so I could wash before he started his dog trappings. 

    By then it was getting light and the other neighbor still here was out with his dog -- a smaller white one. He walks the dog every morning, taking her across the road from his campsite to the children's playground area where she does her business near the big slide. 

    I walked up the hill and was about to check the air in my tire that has been leaking, when another two dogs came trotting in and one of them decided to help with some stop leak of his own. 

    Yesterday, just before the gas price jumped from 1.84 to 1.94, I filled up the tank. I looked for the window scrubber and couldn't find it. Looking around, I saw it in use. A SUV was parked nearby not buying gas, but a woman had it and had taken her two portable small dog carriers out of the back door of the van and was using it to squeegee the rubber floor mat that the dogs had obviously soiled. She came back with it, soaked it up some more and headed back to do more cleaning 

When we came down, I noticed one of the motels we stopped at -- Motel 6, said "pet friendly" on the office door. 

    "Do you have non-smoking, non-pet room for rent?" I asked. 

    "All of our rooms are open for pets, but I do have a non-smoking one." 

    "No pet free ones at all?" 

    "Well, we used to do that, but found that pet owners just lie and bring in their pets anyway. So gave up trying to enforce it."

    We stopped at many rest stops on the freeway on the way down to TX. At one, I talked a little while to the maintenance man (TX parks were "sponsored" by Geico -- and in return Geico took on part of the cost of the ongoing maintenance}. 

    "What problems do you have with the rest stops?" I asked. 

    "The worst is pet shit. We have pet run area, but it seems that pet owners don't want to walk over there, and so sneak their dogs into the picnic area. Real mess."

    Now before you think I am totally anti-pet, I don't believe that it is the pet's fault, but the owners. And I am sure that there are some conscientious pet owners out there -- seems like I read a story about one not so long ago--although it was in a fiction book....

   

2019 Winter Vacation

January 9th we headed south driving 3 days and ending up in Sab Angelo state park for a week.  We then moved south to Garner state park near Leakey TX.  Then we moved east to Chicot state park in Louisiana near Ville Platte.  We have been here a week and plan to stay until next Monday -- Feb 10th ir maybe more, 
  The vacation has been nice weather -- no rains and not too cold nor too warm.  I am posting daily on facebook as to what we are doing.  If you use Facebook, just search for Russell B Hanson and as my posts are public, you should be able to see them.

Texas Talk

Overheard in the local Farm and Ranch store in rural TX.

“My foot hurts something awful,” drawled Slim, not really so slim in his middle years sitting behind the counter at the farm store.

“Shoes don’t fit?” replied Jake, sympathetically, also sitting there, but appearing to be a visitor rather than a clerk. 

“Yeah, its always my shoes.  I think I went barefoot too long as a kid and got my feet flattened out too much for shoes to fit good, ever.”

“I didn’t wear shoes hardly never when I was a kid.  My feet got so tough I could run around the rocks and cactus,” bragged Jake, a thin, smoked out, weatherbeaten westerner of 40 – 100 years old.

“Yah, I didn’t wear shoes till bout 12, only when Ma made me for church.  Then I took them off soon’s I sat down,” replied Slim. “

Jake thought  a little, “I figger the first time I wore reg’lar shoes fer mor’n a hour was at my weddin.  You know Nancy wanted a fancy do’ins, and my boots warn’t gonna cut it, so I rented me a pair of fancy black shoes for the day.  Figured at 3 bucks I better get my money out of them.  Nancy liked them so much I added the extra $8 and bought em—savin’m for my funeral.”

“Well, maybe if I started go’in barefoot again, my foot would leave off pain’in me,” said Slim as he limped over to the cash register to check out my latest piece of metal strap to try to remove the Coleman check valve that continues to leak in Leakey.

  By the way, Leakey is really Lake-ee in local pronunciation. 

  We took a loop tour from the park, east to Utopia, then back to Leakey on highway 377.  377 is one of those wildly twisting roads that switchbacks up and down big hills on narrow roads with the edges either rock wall with falling rocks or drop off a 1000 feet to valleys below.  No traffic this time of year, as the park is a big summertime attraction with the Rio Frio (Cold River) for swimming, tubing, kayaking, etc.  Now the park is almost empty, the concession stands closed, and the local cabins, motels, antique stores open on weekends if at all.

 Margo takes a walk on the level road along the river in the park each day.  Yesterday I tried a more interesting hike – a trail to the top of one of the big hills in the park.  It was only about ½ mile up 1000 feet, but the trail was loose rocks and footing much of the way needed careful attention.  At the top was an excellent view of the river valley and nearby hills. 

I videoed some of the climb and put it on youtube at: 

Garner Park Trail climb

It reminded me of the Boy Scout camp in Philmont, New Mexico, that Scott and I and the scouts backpacked on nearly 30 years ago.  Out there we climbed up mountain trails a few thousand feet and then back down in a valley to camp each day, something like 10 miles each day with 40 lb backpacks.  Philmont was in the 10,000 to 14,000 foot altitudes and the air thin, so we huffed and puffed at times.  Here, with no backpack, but carrying almost that much in extra personal weight, and with altitudes only a few 1000 feet or more above sea level, I still huffed and puffed on the way up.  However, I was probably overly satisfied that I got to the top; didn’t have “the big one” and came down again intact.

 I found two old books on local SW Texas history, written about 1900, describing TX from the 1830s through 1890s.  I downloaded both to my book reader from Google’s scanned books.  One is the story of a freight hauler who took wagon trains of freight from San Antonio into Mexico and back in the 1860s and 70s.  The other is mostly of battles fought with Mexico and Indians as the Texans broke away from Mexico, had an independent country for 10 years and then became part of the US.  The local Indians were continually at war with the settlers coming in and taking over their land and the Mexicans were upset that this state of Mexico was trying to be independent. 

  There are localities with settlers from Spain France, Germany, Poland, and just about any other country as Texans tried to get settlers to come.  One nearby, was a rich Frenchman who paid to bring hundreds of French families to settle in West Texas.  Each of these stories is interesting and often the folks were successful and the families continue to live here.

   There is a culture here called Tex-Mex, sort of a blend of Mexican and American western culture.  Cowboys, pickup trucks, hunting and all sorts of small businesses run by Mexican Americans.  It seems to me the most ambitious folks are the newer immigrants who start these businesses and through hard work make a good life for their families.  Many of the folks are bilingual and switch from accent-less English to Spanish as needed.  I can understand just enough to get the idea of what they are talking about, but not the details. 

  The Mexican food is generally much less spicy than in Mexico, as watered down for the American preference for blandness.  It suits us well.

You can see some of our trip videos at this youtube link

https://www.youtube.com/user/RiverRoadRambler