Susan

It was the first day of class. She gracefully walked into the room and found a seat near the front. She had golden brown hair, large brown eyes complementing her flawless tanned skin—a natural beauty without makeup. She wore a knee length dress that showed her slim athletic figure. Her name was Susan, I soon found out.
By the end of the week, I finagled an assignment to work with her on a project that put us together for many hours over the next few weeks. Susan was bright, open, and laughed easily. As we worked, we compared our backgrounds. My happy childhood on the farm with her broken home, passed from parent to parent and grandparents finally landing with a strict, cold maiden aunt.
She did well in class. I often ate lunch with her we were soon great friends. She asked, “Do you like me?” “You are my best friend” I replied, and later decided that for the first time, I was in love. I liked being with her more than anyone else.
The last day of school she brought a picnic basket with lunch for both of us. We shared a sandwich, chips and drank from the same thermos of milk. She brought out a single chocolate cupcake with white frosting decorated with the outline of a heart. Taking turns with the same fork, we slowly ate it, enjoying the thick sweet frosting.
“Thank you Susan, it was wonderful!” I told her as we cleaned up and prepared to return to class.
Susan turned to me, “I won’t be back. My Mom wants me to join her in Denver, and I have to go right now. Thank you for making this year my first happy one” She put her arms around me and kissed me on the lips. I stood dumbstruck as she smiled and said “I love you Russell. Please remember me. I have to leave right now.” She walked away and got into a waiting car that sped off before I could react.
I never saw her again. I never have forgotten her. However life goes on, and next year I met Richynne, a slim, dark, beautiful girl. We were best friends all that year of my second grade in school and Susan and first grade were just fond memories.

Falling Leaves

Falling Leaves
It's been a quiet week on Orr Lake. Two heavy frosts killed the
rest of the garden and chased the lady bugs from the bean field into
the cabin. They keep us company during the fall and on our weekend
visits during the winter—coming alive each time we start the wood
stove and warm up the cabin. They thaw out, crawl around wondering if
it is spring and time to dehibernate.

Margo and Mom sold a lot of pumpkins, squash and apples on the
River Road Ramble, more than double the previous year. The Ramble
and Autumn Fest in St Croix Falls made a fun Saturday. Eureka had a
great turnout at the old town hall, with lots of old tractors, cars,
pictures and artifacts. The new town garage was a popular stop with
all the details of building the new building laid out. Wolf Creek
had a choice of lunch at the bar with 1890s costumed waitresses or a
home made lunch by the Ladies Aide at the church, both welcoming
sinners to the fold.

We had fifty people stop by the Cushing Museum and visit. Lily
Larson's old scrapbooks borrowed for the summer from Lavern and Doris
Jean were a hit. We even sold a Cushing History book or two. You can
buy them to send as Christmas presents at the Cushing Bank, At-las
Antiques and the Luck Museum or order them from SELHS, Box 731
Cushing, WI $15 plus $2.50 postage. We only have one more payment to
make to the Leader for the printing costs! All money goes to the
Sterling Eureka and Laketown Historical Society.

We have two freshly resurfaced roads! Hwy 87 from Bass Lake to
Grantsburg and Hwy N from Cushing to Luck. I think they put down 3 or
4 layers of blacktop after having ground up the old surface to recycle
it. The roads were re-done in about a month and never really stopped
drivers from using them. A piece of Hwy 35 in the Luck area is being
resurfaced now too. The smooth roads tell us our tires need
balancing, maybe the wheel bearings are a little noisy and the
suspension is wearing out. Rough roads hide that. Brother Everett
says to turn up the radio and the problems will all disappear. He went
for his leukemia treatment followup test last week after a year of
treatments and is clear of any cancer! He has to continue tests
quarterly to see if it comes back. The Doctor says you can knock it
down, but not get rid of it.

Margo's mom, Myrtle is being kicked out of the private Alzheimer's
home near her home in West Bend, WI., after a year. Myrtle walks
around most of the day, up and down the halls, looking for open doors
so she can leave and "go home", where home is the place she lived as a
little girl. She needs constant watching, something her family could
not do at home and this home couldn't support. After a long search, a
new place, a nursing home, much farther away, has been located. The
move comes this week. As the family has agonized over the loss of a
wife and mother and lately over the move, Myrtle is unaware of family
and surroundings. Myrtle has moments of joy and pleasure with Margo
(whom she accepts as a sister) when they go for a drive, watch the
birds, have an ice cream etc. They are immediately erased from her
memory. Nevertheless, Margo is satisfied that they help both of them
get through the loss. Modern medicine has managed to keep people
physically alive and healthy so that they can die in even more painful
ways.

We were to the funeral of Linda Harris, our old friend from Wolf
Creek School, last week. Linda was only 60 when she died from bone
cancer. The Harris family was one of the pioneer families in West
Sterling, and continued to live there when most of their neighbors
left. Linda was buried in a beautiful homemade pine box, befitting
the pines along Evergreen Avenue where the Harris family once owned
the west end. The large funeral procession left the old Wolf Creek
school building, now the Methodist Church, following a tall wood
wagon pulled by two black horses. We all walked to the cemetery
following a musician playing guitar and singing the old church songs
of loss and hope. Linda was buried in the cemetery where her
ancestors rest. Fifty years earlier on the same autumn Friday, Linda
and I would have been at our desks in the same Wolf Creek School; she
a lovely young girl, her life ahead of her, probably dreaming of what
it would be. Rural schools with kids from a half-dozen families made
those school chums seem like part of our own family; they are hard to
lose. Linda had chosen not to carry the fight with cancer through all
of its phases, saying she was ready to go to heaven.

My favorite reading in the newspapers are the opinions. They come
as editorials, in some columns and in the letters to the editor. I
like it when someone clearly and briefly gives their opinion. I like
ones that make me think about something in a new way or teach me
something. Some writers always do this and some never do.
Last week in Gary King's editorial page he included one of those
emails that gets forwarded around the world and is supposed to make
you think. I started to read it and immediately got bothered with the
math. It does some estimations of populations and then says "divide
200 million adults (in the U.S) into $85 billion (support for AIG, a
big bankrupt insurance company being bailed out) equals $425,000"
indicating that each of us would pay or could receive that much if it
were distributed. The math as calculated by this old math teacher is
$85,000,000,000 divided by 200,000,000 which by my calculations is
$425 (cancel out eight zero's from each and you have $850/2) The
whole premise is totally off, and thus the whole email bogus. I can
guess the author used a normal calculator rather than a politician's
calculator--normal ones can't handle such big numbers. Of course,
with last week's newer government bailout which with the pork included
could reach $850,000,000,000 we get up to $4250 per person for that
deal. I take my debts seriously. To pay Margo's and my share of the
latest bailout, $8500, I plan to write a two checks; one directly to
one of those poor bankrupt Lehman Bros. and the other to a lobbyist to
pass along to a politician for saving me from something or other.

Margo is going back to work to help us pay the $100,000 of our
share of the national debt of 10 trillion dollars. ($10 trillion / 200
million adults x2). In the last eight years we have seen $4 trillion
added to our national debt. Margo and I would be on the hook for
$40,000 for the two of us. I think that includes $10,000 to invade
Iraq, $10,000 so the rich could get a tax cut, and some miscellaneous
items like bridges in Alaska, non-negotiable prices Medicare pays for
drugs and tax breaks for oil companies.

We are enjoying the political season, especially the TV
advertisements. It is particularly interesting in our neck of the
woods where we only get MN stations but live in WI. We are pretty
much up on Coleman and Franken, but in the dark as to if anyone is
running in WI. With our new HDTV converter, we tune to a different
channel, adjust the rabbit ears, and then watch the picture come in
and out like a bad dvd. It seems if a butterfly flaps his wings
outside, it interrupts the signal. Oh well, now instead of getting a
small number of somewhat snowy channels all of the time, we get a
large number of mostly unwatchable channels all of the time. Margo
better get that new roof antenna up before the snow flies more than in
the TV.

I had three of my computers quit on me in the last month. Two
were old ones, living on borrowed time. The other was my nice two
year old laptop. It suddenly started using only ½ of the screen. I
tore it apart thinking that the cable between the screen and computer
had worn in the hinge area. I managed to get it apart and together
again, but had no luck in getting it to broaden its view. If this
column seems only half thought out, you can blame it on my computer.

It is pretty tricky to write a column seeing only half of what you are
writing! (From my weekly column in the Inter-County Leader Frederic WI).

Cutting Firewood

Cutting Firewood
Every fall when the weather cools down we cut firewood. The cabin has a wood heating stove and a wood cookstove as its only heat. It takes many cords of wood to keep it heated. We have to cut wood for the spring maple syrup cooking too. We have many woodlots on the farm with pines and oaks to maples and basswood. Each tree has its own characteristics as firewood that we have learned from history and experience.
Some years we saw lumber at our old sawmill so have slabs for kindling. We save most of them for the maple syrup cooker firebox where the eight-foot pine slabs are great for keeping the sap boiling. Since we haven't cut our wood in advance this year so it will have had time to dry, we have to find some dead wood that will be useable yet this fall. Many elms died in the last few years in the woods, especially along the old fencelines. While picking morels around them this spring I have marked in my mind where some tall branchy ones stand with the bark fallen off, a sign they are dry enough to burn immediately. God looks after those of us too improvident to cut our wood in advance by sending Dutch Elm disease, and windstorms.
The elms are small enough so I don't have to try to split them. American elm is almost unsplittable by hand. The elm trees range from 10-25 years old and the biggest are already 12 inches in diameter with wide growth rings. One has a base log that I save for the sawmill. Elms seed when they are still seedlings themselves and don't seem to be susceptible to Dutch Elm disease until their bark roughens after they are 10 years old or more. There seems to be no end of nearby elm seedlings. A few red elms, with their pretty dark wood, mix with the white American elms. It appears that although the huge spreading elm trees of our youth are gone, killed off twenty years ago with the first scourge of the disease, elms will be around forever in their smaller form. A very adaptable tree! I am the only one of my Dad and brothers who bought a German Stihl chainsaw. The rest chose Jonsereds, made in Sweden only 70 miles from where Great Grandpa Hanson lived. We each like our brand well enough so we wouldn't trade with each other.
I start the season with a chain sharpened professionally and file the rakers down a little to get a more aggressive cut. It cuts fast and straight. Later as I touch it up with the file, it gradually starts making the more artistic curving cuts that I am used to. I take the orange WD Allis to the woods with the trailer made from grandpa's old Widowmaker wheels. That was the nickname for a commercial brush cutter made with a large whirling large blade mounted parallel to the ground out in front of a motor on two wheels that had the habit of getting pinched while cutting trees and would whirl around and cut the operator's legs off. Grandpa decided he was already short enough and dismantled it with the motor going to Uncle Lloyd for a garden tractor, the blade to brother Byron for a painting and the axel widened for a boat trailer then a low sap and wood trailer. We carry the saw, gas oil mixture, bar oil, chainsaw wrench, axe, chain, maul and wedges with a jug of spring water.
The American elms are in a thicket of prickly ash that we cut out of the way first. The bright red berries have a sharp pleasant citrus smell that brings back memories of the more than 50 years I have been cutting wood. Dad took us four boys along to load the wood he cut into the trailer. Farmers had to do most of their woodcutting after the fall crops were harvested usually after deer hunting season and through the winter, before the deep snow. We tied our sleds or ski tow ropes to the back of the tractor and trailer and got a thrilling ride into woods. The elms are easy to cut; nice and dry. A few American elms are already rotten only 3 years dead in contrast to red elms still sound after being dead for 25 years. We always piled the brush to give as much pasture to the cows as possible. No cows run the pasture now, but I still pile it remembering Uncle Chan who told us kids "If you pile the brush in a tight big pile, then next year you will have rabbits hatch out of it". Uncle Chan was never married, so he might have been mixed up about how the rabbits got there, but even now, I find rabbits in my piles the next spring. I think the biologist call this process Harogenesis—sort of like spontaneous combustion. My brother always wears protective shoes, glasses and chaps, having had to do this while working for the DNR. He says that with chainsaws, safety is of primary importance. I tried these, but found that the steel toes dulled the chain and the chaps wad up in the saw and take a long time to pick out. I settle for an orange helmet to match my saw and leather gloves, some yellow sponge ear plugs and a big red faded handkerchief to wipe my brow.
When I was a kid and chainsaws were rare, expensive and heavy two man machines, most people cut their wood in pole length with a crosscut saw, trimmed them with an axe and then had the buzz saw crew come in and saw it into stovewood length. The huge whirling buzz saw blade was too dangerous to be close to until we were twelve years or older. We could help lift the poles, but Uncle Maurice would run the saw and make sure everyone kept all of their fingers. Grandpa or great Uncle George would "throw away." They reached for the blocks of wood that came off the saw and guided their fall, arms swinging them away from the blade. No walking and not too much lifting made it the job for an older man. We kids challenged each other to split the big blocks and spent hours throwing wood through the chute through the basement window and ranking it below and feeding the huge furnace there that provided our heat and hot water. If we were short on wood and the snow was deep, we might get a load of coal to mix with the wood. A load of maple yo-yo scrap from Luck was our kindling and the source of great fun as we rescued nearly perfect yo-yos to play with.
Grandpa had a steam buzz rig in 1900 when he was a young man. It took a lot of wood to keep the steam engine heated up, so when he bought the first gas engine in the area he quickly became the most popular buzz sawyer as he didn't burn a third of the wood he cut! He had the local hardware keep a barrel of gas for him as no one else used it. When he shut down his engine and refueled it, everyone went far away, worried about an explosion. Grandpa had tried filling it once while it was running and had gotten badly burned in an explosive fire. In the 1960s, Grandpa and Dad bought a Lombard gear drive chainsaw on halves. They found that with this one-man chainsaw they could cut the trees down and into stovewood lengths right in the woods and do it faster than cutting poles to buzz later. The era of buzz rigs and the crews of men going from house to house came to an end quickly.
Margo comes to the woods with me and helps to pickup the wood, load the trailer, haul and rank it in the woodpile. She looks at each stick of wood as money in the bank. At our Pine Island home we burn propane and keep the temperature down to save on fuel. At the cabin we let the stoves roar and often find ourselves with the windows open when it is 20 below outside! It doesn't get any more luxurious than that!
Twenty years ago, January 15, 1987, Uncle Maurice Hanson was out cutting wood in his back lot. It had been an abnormally warm January—highs in the 30s and 40s for the first two weeks, a nice break to do some mid-winter woodcutting. On the 15th it cooled down into the 20's with zero expected overnight. Uncle Maurice went out that day into the woods, but didn't come back in when he was expected. Myrtle found him lying on the ground as if he were sleeping. His 82 year old heart had given out while cutting wood. We woodcutters think this to be the perfect way to leave this world for the next.
I don't suppose we will get to cut wood in the next world. I imagine hell is administered by oil executives and heaven surely has the climate of Hawaii.

Sand Carp

I grew up as a Jack Pine Savage in NW Polk County on the edge of the land they call the Sand Barrens. I never new much about the area until I met Doug Johnson, professor at the UW, digging in the clay bank along Trade River on Evergreen Av., 10 years ago. He told me this story: Some 10,000 to 50,000 years ago some glaciers melted and made a huge lake upriver from St. Croix Falls. Each year as the glacier melted, layer after layer of clay washed into the lake and settled to the bottom – to nearly 200 feet thick. Then as the melting slowed, only fine sand filtered in leaving another 20 feet of sand on the lake bottom. This lake, he called Glacial Lake Lindh—or just Lindh, drained when the water cut through the rocks at the Falls of St. Croix.

Professor Johnson said when the surface water drained; it left about 15 feet of water still in the lake bottom saturating the lower three-fourths of the 20 foot sand layer. The dry sand at the top started blowing and made big sand dunes—the big ridges through the Sterling Barrens. With time and lots of rain, the dunes stabilized when prairie grasses and plants moved in. Lightning fires kept the trees burned off. He told me that it is woods now only because there are people who put out the fires and plant trees (the County and the DNR mostly). He says the area is especially interesting to biologists because the underground lake is filled with both water and sand—attracting and evolving some mighty strange animals. Since then I have made a study of some of these unique species and will share a few with you in hopes you will help us preserve them in their special sand barrens lake habitat.

Lots of people drive along the River Road or Evergreen Avenue and the other old roads in the Barrens and see the rows of dirt mounds along the ditches and wonder what is making them. Well, very few people have seen the Sand Carp that is pretty common in Sand Lake Lindh. As the lake slowly dried up, pools of water were left with fish trapped in them—land locked from the St. Croix, but sitting on 15 feet of water soaked sand. Over a few thousand years some carp evolved to live in the sandy slurry of the old lake, eating roots instead of water plants, and creating water filled tunnels in the firmer areas. Their most unique difference is the blow hole (just like a whale) that they use to clear their sinuses of the sand that filters in. Each sneeze leaves a mound of dirt on the ground above. If you are driving along a barrens road, look for the series of 4 to 6 mounds in row, the sure sign of an active Sand Carp.

Sand Carp are tasty. Their fins make an especially delicate soup. You must be careful to take only those who have not been swimming amongst poison ivy roots or your stomach lining may break out with ivy blisters. We catch them by digging a sand pit—a 10 foot hole straight down in the sand near the mounds. The Sand Carp comes swimming and burrowing along in the wet sand and drowns when he fall into the water hole.

The Sand Beaver is a rarer find, but the careful nature watcher can see signs of their work. Like the Sand Carp, they too spend most of their lives below the surface living in the underground creeks, so abundant at the edges of Sand Lake Lindh. Some of these creeks burst forth as springs along Wolf Creek, Trade River and the St. Croix. The Sand Beaver are invaluable to keep the lake from drying out, as their underground dams block many of the outlet springs. You can see their activity when you see a cluster of dead trees. They cut the roots for their dams. They are a nuisance when they mistake your well for a dam leak and plug your well point (many local wells are only 10-20 feet deep taking advantage of the sand filtered lake water). Jack Pine Savages take a rifle shot down their well to scare away the beavers and to blow out the debris.

The Sand Tern is a unique member of the duck family that has adapted to the underground sand filled lake. It burrows deep into the sand hollowing out a small cavern that fills half full of water. There it builds a floating nest with cattail seedheads brought from a nearby swamp, and raises up to a dozen ternlets. The primary difference from the normal Tern and the Sand Tern is the presence of clawed webbed feet and a seining bill. The claws allow the birds to climb from the hole to the outside. The bill is similar to that of a baleen whale (although smaller) who gulps a huge mouthful of water and then spits it out through strainer teeth to keep the small fish, plankton and shrimp. The Sand Tern takes a mouthful of wet sand and then strains out the sand leaving the bugs, algae and krill.

A rare but increasing species is the Sand Alligator. Normally our area is too far north to allow alligators to survive through the winter. However, years of Twin Citians flushing baby alligators purchased on Florida vacations and becoming nasty pets, have let them travel down the Mississippi to Prescott and then up the St. Croix where they enter Sand Lake Lindh through springs and into the interconnected tunnels of the Sand Carp. They prey mostly on Sand Carp and are comfortable in the cold winters far below the frozen surface, hibernating in abandoned Sand Tern caverns (the web of nature is marvelous!). They can be seen sunning themselves along the horse camp on Trade River on a quiet summer afternoon.

Pocket gophers live in the upper dry layer of the lake and in the dunes. A 10 inch rain can raise the lake water table high enough to drown most of them. This had happened only once in the past 50 years, back in June of ’42 when it rained for 4 days straight. A few living at the top of a dune ridge escaped to repopulate the area as the water table gradually dropped. Their biggest predator is the badger from above, the gopher snake from within and the alligators from below.

The 2006 and 2007 dry years have lowered the lake level nearly 2 feet. As a preparation to future dry years predicted by global warming, a few of the Sand Carp are actively evolving their fins as rudimentary legs and taking short sunbathing trips to the surface. I have only seen them near the Sterling tower, where Fox Ridge rises 100 feet about Sand Lake Lindh’s water level.

The next time you travel through the Sterling Sand Barrens, bring a post hole digger, find a low spot between the dunes and dig a hole down to the lake. Spend a half day peering down this window into Sand Lake Lindh. If you don’t see at least one of the sandwater species I have talked about, I will be very disappointed.

Icy Memories

The ice cracked suddenly and gave way dropping me into the frigid water and into a struggle for my life. My heavy boots filled quickly pulling me down, and cold water penetrated my blue jeans and two layers of underwear. I went down so fast I didn’t even think of trying to swim. I thought—“stay straight and come up in the same place—don’t get caught under the ice.”

I had taken the snowmobile from our home farm to do chores as our second farm 2 miles away, taking the shorter woods route. It was 5 below zero and the roads had not been plowed since the overnight snow. I had checked, fed and watered the cattle and was on my way home. I was 15 years old. We had bought our first snowmobile a month earlier, a yellow and black 1968 Ski-doo .

The safety rules of snowmobiling included the primary one: don’t go exploring without a partner on another snowmobile. If you got stuck out in the woods, you might freeze before you could get back to civilization.

I followed the trail to the lake and there decided to take a detour across it, to drop in on Uncle Maurice. There was a well traveled trail across the lake. As I drove across, I saw the beaver house at the north end, and decided to explore it.

I knew the lake was full of springs and had a creek through it, so I left the snowmobile on the trail and walked towards the beaver house through thick fluffy snow. As I got within 20 feet of the shore, I fell through. I must have stepped onto an area above a spring where the ice was thin.

I sank fast—didn’t even think to try to swim, just went down. As my chest submerged, I came to a stop—my feet hitting a very soft and muck bottom. I had stopped with my head and shoulders out of water.

Immediately I tried to crawl on the ice—but couldn’t get a grip on anything and the ice broke as I tried to get up on it. I tried walking towards the shore, the muck gripping my boots, threatening to lock me in place. I managed to wallow forward, breaking the ice ahead of me going towards the beaver house—a large pile of sticks and mud a little ahead of me. As I got closer, my footing got better as I stepped onto the brush, sticks and small logs stored underwater for the beaver’s winter food. I managed to scramble up onto the beaver lodge that connected with the shore.

I ran along the frozen cattails on the shore and followed them around to the snowmobile trail and jogged out the snowmobile—my clothes stiffening with each step. I got it started it and drove home as fast as we could go. Ducking behind the windshield did little to warm me. My clothes were rigid and I was shivering uncontrollably as I reached home and rushed in. I stripped, changed clothes and warmed up by the stove. I threw my clothes in the washer and had them drying by the time Mom came back. “I slipped down in the manure in the barn and was a mess” I told her, not wanting her understand how dangerous snowmobiling could be and add to her worries with four active sons.

I told the Dad whole the story. He commented: “Some people have to learn by experience. “
Writing your memoirs lets you have the life you should have had.

Cold Weather

My own birthday is in December too. I am much tougher because of it! My story: It was December 17th. In a snowstorm, after milking the cows in the evening, Dad started the old 31 Chev and headed down Hwy 87 to St. Croix to J. A. Riegel's hospital in the Baker Mansion to pick up Mom and me, her new baby, so she would be home for her birthday on the 18th. Just south of La Vern Larson's farm, the fuse for the headlamps burned out leaving him to negotiate MacIntosh curve in the dark snowy night on the slippery hill. Standing on the running board to see, door open, throttle slightly pulled back and grabbing the steering wheel he figured to get to Eureka and get some new fuses there. But he slipped into the steep ditch, car tipping gently but only partially on its side against the bank, spilling the baby clothes and diapers into the snow. A walk to the neighbors, phone call to Harold Jensen at the garage in Cushing got the wrecker out with fuses and Dad back on his way and soon he arrived at the hospital. He shook out some of the snow from my diapers and clothes, but plenty remained as I was diapered, dressed and brought home, adjusting to the cold cold world with nary a whimper! The last two weeks I have been huddled over my computer working on Cushing History book trying to keep warm at the cabin when it is 20 below outside. My brother Everett says "Tighten it up! Take a candle and look for air leaks by watching the flame bend to the side." Well, the candle blew out anywhere in the cabin, but I have since tightened it up enough so my blowtorch stays lit unless I am near the doors or windows. Since Mom (who will be 86 in a week) is probably reading this and getting ready to mount a rescue, I have to admit that with our good wood stove and plenty of wood that Margo cut and split, the cabin is pretty comfortable. Margo left for Pine Island before the cold spell. She seems to think that with the water system turned off, trips to the outhouse at 20 below are an inconvenience. I say it just increases efficiency, especially for someone who started life with snow in their diapers. I have to join her soon, as she is having trouble with the WD Allis tractor and snowbucket down there. She forgets which wires to cross off for the ignition, thinks it is a bother to air up the tires each time, has a hard time cranking to start it and doesn't like the taste of gas when you need to blow to clear the line every 10 minutes. Oh well, she probably started life with warm diapers.

Rambing into Summer

Rambling into Summer--Russ Hanson
Midsummer Day has come and following the tradition of our Swedish cousins we have had our first fresh strawberries from the garden. Our new potatoes are late this year. Cousin Arne, in Skee, Sweden, grows them a 5 gallon pail he brings in the house at night in early spring just to have new potatoes on the longest day of the year. Farther to the north than us, the Swedes appreciate the long summer days after the long dark winter. If you visit Scandinavia, Midsummer is the best time to go and enjoy their celebrations.
Margo has been at her parents in West Bend for the past two weeks. She takes her mom, Myrtle, out from the Alzheimer’s home for afternoon drives and coffee or ice cream. Myrtle does not know her as a daughter, but seems to accept her as a sister or friend. She still asks about Russ and Scott—even though she doesn’t know us when we visit. Myrtle sees us and her son and husband as strangers—people who make her nervous as we claim to be relatives.
While Margo is away at her parents, I am a little more laid back at the cabin on the lake in housekeeping and meals. While she is here, we have orderly routines, balanced meals, laundry day and dishes are washed and floors vacuumed whether they need it or not. We are a Better Homes and Garden family.
Within a few days of being on my own, my own schedule takes over. Wash the dishes when you need some; do the laundry when you need something to wear; eat when you are hungry and what you are hungry for; shop for food when everything in the refrigerator and in the cupboard is gone, the popcorn is running low and you have had the last condiment salad (you mix mustard, ketchup, relish, pickles and French dressing in a cereal bowl).
My favorite quick supper is a big bowel of popcorn with lots of real butter, lots of salt and lots of melted cheese. I alternate this with a big bowel of caramel popcorn covered with my own recipe of maple syrup boiled with butter—it is only right when it is sticky enough that you feel you should take a bath after you are eat it.
I like a late breakfast that doubles for a farm dinner. My favorite is duo of sourdough toast slices slathered in butter and jelly(my fruit portion); a couplet of butter fried brown eggs fresh from the pampered chickens at Quiet Meadows Ranch; a gathering of morels fresh or frozen from mosquito and tick ridden searches in the old cow pasture; a rasher of double thick old style bacon with the rind; a pan of fresh cinnamon rolls drizzled with sugar frosting and a beaker of double-caff coffee with a well ripened banana for good health. Of course, that is too much work for most days.
Margo worries about the three C’s; Calories Cholesterol, and Caffeine so she thinks of breakfast as decaf coffee, skim milk on bran cereal with 12 raisins and a half of banana each, and maybe half a piece of 386-grain bread skimmed with low sugar jelly.
My breakfast most mornings meets my frugality, taste and ambition; a large glass of diet pop, the kind that is 67 cents for a huge bottle at chain stores, and a mixture of frosted oatmeal and chocolate sided cookies, the kind that are 98 cents a package at the same store. For an afternoon snack, I like left over popcorn re-heated in the microwave. I always eat on the porch overlooking the lake so I can watch all the wildlife.
Margo’s birthday arrived while she was still away so I am surprising her with a tremendous gift; one she has wanted for several years. I can’t wait until she gets back next week to see it! I splurged and bought us a different camper for going south this winter.
Last year we tried two weeks in our tiny pop-up tent camper. Margo whined because there was no furnace and it got down to the 20’s inside a few nights in TX. Even though she had on five layers of clothes and many blankets she still got cold. As an old Scouter, used to winter camping, and having a liberal layer of personal insulation built in, I don’t notice the cold weather much.
Because of my claustrophobia, I have to have sleep on the inside of the camper bunk, away from the low overhead canvas wall and ceiling. It does probably gets a little bit colder for her against the thin canvas wall. Her fingers turn white, but that is just her Reynauds disease—an over reaction to cold and not to be taken seriously. In the National Forest campgrounds, she gets nervous about being separated from the bears by only a canvas wall.
A good husband listens to his wife and responds to her whims and imaginary concerns, no matter how frivolous he thinks they are. I was driving through Luck a couple weeks ago and saw this nice little hard shell camper along the road for sale. It was a 1971 Aristocrat Lo-Liner 15 foot (13 feet living space) that had been remodeled into a ice fishing house. It had real walls and was insulated and had a small gas furnace! Just the ticket to please Margo!
I figured the large ice fishing hole in the floor might be useful. The inside was already gutted so it would give us more space for our own stuff. I negotiated the price down to $75—an excellent price for a camper ready to roll; a match for my retirement budget; yet expensive enough as a birthday gift so Margo will know I really appreciate her!
I hooked on to it with the truck and pulled it home without problem. Of course, it didn’t have a title nor license plate so I had to take the back roads. The seller said he got it from his godfather a few year ago who had gotten it from his son a few years earlier who got it from his friend a few years earlier who got it from an old man who had already passed on a few years earlier and none of them had licensed it—just used it for a lakeside bedroom or fishing shack. The Motor Vehicle department didn’t have any info about the trailer ID number and told me to fill out some paper work, show a picture ID, pay $58, have it road inspected and all past omissions will be forgiven.
It does have a working gas furnace. The three burner stove works but a wooden door replaces the original oven door. The previous owner said the oven didn’t work, so he used it for bait storage. The wood door should work if I will wrap it in aluminum foil before we start baking bread.
I think the large ice-fishing hole in the floor can be made into a toilet (there wasn’t any in the camper) with one of those porta-potties or five gallon pail toilets they have for hunters with a flat RV tank strapped below the camper. Because it is in the middle of the kitchen area, I will disguise it as a table with a tabletop attached to the fold up toilet lid.
Two lawn chairs should make up for the missing bench seats. The setup in the rear for the narrow bunk bed is still there. I think Margo can get used to the top bunk with the ceiling close over her face—I am far too claustrophobic to be up there. A plus is that warm air rises so it will be the warmer bunk and bears can’t reach up that high either.
I have the windows and door opened up now, airing it out. By the time Margo gets back the mildewed fishy smell should be gone—especially if I tear out the moldy old carpet, patch the corner where the roof leaks, and air out the foam cushions. Sometimes I am so happy my Dad taught me to be a handy person!
There is no spare tire or wheel and the wheel bolt pattern is quite odd sized, so I will carry a spare tire, tube and jack in case the 36-year-old tires might be a little less than prime. I have spared no effort in getting Margo good at changing tires so that won’t be a big deal. I can’t wait for her to come home to see her new birthday camper! I have named her “Winnabelle.” When you see Margo next time, I bet she will be smiling! Take my advice guys, spare no effort to please your wife.
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Booze Comes to Cushing

Booze comes to Cushing by Russ Hanson

When the first saloon opened in Cushing in 1904 it stirred up a lot of controversy. Roy Hennings, better known as Dr. Squirt, was the Cushing Columnist to the Polk County Ledger, Standard Press and Luck Enterprise newspapers at the time. He gives a weekly account of what was happening in Cushing and in June picked up the saloon issue.

We get a picture of Cushing in Doc’s January 1904 column: “The Cushing feed, lath and planing mill, Peter L. Peterson (Handy Peter) owner, ground during the month of January 90,325 pounds of oats into feed. If Cushing had a railroad it would soon be a business center. In addition to the feed-mill the citizens of Cushing can boast of three grocery stores; one furniture store; one confectionery and millenary store combined; one hardware store; a blacksmith shop and a harness shop and last but not least, a creamery all managed by some of the best business men of the century. “

Doc didn’t mention that Cushing also had a Methodist and Lutheran Church; the Cushing Tigers baseball team and the Cushing Band. Two schools were nearby with Lanesdale a mile or so northeast and the Cushing school a mile west. Above Johnson’s grocery store was a hall for dances and events (this building is north of the north bar). The furniture shop was the Askov Bros. who did embalming and sold coffins as a sideline. “The Cushing furniture merchant has a good line of coffins and he guarantees that if you once try one of his coffins you will never use any other,” wrote Dr. Squirt. The Cushing Post Office had been running since 1870, and a stage carrying mail freight and passengers came through town regularly.However, there was no saloon.

Local townships or villages could issue liquor licenses if they chose to. The issue was contentious in the period leading up to the 18th amendment prohibiting all liquor sales in the U.S. from 1920 to 1933. The temperance movement was very vocal and led through local churches, especially the Lutherans. Sterling Township records show the following: “May 7, 1904 Granted license to N. (Nathan) Cohen for the sale of liquor in the town of Sterling for May and June 1904 the sum of fifty dollars and two hundred and seventy five dollars for the one year beginning July 1 1904 the above sale of liquor to be conducted on the following described premises on lot fifty feet by 100 feet in the NE corner of NE 1/4 of SE 1/4 Sect 36, T36 R19 signed by two township board members: T. F. Monty, John Johnson.” A liquor license was also given to G. W. Bigley of Wolf Creek on July 19, 1904. The two liquor license provided a huge extra income for the township, more than half of the township budget.

In Doc’s May column we read the following: “Mr. ____ fifty some odd years of age and the owner of a farm one half mile out of town and worth $3,500 and money enough to keep him in luxury the rest of his life, has leased lot to the Sheeny saloon keeper for the paltry consideration of $75. The public sentiment is strongly against having a saloon there. The Cushing people think too much of their honor to build the saloon, so the Hebrew had to get a man from the barrens to build it. “ Mr. ____ was Mortimer Havens who lived where the Lundgren Marshland farms are, one-half mile south of town. No one closer to Cushing would let Nathan Cohen, a Jewish peddler, build a saloon on their property or sell him any land. The small lot was on the very northeast corner of the 80 acres along Hwy. 87 where Lundgren’s land ends. Those of you who remember the old baseball field—it was just south of it along the road. There is no sign of any foundation there now. Doc was like most of the people 100 years ago in that he was prejudiced against Jewish people, thus the term “Sheeny” and “Hebrew.”

He was very outspoken in his opposition to liquor sales and the saloon and for the next year, often telling about the problems the saloon was creating in Cushing. Most people say that Doc didn’t drink, but a lot of the people he hung around with did drink, and a few people thought Doc wasn’t any better than the rest of them. However, he certainly spoke out against liquor sales.

In 1904, Cushing extended south to Handy Pete’s feedmill/sawmill (about where Louie’s Garage is now) as most of the area further south was in the marsh. South of town a short distance was a creek draining from the marsh that later became the Big Ditch with the 1912 drainage project. Doc who had nicknames for everyone and every place, started calling the saloon corner Hell’s Half Acre and the creek was “Whiskey Creek” as it was near the saloon. We will read a few of Doc’s columns.

April 1904: “Handy Pete’s feed, lath and planing mill burned everything to the ground (it was rebuilt all new within the year). A certain young man with a poetical turn of mind recently informed me that he had just written a spring poem of sixty stanzas and asked me how much he ought to get for it. Well, I am not much of a judge of poetry, but I think that six months on the rock pile would be sufficient.”

June 1904: “One night last week a couple of young gentlemen went down to Hell’s Half Acre, got drunk and went over to Alfred Peterson, who lives across the road from the saloon to visit Alfred’s sister. Finally one of them men became disorderly and Alfred ordered him to leave the place, he refused to go and when Alfred was going to force him to go, he tore Alfred’s shirt and bit his hand. That’s what comes of granting license and still there are a few raving lunatics in Cushing that say a saloon is alright.”

Next column: “Last Friday night there was a wild time across Whiskey Creek at the saloon. The noise was terrible and one bloody fight is reported. Next morning the deputy sheriff of St. Croix Falls came to Cushing and searched a number of barns in town in search of an outlaw whom he could not find. The officer has been after the outlaw for the last months, and the night that the officer was after him is reported having slept in the woods behind the saloon, but the people that own the woods don’t care whether outlaws sleep therein or not as long as they do not gnaw the bark off the trees. The charge against the man at large is being drunk and disorderly and carrying concealed weapons.”

July: “Last Friday and Saturday nights the carousing around the saloon was frightful. People in town could not sleep on account of the noise. The citizens of Cushing are going to put in a plea for protection. A marshal is needed badly and a jail is needed just as bad. By the time the county builds a jail and hires a marshal, the license money won’t amount to nothing, so what is the use of granting licenses at all. There are so many fights around the saloon I fear the Ledger has not space enough to print them all.”

August: “A saloon disturbance occurred at Cushing, Monday evening, and warrants were issued for the arrest of Martin Lundy, Harry Emery and Axel Danielson. Danielson was arrested and let off with a fine of one dollar. Emery is said to have gone to Eveleth. As a result of this trouble Nate Cohen, the saloon keeper, was brought here Thursday, for trial for selling to a minor. The case was continued to next Tuesday.”

Later July: “Highway men broke into the saloon and according to the man that sells the firewater and brimstone, the stole either $13, $62, $75, or $100, and a box of cigars. At the last report the saloon keeper was rattled and did not know how much he had lost. Evidently the robbery was committed by amateurs. The citizens of Cushing earnestly hope that the next time robbers come that they will be professionals and blow that accursed place off the earth. “

“August 8th, a couple of men got drunk and broke the slot machine at Hell’s Half acre, all to pieces.” October 1904, “It is rumored that Nathan Cohen has sold the saloon to a certain party of Grantsburg.”

In February of 1905 a petition was sent to the Sterling Town Board requesting that referendum vote be held at the annual township meeting on whether liquor licenses should be issued. In April, the township vote was for license 78; against license 91. July 7, 1905 verbal application was made to Town Board to run a pool table in connection with a confectionery store in the vicinity of Cushing. With liquor voted down, possibly the saloon was converted to a pool hall.

In 1906, Mortimer Havens sold his land to S. C. Pomeroy. About this time Henry Sornson records that he helped move the saloon building north across the creek into Cushing and placed it between the Askov building and Handy Pete’s mill, where it became a meat market in 1907, a harness shop, and possibly other businesses before being remodeled and becoming the Bank of Cushing in 1914.

A concrete vault was added to the south and a house connected to the east end. It finally burned after about 80 years and was torn down.

Here is Henry Sornson’s version of the story: “The old bank building was built down here about one-half mile south. That was Mort Haven’s corner then. They called that the Hell’s Half Acre. Frank Anderson bought that from Hymie Cohen, a Jew, who had built it (for a saloon). He sold it to Bonneville and he run it a while. He sold it to Charlie Anderson who moved it up here for a meat market. And he built the house onto what is now the old bank. He was doing a meat market there for a while. I guess it didn’t pay out too well so he sold it. I think his brother-in-law had it for a while. Then they took the meat market over to Ole Gullickson’s store. Then Johnson got it and then Theresa Gullickson. Then they sold it to H. D. Baker. Then it was turned into a bank. That was our first bank. It was quite a town then!

A Gopher’s Tail by the Rambler
“It’s time to go grocery shopping,” I said to myself as I looked hungrily at the large ziplocked packet of pocket gopher tails in my otherwise empty freezer. With Margo spending much of this summer away helping care for her ailing parents leaving me a bachelor, I have learned it is time to go grocery shopping when I find myself wondering how the tails would taste fried in butter. Why do I have hundreds of gopher tails in my freezer waiting to take to the township clerk for the $3.00 bounty?
Well, when Margo and I retired two years ago on a fixed income, we wanted to keep our Sterling farmland, but worried about the high property taxes. Visiting with some of my rural neighbors, I found that actively farmed land was taxed at only 10% of what the same land not farmed due to a special law to help farmers. Over the years we bought 200 acres of farmland from Grandpa and my parents as they stopped farming. The land was taxed high as non-farmland because it hadn’t been pastured or cropped for several years. We set a goal to return it to farm classification, with the first step getting the fields back into production. We have succeeded with some of it and have plans for the rest.
As soon as maple syrup season was over back in 2005, I started farming on the River Road sand fields on Grandpa’s old farm. The first step was disking it to try to level years of gopher mounds, weeds and brush. Pocket gophers dig tunnels under ground and throw large mounds of dirt above ground. A single gopher may put up dozens of mounds each season as they build new tunnels connected to their old ones in search for more roots to eat. The sand fields were terribly rough from the gophers, and disking didn't do much to level it out. After a few days there were dozens of fresh mounds all over as the gophers continued their spring excavating frenzy. The gophers would have to go!
I bought a dozen new Death Klutch gopher traps, for $4.00 dollars each thinking that at $3.00 per tail bounty from Sterling Township I would soon have them paid for and the rest would be profit! Then I could get on with my farming. If I turned it into farmland, the tax rate would drop as low as $3.00 per acre. That meant that one gopher caught per acre per year would pay my taxes at the farmland rate
I put out all 12 of the traps on the first day. One gopher was along the edge of the field, in a brushy area with blackberry vines, poison ivy and small trees that had invaded the field.
Setting a gopher trap is easy. You poke a steel rod into the ground around the mound until you feel the empty hole below the ground; dig down with a round point shovel to expose the hole; poke a set trap down each of the holes you expose. Usually you expose the hole going each way or an intersection of holes—a “runway.” You dig out the loose dirt with your hands and slide the trap well down the hole and stake it to the ground with a wire or chain holding each trap firmly in place. With Death Klutch, you don’t have to cover the hole.
I set the 12 traps and a few hours later was at home vigorously scrubbing my hands to get rid of any poison ivy oil I might have gotten exposed to. I had a Dove bar of soap and used it on my hands followed by dish detergent. Then worrying about my long sleeve shirt, stripped to the waist and vigorously scrubbed my arms, neck and chest and face and changed into clean clothes. Poison Ivy is not something to take lightly. It thrives on the West Sterling sand barrens. As kids, we lathered ourselves with strong Fels Naptha washing soap bars to get the ivy oil off the skin.
The next day I checked on the traps and two were gone! The wires and stakes were still there, but the trap was gone. The new traps had loops in the handles that were not quite closed--room enough to slide the wire off of them. Animals like foxes, cats, badgers, coyotes and raccoons will steal your gopher, trap and all, if it is not tightly staked and wired. Something had taken two of my brand new $4 traps first night out!
I took each of the remaining traps and bent the loops closed. I did get 4 gophers, the first day (and with the two lost traps would have had 6). My lost traps were about $8.00 dollars and my 4 gophers were $12.00 for a profit of $4.00, not counting two hours of work and a gallon of gas driving around the field. I set the traps again, but with a little less enthusiasm and went home and again cleaned up.
The next morning I awoke scratching my wrist and arm. My arms were rashy, as was my chest and neck and my hands itched. Must be poison ivy from the gopher holes.
Three gophers the second day. No traps missing! But many of them buried. The traps weren't going off right. I tested them and found I had to bend the wire trigger a little to make them snap with a hair trigger. I set them again staying away from the edge of the fields and the poison ivy.
By the time I got home, some of the rash on my wrist was weeping. It definitely was poison ivy! By the next day I itched all over my neck, chest, arms and hands as my skin puffed up and wept. In my medicine cabinet was some Calamine Lotion, the preferred treatment. I scratched the ivy patches one last time, good and thoroughly and then slathered on the lotion. It did stop the itching.
Scratching poison ivy is one of those things you have always been told never to do. It feels wonderfully satisfying to scratch poison ivy rash. My strategy, developed as a kid, is to scratch everything until it opens the skin and bleeds, getting maximum scratching pleasure, then treat it and resist any further scratching. This gives direct access to the rash through the scratched off skin so the treatment can really work. In two weeks you are usually over it whatever treatment you use if you stop scratching.
The third day I checked the gopher traps half-heartedly and realized I was now down to 8 traps (loss of 4 for -$16). I had been trapping in the big fields along the road and putting in small stakes that wouldn't show from the road and get my traps stolen by passersby. Well, two of my stakes were either too small to find or had been tipped over by an animal so I couldn’t find them. Lost gopher traps in a field usually only show up when they puncture your expensive rear tractor tire later. By now I was up to 9 gophers ($27). There were fresh mounds all over and it appeared that I was not keeping up with the natural increase. I was not getting rich and still losing traps.
I studied the instructions that came with the trap to look for a hint. "If you want to weaken the trap, wrap the wire attached to the spring around the trap an additional half time to stretch it out, and then set it normally." As an experiment I did this with one trap. The gopher I caught with this trap the next day was securely held, but not quite dead. The Death Klutch had turned into more of a Death Hug. Out of curiosity I took the trap and wrapped it two and a half times around stretching and weakening the spring even more before setting it normally. Sure enough, the next gopher was caught securely, but still lively and vigorous. The trap gave only the inescapable hug that Aunt Jessie gave us as kids. The Death Clutch had been changed to the Aunty Klutch Trap.
If I caught all of the gophers on the field, I would soon be out of that income. A few might move in from the woods or neighbors, but my large existing herd, money in the sand banks, would be gone. However, if I used my weakened Aunty Klutch I could practice catch and release! I could catch the gopher, cut his tail off humanely, like Dog Lovers do with their pooches, and have a breeding herd. The gophers I caught would surely be smart enough to stay out of traps next time leaving only the new generation with tails to catch.
Often one great idea follows another! I re-read the regulations for what is agricultural land and found that if it is pastured by anything other than hobby horses, it is classified as farmland. Ah Hah! Gophers pasture the land they live in, grazing the grass from the bottom side rather than the top. To classify the land as agricultural, the assessor must be able to see clear evidence of grazing. The mounds would be clear proof of my herd of underground tailless gophers grazing my farmland!
Farming the land by planting it into corn requires about $400 per acre for inputs: land preparation, fertilizer, seed, spray and harvesting and most years the government ends up paying farmers because they lose money on their crops. Corn farming causes erosion and adds chemical sprays to the environment. Gopher farming is green and low cost! It requires a one time investment in traps and some of your time. Gophers are perennials as they live through the winter to produce seed year after year.
The animal rights people are happy; as I treat my gophers humanely—just cut two inches of their tiny rat tails off. My gophers are fully organic. No fertilizer, no antibiotics, no pesticides; in fact no real maintenance at all. They stay in excellent health at the maximum density of 20 gophers per acre according to a U of MN extension bulletin. My tail harvest has no health effect on them. Gopher tails have no functional purpose that I can determine. There are no flies underground to swat, their tiny tails are not valuable to curl up for warmth, nor do they communicate by wagging. I probably am doing them a favor as badgers dig them out by grabbing them by the tail.
There is a lot of work in running the “Hanson GoFur Farm” farm. I have taught Margo to do the trapping, tail cutting, skinning, etc while I concentrate on management and advertising. As Margo gets older and we expand by renting the neighbor’s land, we may have to replace her with cheap immigrant labor like our dairy farmer neighbors use.
One concern I have is whether the Town of Sterling and Polk County may decide that my projected 2008 earnings of $300,000 from gopher tail bounties might be thought as excessive and they would lower the bounty. I am hedging my bets by contributing generously to my congressional representatives with the goal of getting the Dept of Agriculture to treat gopher farming equally with corn, beans and dairy so that I too can be paid large annual sums not to raise gophers and put my land in GRP (gopher reserve program) where I would be paid not to farm the land at all. It is not really farming if the government doesn’t subsidize your activity and offer to pay you not to do it!

Notes from the Russ the Rambler
The battle on Orr Creek has been underway for the last few months. Orr Lake drains through a three foot diameter culvert on 285th Street with the brook joining Wolf Creek a mile to the south. A beaver dammed the culvert and raised the lake 2 feet. The township road crew cleaned it out. The beaver plugs it each night and the town crew opens it the next day. The road crew fears the road will wash out and the beaver is just doing what beavers do. I fear this young beaver will lose; his father was killed in action last spring. The town crew is armed and recently I have heard shotgun blasts at dusk as the battle heightens. Orr Lake was dammed and raised last fall before it froze over. There was a winter kill of many carp showing up this spring.
Twenty years ago or so Orr Lake was overrun with big carp chewing the lake weeds to pea soup each year to the detriment of the native northerns, bass and pan fish. There was a major winter kill of just the carp then. After the carp were gone, the lake turned crystal clear with lots of underwater plants and good fish habitat. Some of the carp had returned over the years, but last year they froze out again. Carp are more sensitive to low oxygen levels than native fish, so this freeze out was again just the carp and a few small panfish. My theory is that when the beaver raise the lake for the summer and winter and flood the 30 feet of cattails surrounding the shore, the winter’s oxygen supply diminishes from the decaying shoreline vegetation enough to kill the carp only. Those of us on the lake like the deeper and clearer water and are rooting for the beaver. This beaver is in trouble because he failed to do the 3000 pages of paperwork, pay the thousands of dollars fees and lawyers, and spend the five years of zoning, DNR, County, and Township hearings required to change the lake level. Carp'e Die'm is our motto this month.