River Road Ramblings

I recently put four out of print books of information on local Polk/Burnett Co Wisconsin history on the internet so anyone in the world with internet access can read them and look at the pictures. You can find them by going to www.google.com/books and searching by title in quotation marks “Stories of the St. Croix River Road” or “Stories of the Trade River Valley” or “Doc Squirt” or “Wolf Creek School History Wisconsin” or "Doc Squirt: The Life and Times of Roy Jack Hennings" and see the whole book for free! You can search for any word in the book and find all of the pages it is located.

Links directly to books:

Stories of the Trade River Valley

http://books.google.com/books?printsec=frontcover&id=7EQV1CQ2uSMC#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Wolf Creek School History Wisconsin

http://books.google.com/books?printsec=frontcover&id=Gns8EScnF5sC#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Stories of the St. Croix River Road

http://books.google.com/books?printsec=frontcover&id=7EQV1CQ2uSMC#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Doc Squirt: Roy Jack Hennings Cushing WI Character

http://books.google.com/books?printsec=frontcover&id=YVZCw8gib6wC#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Search the four books above for names, locations or words

Winter Meeting of the Wisconsin Maple Syrup Producers Association

Last Saturday we got up at 4 am to drive to Neillsville Wisconsin to the winter meeting of the Wisconsin Maple Syrup Producers Association (WMSPA www.wismaple.org/ ). Attendance was 120 this year. The meeting is really for producers who do maple syruping as a business rather than hobbyists. This year there were three morning speakers and then afternoon roundtable sessions with the speakers to get more information. Many vendors of syrup producing equipment and supplies had nice displays with the emphasis on tapping trees using plastic tubing, vacuum pumps, power filters, and evaporators; the automation of the process, so a drip of sap gets pulled from the tree to the bottle in a matter of a few hours, untouched by human hands!

Brenda Heinen, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture talked about the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) federal grants and loans available to improve our energy efficiency. If you earn half of your income from farming, or have a business in a rural area or in a city under 50,000 people, you can apply for money for to improve your energy efficiency or replace fossil fuels with renewable sources. Maple producers, who use a lot of energy cooking sap to syrup, can apply for more efficient sap evaporators, reverse osmosis sap filters or windmill or solar power generation to provide electricity for the business. Much of the money in previous went to Iowa and Nebraska farmers replacing corn dryers with newer more efficient ones. You can get a grant for 25% of the cost or a guaranteed loan for 75%. There are people in the Stevens Point USDA office to help fill out the forms. For more information on REAP .

Another program has money to help is Value Added Producer Grants (VAPG). Farm examples included fruit to wine, trees to lumber, milk to cheese, and sap to syrup. Planning grants to $100,000 and matching grants to $300,000 for capital projects are available. Brenda encouraged people to call the office and see if their projects would qualify. For more information on VAPG .

A speaker from the Wisconsin branch of the National Agriculture Statistics Service (NASS) gave us production numbers for maple syrup in Wisconsin for the last two years and selling prices. Production for the 2009 season was about double the previous two years. Wisconsin retail prices were much lower than most eastern states with the average price of a pint at $7.40 as compared to $11 in CT and $9.65 in VT.

I talked to several producers who were expanding their tapping this year because the syrup price went up significantly since 2007 and continues higher now. We were encouraged to report our production figures so Wisconsin, now 4^th largest producing state, will have correct numbers. Some producers are resistant to reporting for fear of government interference. Many smaller producers are not surveyed, so the real production in Wisconsin is higher than the statistics show. I talked to one producer with 900 taps who stated “it is none of the state’s business what I do.” The maple statistics are located at on the internet Here

The third speaker was also from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture Trade and Consumer Protection (WDATCP) . She went through the regulations for making and selling maple syrup in Wisconsin. Producers who make syrup and sell all of it retail (at your own business, home, stand, farmer’s market, etc), are not required to have a license and are not inspected. They are expected to follow the rules to make safe and good quality syrup. They are not allowed to sell their syrup to others to sell at retail. If you sell sap you do not need to be licensed or inspected, but are expected to produce a clean safe product. Since syrup is intensively processed by boiling for long periods of time and since pure maple syrup (66% sugar) has no dangerous molds or spoilage, syrup is considered inherently safe!

If you produce syrup to be sold by others you must be licensed and inspected yearly. That is somewhat like the Grade A milk house standards. If you bottle the syrup for wholesale your bottling facility must be a separate room and meet another set of regulations.

These standards have been in effect for over 20 years, but large retailers have continued to buy from unlicensed small producers. I think that will continue, as these are treated as guidelines rather than enforced rules.

One of the audience members emphasized making good clean syrup under sanitary conditions. She told about a customer who said “I’m never going to buy syrup at a farmer’s market again. I saw pictures of the maple woods with old Kitty Litter pails hanging from the trees. Yuk!”

Margo, our son Scott, and I attended the winter meeting. We have been attending for many years. It was the first time for Scott, our chauffer, who thought that we were really too small of a business to be interested in government grants, licensing and such. With the economy still sour, and maple syrup prices sweet, syruping looks good.

We met some other local syrupers at the meeting. Al and Linda from Hustad's Syrup from the Cumberland. He buys sap directly from producers and supplies tapping equipment to them for the season. He has a large processing plant and a retail outlet.

Steve, of Anderson Maple near Cumberland was there with a display of maple equipment for sale. He says he is opening his business on weekends now and is ready for the season with lots of supplies on hand. He decided not to do his open house this year, so stop in early and get your supplies before the busy season gets underway. He has an online catalog.

Duane and Lynn from Frederic will be buying sap again this year and tapping their own trees. They have a licensed syrup producing facility. Last year was the best year Duane can remember for syrup production per tap at 2 quarts. A few of us old timers remember 1977, probably the best year ever in NW Wisconsin, but don’t have numbers to make a good comparison. The Hanson’s had so much sap that ran so many days in 1977 that we never collected more than about 1/3 of the pails that year as we couldn’t keep up. That happened to Steve’s dad too.

Rodney and Jackie from Clam Falls attended their first winter meeting. They began tapping just last year, starting big with 300 taps. They enjoyed making syrup and plan to continue. We talked about how you turn a hobby into a small business. Doing syruping as a small business requires some additional tax paper work, but lets you deduct that new tractor you need to collect sap and allows you to change your woods from high regular property taxes to low agricultural tax rates. The rule of thumb is that 20 taps per acre qualify it for ag status, potentially dropping your property taxes to 10-20% of the non-ag rate.

Sadly, there was no queen candidate for this year. The Wisconsin Maple Syrup Queen is elected each year and spends time at places like the State Fair, First Tapping, and other statewide events. The candidates are generally from families involved in making syrup. It appears that we have to sweeten the pot to get candidates.

If you want to try making maple syrup, you first need to find a maple tree. Any tree in the maple family from boxelder, red maple to sugar maple will work. In a normal year, each one-half inch diameter hole, 2 inches deep into the tree will produce ten gallons of sap that will cook down to a quart of syrup. You will need a spile or tap, a tapered tube you tap into the hole that collects the sap into a food grade jug or pail (not catfood grade!). During the mid March to mid-April season, most days will have little sap, and a few days will run over even a 5 gallon bucket. The sap has to be boiled and boiled and boiled, 35-40 gallons down to one gallon. Doing it in the house is just not a good idea unless you wanted to have your wall paper fall off from the steam! One of my neighbors used a gas grill and was proud that he made a gallon of syrup with only two $20 tanks from a single tree with four taps.

After your first year, you spend the winter thinking about a better cooker and pan and where you can find more maples. The next year your improve your cooker and soon you need a roof and walls around it and you are hooked for good!

MAPLE SYRUP OPERATION INSPECTION GUIDELINES Handed out at the meeting by

Wisconsin Department Ag speaker

Maple syrup processing is a seasonal activity that occurs in early spring between March and April and may last anywhere from several days to several weeks. The environment at some of the operations can be very rustic and operations may be remotely located.

Due to the temporary duration and sometimes remote locations of this type of food processing activity, it is recommended that the inspector use reasonable discretion and sound professional judgment when addressing food safety concerns regarding issues such as sanitary reclaim of water, temporary hand wash stations and plumbing requirements.

The MAPLE SYRUP OPERATION CHECKLIST (F-fd-332) is designed to help the inspector check through each activity of maple syrup processing establishments but does not replace the Food Processing Establishment Inspection Report (F-fd-2).

SAP COLLECTION AND STORAGE

Sap may be collected with pails, commercial bags and/or through a tube system (with or without vacuum).

NOTE: Be aware that in the past the food additive Para-formaldehyde had been allowed to be used by operators to control microbial and fungal growth in maple tree tap holes. This practice is NO LONGER allowed.

Equipment should be cleaned and sanitized prior to and after the season. Reason: No equipment should be put away and stored while in a dirty condition and because of the long storage period it is recommended the items be rewashed and sanitized prior to use.

Equipment should also be stored clean and protected during the production season.

• Pails shall include covers that provide protection from debris and rain water. Pails shall be food grade; stainless, galvanized metal and plastic in good condition (sanitary and easily cleanable) are acceptable.

• Collection bags shall be good grade plastic and intended for this use.

• Tube sap collection systems shall include food-grade plastic tubing that is free of visible soil and maintained in a mold free condition.

• Sap storage tanks shall be made of food grade material, clean and in good condition; Underground tanks and/or concrete cisterns may be used for sap storage as they help to keep the sap cool - they must be of sanitary construction and easily cleaned.

• All openings to sap collection and storage tanks shall be kept covered or effectively sealed if located outside the building.

• Sap transfer hoses shall be kept capped or plugged between uses.

SAP PROCESSING

NOTE: Occasionally operators install collection pans or tubes inside the evaporator hood to reclaim hot condensation water for cleaning and hand washing purposes. Some operators also reclaim water from Reverse Osmosis systems. Regardless of which reclaim water system they use, the reclaim system should be checked for sanitary design, reasonable construction materials, and protection from contamination. Only potable water may be used on finishing

SYRUP COLLECTION AND STORAGE

• Syrup tanks and bulk containers shall be made of food grade material, rust free, in good
condition and clean. Syrup tanks shall be kept covered.

• Filter socks shall be clean and sanitary. Filter presses should be rinsed with hot water
after each day's use.

• If ultra violet lights are used, they shall be shielded or shatterproof.

SYRUP FINISHING AND PACKAGING

• The finishing room shall be separated from all other processing activities. Milk house
type construction is recommended with regard to doors, walls, ceiling, floor and lights.
The family home kitchen is not approved for syrup finishing and packaging at a licensed
facility that wishes to wholesale the bottled syrup.

• The finishing room shall be kept clean, neatly organized and free of unnecessary
articles.

• Suitable equipment wash sinks are required for cleaning and sanitizing utensils and
equipment. The inspector should question the operator about the cleaning procedures
and determine if improvements are required or needed and make recommendations
based on assessment.

« A hand wash station shall be provided with potable water, hand soap and paper towels. NOTE: If one hand wash station is conveniently located to serve both the room equipment product contact surfaces for final rinse and sanitizing. Reclaim water may not be bottled for sale as drinking water.

• The evaporator room shall be constructed with walls and ceiling that are sealed tight to control entry of birds, rodents and insects, and a floor that is smooth, durable and maintained in a clean condition. Dirt floors and household pets are not permitted. The walls and ceiling are not required to be completely finished however, they shall be maintained in a clean condition. Painting all exposed raw wood a light color is recommended.

» Evaporators may be fueled by gas, oil or wood. All fuel storage shall be kept outside the evaporator building.

• Diatomaceous earth may be used as a filtering agent. Must be food grade. NOTE: It has been reported that egg shells have also been used as a filtering agent. Egg shells may not be used due to allergen concerns.

• Defoamers may be used in small amounts; a common one in use today is vegetable oil such as Crisco Shortening. Be sure defoamers are food grade and not an allergen concern.

• All overhead lights shall be shatterproof or shielded.

• Ventilation shall be sufficient to remove steam.

• A hand wash station shall be provided with potable water, hand soap and paper towels.

• Equipment shall be maintained in good repair and in clean condition.

• The evaporator may include a vented hood to effectively remove steam. The steam-side of the hood shall be smooth, durable, impervious to moisture, and easily cleanable. Vented hoods made with wood frames shall have the wood surfaces only on the outside of the hood.

« Utensils such as cloth filters, hydrometers, thermometers, skimmers, etc. shall be made of food grade material, kept clean and stored protected between uses.

room and the syrup finishing room, a separate hand wash station is not necessary in the finishing room.

• Water supplied shall be obtained from a source that complies with current DNR regulations, transported and held in a sanitary manner and be sampled and tested each year for compliance with microbiological standards.

• Syrup finishing equipment shall be cleaned after each day's use.

RETAIL CONTAINERS

• Commercial retail packaging containers are recommended. If glass jars designed for multiple use are re-used, they shall be washed and sanitized prior to filling. Only new lids shall be used on glass jars that have been returned for re-use. Old lids shall be discarded; rings may be re-used if in good condition.

• Retail containers shall be stored protected from potential contamination.

• The retail sales area shall be separate from all production areas.

• Labels shall conform to minimum requirements (common name of the food, name & location of the processor or distributor, net quantity). Ingredient listing is required if table syrup (not "Pure" maple syrup) is produced.

GENERAL ITEMS

• Outside surroundings shall be neatly maintained.

• Toilet facilities (includes outhouses) shall be properly supplied, conveniently located and include a self-closing door and hand wash station,

• Waste, refuse and junk items shall not be allowed to accumulate on the premises.

• Maple syrup grading requirements may be found in ATCP 157 subchapter II.

• The inspector should be observant for foreign sweeteners (sugar supplies) stored on site and check product labeling for ingredient listings. Product samples may be collected if doubts exist regarding added sweeteners. "Pure" maple syrup is considered adulterated if analyses results reveal malic acid is less than 0.35% and soluble solids is less than 66%.

• Lead taps may not be used for sap collection at the tree. Lead-based solder may not be used for equipment repair to product contact surfaces or plumbing.

ACTION LEVELS FOR LEAD IN MAPLE SYRUP

The Food & Drug Administration has advised the Maple Syrup industry of a 500 ppb (parts per billion) standard. As long as the results are below that level, the FDA does not take any action. To promote a uniform interpretation, Division personnel are requested to use the following guidelines, based on laboratory analysis results for lead.

• If test results are less than 250 ppb, no follow-up required.

• . If test results are at least 250 ppb but less than 500 ppb, this is a preventive action limit.

The Supervisor will direct follow-up with an on site visit to determine potential sources of contamination and use the visit as an opportunity to educate the manufacturer on possible causes and preventive action.

• If test results are at or above 500 ppb, this is an action level. The Supervisor will consult with the FDA to determine the most appropriate follow-up. The follow-up action may include an on-site inspection, evaluation of equipment and facilities to determine potential causes and holding the product. The Division of Food Safety will work in a cooperative manner with FDA in an effort to eliminate causes and reduce test results on future sampling.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Wounded Knee

Well, the knee wounds from the surgery are healing. The area on the shin between the two rows of stitches is all numb, but feelings like someone running a chainsaw up and down the area indicate that the nerves may be coming back. The pain keeps lessening and I manage to do a little more each day--in crutching around the house. Hope to try some car travel on the weekend--a trip to the family Christmas Party in Cushing.

I am working on Stories of the Trade River Valley II, the latest history book from the River Road Ramblings column I host in the Inter-County Leader in Frederic WI. This will be the 4th local history book in 5 years.

With lots of time and finally having high speed Internet at home, I am also working on a book or booklet or DVD on the Paulson line of of family ancestors who came to WI in 1872 from Vikna Norway. I have lots of stuff, pictures, stories etc. I think it would be interesting to try to make it all available on a DVD where if you wanted more details you could click to drop deeper into the raw data.

Back when I was a programmer at Mayo in research, in 1994, I proposed publishing research papers where links could take you from the research publication directly down to the raw data by the use of links. I wanted to do it inside of Mayo only (this is proprietary stuff). It was too early and although my son (who was working that summer with me) prototyped it and demonstrated it, we were too early in the process for people to really understand what it meant and how useful it might become. I moved from research to working on hospital monitoring technology before I sold this to the researchers. I liked the click to go deeper into the details paradigm!

I worked at Mayo 25 years. It was always on computers doing something either beyond what could be done by humans or automating something they did. In the research and hospital areas people were quite open to change and doing things better, especially if you could show how some routine boring things could be automated. The last 6 years, I was in an administrative area. Change was harder to accomplish with administrators and their processes. Often, their goal was keeping information from people rather than making it more available. I couldn't get my mind into this mode and got into problems with my desire to let researchers see their own online budgets, paperwork etc., when it ran counter to the administrators need to control by withholding information. I should have stayed working in research or medicine. People tell me administration is the same for most big companies.

I call my newspaper column, River Road Ramblings, because of my facility with moving from telling about my knee to talking about administration at Mayo!

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Christmas Newsletter

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2009!
Hope your year was a good one and wishing you a great 2010!

Starting off with the bad news, Nov 12th Russ was working on the roof of the Hanson sawmill shed and fell off a ladder breaking his right leg shattering the lower knee bone and ankle. He is on the mend, but has 3 months of hobbling around with no weight bearing on the leg before being allowed to gradually use it again. Makes it look like a long inactive winter ahead for him, a Hobbly Wobbly Christmas

January of 2009, Margo and Russ took to the road with the pop-up camper and parked almost a month in Natchez, Mississippi. We escaped a very cold MN and WI winter month. We visited lots of old pre-civil war mansions, museums, and had a lot of fun being south for the month. The goal of the trip was to retrace the Civil War battles that our great great uncle, Alanson J. Beebe participated in during 1864 and 1865 in the TN, MS and AL border area. Shortly after the war was over, he got kicked by a mule while on duty and it totally wrecked he back. He came home to WI and then lived a couple of years and died at age 22 and is buried in the Evergreen Cemetery on Hwy 25 south of Menomonee. We found most of the places he was at. The Natchez Trace, a national parkway goes through the area and is a wonderful slow drive. We are not sure we will go south this winter depending on Russ’ leg. He thinks we will go anyway so he can do his recuperating where it is warmer!

We were back to start maple syrup season in Wisconsin in early March. I opened up the cabin, and tapped the trees about March 15th as usual. This year’s maple syrup production for WI producers was almost double the normal. We made the most we ever got at 70 gallons of great quality syrup. We sold half of it directly to a wholesaler and bottled and sold the rest. The price last year was about $30 wholesale and $50 retail per gallon, a very good price. It has dropped some since that as the economy has deteriorated.

Margo’s mom, Myrtle, has Alzheimer’s and rarely recognizes her husband or children. She has been in a nursing home where she does reasonably well. She is a walker, walks up and down the halls continuously. Merlin visits her several times a week to help her eat lunch. Margo has spent a week or two each month all year down there staying with her dad and visiting her mom. It is a tough for the family, but visiting and trying to help out does make it feel a little better. Once in a while, Myrtle will show some signs that she recognizes Margo and that helps.

Russ spent most of the year at the Orr Lake Cabin, opening it March 1st and closing it after his fall in November. He loves the outdoors, woods, fields, farm, and family around the area. He spent a lot of time this year helping out at the new Luck, WI museum. It went from concept to reality over the past three years and this year was a real success. We managed to get a full time summer employee to keep it open every day. It was a lot of fun and I have gotten to know many new friends from the experience.

Russ is also in a group of retired men in the Luck area who meet every other Wednesday afternoon to discuss issues of the day. It is a nice break from other things and is good for stimulating the brain. Each of us take turns hosting the meeting (coffee and cookies and a place) and sets a topic. Sometimes we go for a tour too. Sort of a social break during the month. Luck, WI is about 10 miles east of the Cabin.

This fall, Russ built a brand new maple sap-cooking shed. He was using his old garage to double as a cooking room. It was getting too filled with garage type stuff, and so, using a bunch of old doors and windows given to him by a home remodeler, he put together a new shed for this coming season. If his leg gets better, and Scott and Margo are available to help, he hopes to use it this spring!

Margo and Russ got the urge to travel and decided to take September as a trip West. Cousin Sally lives in Seattle Washington and had invited us to visit if we could get out there. We decided to take our new 1991 Olds on the trip. We also decided that we would have no deadlines and could go as slowly or fast as we wanted to. We also planned to look up cousin Chrystal in Medford Oregon and some other cousins along the way.

The Olds did fine except for needing a new drive belt and idler and vacuum hose repair in ND. Just stuff getting old, said the repairman. We took a tent and decided that we would go as cheaply as possible, staying in state parks unless the weather was wet. We had a wonderful time! We took US Highway 2 out across MN, ND, MT and into Seattle. It was a nice quiet old comfortable highway with little traffic and lots of interesting stops. We wandered up and through Glacier park on the way. At age 62 or older, you can buy a US pass that lets you in free to the national parks and federal places (only costs $10). We visited Cousin Sally and stayed with her for 2 weeks (she was a wonderful host and we managed to get along fine even staying that long!). We headed south to Medford Oregon and visited a couple days with Cousin Chrystal (her husband Rey and my father Vivian were first cousins). She took us on a wild cruise up the Rogue River there on some really fast jet boats with a lovely dinner. It was great!

On the way back we decided to take another old US Hwy 12 back home. It was another interesting historic road, even quieter in places than Hwy 2. We stopped in NE Oregon to dig up thundereggs (a type of vocanic rock deposit) at a ranch. That was a lot of fun too. We brought a sack full back for our rock club to enjoy. While on the road, we mostly stayed in the tent. The biggest problem was our double sized air mattress sprung a leak. We got a replacement. The state parks are pretty nice and during the summer out west you mostly get cool enough nights to sleep OK. We normally had an electric hookup so brought both a fan and an electric blanket to cover temperature issues. Our tent is one we bought in 1973 for our very first camping trip. It still doesn’t leak! We had decided not to take the camper as towing it adds a lot to the complication of a trip where you are continually on the move.

We had a very dry spring and early summer in WI. Our sand garden was a total failure for the first time in years. Our garden at the cabin was all pumpkins and squash for sale at a fall even that we do in our neighborhood (the River Road Ramble) named after Russ’ weekly newspaper column. We had a full pickup load of pumpkins and squash and sold most of them. The deer are such a nuisance there that most gardens need big fences around them, but they seem to leave pumpkins and squash alone until very late in the season. A rabbit went in and nibbled on many of them, ruining their appearance, so next year we will fence that garden too.

Mom lives on the home farm nearby. She grows a big fenced garden with lots of tomatoes. We planted a row of raspberries and strawberries in her garden and they did quite well this year. She has a lot of apple trees. We sprayed them for her and had a pretty good yield this year. However, some of the later apples were wormy, especially near the top of the big old trees, so we have to do better with the sprayer getting the tops covered. Apples just don’t make it worm free without spraying them. We just use Sevin. Mom is doing quite well and is still very active. She will be 88 years old on Dec 18th. She did some doctoring at Mayo Clinic this year and the doctor told her she should make it to 100!

The most interesting thing happening in Wisconsin this year is that their famous old quarterback for the Green Bay Packers football team, Brett Farve, joined the team for MN. Wisconsin is wildly supportive of the Green Bay Packers team and Farve who had been their quarterback for 16 years, is now with the sworn enemy in MN. This year MN is winning everything including beating Green Bay twice. Now of course, being raised in WI we are avid Green Bay Packer fans, but having lived in MN for 30 years are finding that we are rooting for 40 year old Farve and the Vikings too. Russ thinks Green Bay is getting what it deserves from getting rid of him too quickly. Football is taken pretty seriously in Wisconsin and Minnesota! I am looking for purple #4 jerseys to give to my WI great nephews and nieces.

Living at the rustic cabin in Wisconsin from spring through fall is pretty nice. We do need to fix it up some to make it more comfortable. Hopefully we will get to that this year. Margo and I both started getting our Social Security retirement payments in 2009, making retirement finally affordable. We retired 4 years early with the idea we would live very cheaply so we could quit working early. We managed to do that and now will have it a little easier. We still pay a lot for health care and taxes etc, but are actually where we get enough to cover everything now. We are developing a little income from maple syrup, garden produce and apples and renting farmland out. Anyway we are matching income and outgo now and with careful spending will have a little money for inexpensive travel and updating the cabin a little. Of course, we will do the work ourselves.

The cabin sits on a high hillside overlooking a small lake to the west. The lake is fascinating to watch. This summer a pair of otter had two young. A pair of beaver built their house and tried to dam the road culvert that the stream draining the lake goes through. A pair of trumpeter swans had 5 young and managed to raise two of them to full size. A loon family lived there and sang their haunting song to us each night. Several does brought their fawns every morning to the spring trickling into the lake on our grassy front lawn and let them run and play together for our entertainment. The owl again nested nearby and hooted us to sleep. A bear came out of hibernation and slept under our bird feeder for a few days this spring before ambling off. He continued to let us know he was there by knocking down the bird feeders until we gave up feeding. A flock of turkeys lived across the lake and came to visit regularly sneaking through the woods past the cabin. A pair of sandhill cranes nested northeast of the lake and although we didn’t see the young ones this summer, we could hear the parents all summer. Most days one to three bald eagles came to the lake, usually one landing on the big oak right on the lake shore and catching a fish to take to their nest somewhere nearby. Very few fishermen try the lake out. There are panfish and northerns and bullheads, but they are hard to catch, so we just leave them alone.

Lots of hardware in my right knee to attach the shattered bone together again. All Mayo's men and all Mayo's nurses were able to put me together again.

Doc Sems says airport screenings will be a problem and no MRIs will work on that leg again.

Knee update

Friday, Dec 4th was cast removal and stitches removal day at Mayo. The stitches were long rows on either side of the lower knee from the surgery to repair the bone there. Now I have a brace to wear all the time that allows the knee to be straight to 30 degrees bend. Since the knee won't straighten out now, I am to work on getting it to do that gradually.

At 3 weeks since the break and 2 weeks since surgery, the Dr. says no weight on the leg for at least 3 months--meaning about the end of February before I can walk on it. In the meantime the bone is healing to make it strong again.

The pain is pretty much receding; I can sleep at nights again, and I can hobble around with walker or crutches. I have to practice more on the crutches--right now a very short distance tires me out.

We have our first inch of snow here near Rochester, MN. With the cold weather, it is likely to stay.
Russ

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Broken Knee: A Fib and a Tib

Some days start innocently, their inherent meanness revealed only as they unroll. Other days we escape tragedy by sheer luck. November 13th, 2009 was a Friday the 13th with such awful luck that it spilled over to its preceding neighbor, Thursday the 12th, and unremorselessly struck down the Rambler.

The day dawned suspiciously calm, one of a triplet of warm November days. Coming after the dreary cold and wet October, nice weather created a spark of ambition to do a few late fall chores. Fall chores that ended fall with a fall.

The Hanson sawmill shed was literally falling down. Forty years after it had been built, a tin roof on stilts over the 100 year old Howell lumber mill, the tamarack posts brother Byron had set deep into the ground were rotting off, giving the building waves in the roof like those seen in abandoned barns. “I’ll bring some treated 4x6x10 posts, nails and braces, and we will jack it up and straighten it and fasten the old posts to new ones,” I told brother Everett and nephew Bryce that Sunday. Tuesday we completed half of it and were looking to finish on Thursday.

Younger brother Byron and Dad bought the mill from Dan McKenzie back in about 1970, rebuilt it and put it under the tin roof. Byron, Dad, Everett, Marvin and I had sawed thousands of board feet of local timber on the mill since, both for our personal use and for a time, as a business. Since the death of Byron and Dad, only Everett, Bryce and I occasionally ran the mill; the last time almost 3 years ago. It needed a lot of tender loving care to get back in good running condition.

Spring and fall weeks, when the weather changes, are dangerous to do-it-your-selfers. The rains quit or the temperatures rise and sure enough, in spite of your best intentions, there rises in you the urge to build, to repair, to prepare for the next season. It is highly infectious. I started updating my maple sap cooking building. Bryce began putting in a new fence and gate. Everett rebuilt his sap cooker to add grates. Soon we met and planned that fateful expedition to “Fix the Sawmill Shed.”

We were at the site at 10:00 am. I had the extra poles and bracing lumber and nails, Everett the tools, and Bryce the tractor and loader. With back-blade and front-loader tractors we cleaned out the old sawdust pile to fix the sawdust conveyor belt. Bryce moved the rotting slab pile to give us clearance to the posts holding up the shed. When Byron built it, he used tamarack poles from our tamarack swamp on the 60 along Wolf Creek south of Roger Lake. Tamaracks are somewhat naturally resistant to rot and so would make a good shed post for 30 years. However, it was 40 years later, and for the most part, the big posts had rotted out at ground level.

We used the shovel and post-hole digger to dig a deep hole adjacent to the old posts and then put in the treated 10 foot 4x6s and using threaded rods bolted the old to the new. We pulled, jacked and straightened until the shed gradually started to look proper again. Only two posts in the ground left, but the wind during the summer had taken several sheets of tin and folded them and their roof boards over. We needed to fold them back, put in new roof boards and nail it all down again.

I had my 10-foot stepladder and a 16-foot extension ladder. With some maneuvering, we flipped the roof section back in place and began to nail it in. “Need some more roof boards,” said Bryce. “I have some 2x6 pine at the cabin left from the sap shed,” I replied, “I’ll buzz over there with the truck and bring some back.”

I drove the quarter mile up Hwy 87 to the corner, then stopped in at the field across from the School and Greenhouse where Chuck Sflarsky had stopped digging the corn field and was talking to Jeff Carlson. “Did you get much yield?” I asked Chuck, about the 40 acres of cornfield he had rented from me. “Averaged just under 120 bushels per acre. Lot better than I expected considering it was so dry from April until August. Better than last year. Corn was about 21% moisture and nice kernels, “ replied Chuck.

”Need some lumber,” I told Margo as I stopped in the cabin and picked up another hammer. “It is going good, should have the posts and roof done by noon.” “Be careful,” she replied automatically. I loaded up the boards and headed back to the shed.

When I got back, Bryce was standing in the bucket of the loader, raised above the peak in the roof, nailing down tin. I tossed out two boards and placed the step ladder and carried one up and slid it along side the old rotten one. “I’ll put one more up higher,” I told Bryce. Everett was digging along a post getting ready to set another replacement.

The sky had darkened with the threat of rain coming that afternoon. Chuck’s tractor roared over the red clay loam fields a few hundred yards north of us. The Mortenson’s donkey let out a bray that floated down from the hills to the north while a flock of Canadian Geese vee’d above the lake causing the swans to trumpet their “go away” call. One of Ohnen’s beef cows bellowed, still distraught from being separated from her calf a week earlier. Bill and Barbara Hoffman had just sat down at the table for a late cup of coffee on the old Borup place kiddy-corner over 87 from the “Armstrong place” as we called this farm. Down the hill, Jean Judd was busy hand stitching on a new quilt and a few tomatoes were being picked for market at the greenhouses across the road.

I moved the step ladder and set it down quickly and rushed up it with the last board. I stuck it into the roof and gave it a shove; meanwhile the ladder and I began a slow swirling waltz downward. My right leg slipped between the ladder rungs and as we completed our twirl to the ground, my leg and knee took an extra turn and then was wrenched sharply as I slowly made a soft landing on the freshly scraped sawdust laced black earth. For a brief moment on the way down, I realized I was turning clockwise, just as Rodger Meyer had taught in HS Physics. The coriolis effect predicted my twirl direction just as it does with water swirling down the drain differently in the north and south hemispheres.

I was down and in great pain. “Oh sh_t! Oh sh_t!” I moaned but then remembering that Bryce attends church regularly and Everett certainly needed a good example as he was prone to pick up harsh words already when he was only 3 years old. “Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot…” I continued to moan as Bryce came down from the bucket and Ev came over. I was on my right side, lying on the ground, having gotten the ladder off of me, and waiting for the waves of pain to ease up.

“My knee. I think I really messed it up,” I told them, “feels like when I tore out the ligaments back in 89 on the ski hill.” I stayed perfectly still, not wanting to see what would happen if I moved my leg at all.

I laid there for 10 minutes, occasionally wiggling a little and getting another wave of pain. Ev and Bryce hovered around me waiting to see what I would do next. “It hurts too much to get myself up. Can you each grab me under an arm and lift me up and let me sit on the front tractor tire?” a comfortable looking seat of the right height next to where I was lying in the soft dirt.

They lifted me up and sat me down on the tire gently, but the pain took over. Then I was dreaming. My old friend Melvin Davidsavor was calling to me from behind a bright light. “Russ, Russ” he called from the light. I moved to him, awakening to find myself sitting on the tractor tire with Rick Davidsavor from the Cushing 1st Responders shining a light in my eyes and trying to bring me to consciousness.
“You passed out and I called 911,” said Bryce, who was still sitting next to me on the tire and holding me up with strong arms. Rick asked some questions and then more 1st responders were there (Kay Jacobson and ?) strapping me to the carrying board and delivering me to an ambulance that had also come into the farmyard, now cluttered with our own three trucks and three from the 911 call.
“It was just a short fall, and I didn’t come down fast, but it sure hurts like I wrecked my knee. I wrecked it up 20 years ago and it feels like that now. I sure feel stupid, such a dumb thing to do being in too much of a rush to set the ladder down good. It wasn’t even a long fall,” I moaned in self pity as I was gently carried out, “Margo’s over at the cabin—would you let her know to meet me at St Croix Falls.”

I fell about 10:30 in the morning and after x-rays at the emergency room in St Croix Falls, where the Doc said, “Your knee is quite damaged and will need surgery from an orthopedic specialist. We will get one to look at you.” I learned that both fibula and tibia were broken crushed, mangled, and fractured, a “fib and tib” according to the young nurse nearby. By then Margo had caught up with me. “Russ’ insurance is from Mayo Clinic and pays better if we do things at Mayo. Can we get the ambulance to take him down there?” she asked the doctor.

“Sure, I’ll call Mayo and make the arrangements and send along the x-rays. Should be down there about 6 or 7 pm,” replied the friendly auburn haired doctor.

The ambulance trips are mixed up with morphine drips and bumps and the discomfort of being strapped flat down. By 9:30 I was in surgery at Mayo were I had a temporary set of rods to stabilize all of the bones in proper alignment. After letting the swelling come down I had the knee surgery on Monday, left the hospital Thursday and am in the beginning of six months of rehab. The tibia and fibula were broken multiples places so screws, plates and cadaver pieces were used to rebuild it. If you think of the knee bone below the knee as a chunk of brittle bamboo tree that you took a hammer to it so that it was shattered, cracked, split and then screwed and splinted back together lots of metal you get some idea of the damage.
“You’ve got enough metal there they’ll make you do cavity searches at the airports from now on,” grinned Dr. Sems as he reviewed my x-rays and tried to cheer me up at my checkup last Friday. “Another week in a full leg cast and then we should be able to take out the stitches and give you a brace and start some flexing exercises.”

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Pictures from the West

Ranch in Western OR

Grain Elevator showing construction

Video at the Richardson Ranch NE Oregon
Digging for Thunderbird Eggs
http://www.richardsonrockranch.com/

Cushing History Research -- Doc Squirt in Seattle

In Seattle, I continued my local history research by spending a few afternoons in the University of Washington microfilm library reading 1936-43 issues of the Duwamish Valley News. Roy Hennings (Doc Squirt) of Cushing, WI., moved to Seattle in the mid 1930s and continued his newspaper writing out here for the News. He wrote extensively for all of the local papers in Polk and Burnett County from 1904 until his death in 1943. I was curious what he wrote about while he was in Seattle. Out here, he began billing himself as Doc Squirt, Paul Bunyan’s Doctor after he had spent some time in a local hospital and dreamed about talking to Paul and seeing Babe the blue ox. Paul asked him to be his personal doctor in the dream.

I have been researching Doc Squirt through his writings and from people who have known him for 4 years now. I have a booklet I put out two years ago, but continue to be interested in his life and writings. He was a very outspoken Republican in the 1930s and referred to President Roosevelt as Franklin Deficit. His position on health care became increasingly clear as he had to have an operation (hernia?) at age 57 (1940) before dieing from a brain tumor in 1943. His opinion from his columns is interesting today as Health Care is on the national agenda.

From the Pen of Doc Squirt, Paul Bunyan’s Personal Doctor,
Duwamish Valley News, Seattle WA
11/29/41 Well folks, we are out of the hospital and feel pretty lucky at pulling thru a very tough situation as well as we did. One thing certain is that in Dr. Ralph Dalton and the medical staff of the Virgina Mason Hospital in Seattle, we had the best talent available in this big northwest to take care of us. Folks, that’s just what turned the trick with our operation.
12/6/1941

“’Just got out out of the hospital,’ is a remark that we hear pretty often and that usually calls for a sympathetic comment from those around about, and just how long this bunch sticks around depends a lot on just what symptoms the ‘ex-patient’ shows of getting ready to give a longwinded account of just what happened to him in minute detail, or whether he just gives them a brief review of his experience and then gets set to discuss the issues of the day with them as he always used to do.

The hospital is the last place that most any of us want to go to, and the fact that it quite often is the ‘Last Place’ a feller goes, is often accounted for by the fact that one’s call then was put off a heap too long and when one finally showed up for a work over it was a little to late in the season for the Medico’s to do very much about it. One often goes thru a lot of misseries doping oneself up to postpone a trip to the hospital. We have all done that more or less, but one can hardly be blamed for that as a stop over at one of these places of healing and solace wrecks one’s bank roll something scandalous and a feller is very liable to figure that one might as well be “on the shelf” as broke and take a gambling chance on ones health that in the end lays up an awful accumulation of acute trouble for him or her. Hospitals are wonderful institutions, folks, we have never realized that as fully as we do right now as we were never in one as a patient before and had this realization forcibly brought home to us.

The service one gets there is worth a lot and that’s just what it costs. The tragic part of it is that the facilities of a great hospital like the Virginia Mason and other hospitals are not thru some humane legislation made available to every suffering member of the human race regardless of their ability or inability to pay the fee that these Institutions have to collect in order to keep on functioning. A small national hospitalization tax would take care of this super necessary detail and people would then be able to have their minor troubles taken care of at the right time which would greatly reduce the number of major troubles and getting this service wouldn’t mean that they would be turned out to convalesce plumb broke at the most helpless moment of their existence.

The present system at times brings on worries that often lead to mental troubles. National hospitalization would give the public a real break and at the same time assure the hospital of the payment of our bills for services rendered and in cases of office calls or home calls, one’s local physician would receive the compensation that they cannot always gamble on under the setup of today.

We have heard doctors and nurses in the hospital claim that National Hospitalization making this service so easily obtainable, would bring on an epidemic of ‘Hospital Addicts’, people who would abuse this fine service, but we know a way to stop that. An infallible way. There is a hospital orderly at large in this U. S. of ours who puts so much ‘zing’ into his enema work outs that we hung the name of ‘Niagara Johnson’ on him and ‘Hospital Addicts’ would become plumb migratory fast if ‘Niagara’ was called to do his stuff in their case. Personally tho, we feel pretty kindly towards ‘Niagara Johnson’ as in the cassitary period of our trouble, his skillful care was a source of a lot of comfort to us.

Our trouble was the result of years spent in hard motorcycling racing cross count runs etc., as a professional. Thousands of miles of skally hooting over the U. S. on jolting freight trains that at times seem to kind of disintegrate a feller and we kind of marvel at what they were able to do for us at Virginia Mason Hospital.”

Dec 27 1940. “The little story we ran some time back about our session in Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle has brought us quite a few comments by mail, over the phone and in street conversations. Most of these people seem to be very much interested in National Hospitalization and cannot understand why the idea is being take up so slowly by the people at the head of the government. There is another little angle in the hospital setup.

The Farmer’s Union Publication from Walla Walla, Washington, “Pacific Northwest Cooperator” is a real live wire paper devoted to the interests of cooperation—a very worthy cause, and one that meets with a lot of resistance on every front.

There is an item in this month’s paper about the students at Washington State College being favored with cooperative hospitalization. Let us hope that this idea spreads fast, as no one who has not spent some time in a regular commercial hospital can visualize the mental agony gone thru by patients driven frantic by worrying about the hospital bill that they are running up every day of their stay there; in fact, some of this mental agony overshadows the physical and retards recovery.

Some of the best ideas in the business world today have come direct from the farm. The Farmers’ Auto Insurance setup has saved the public a lot of money, not only in its own operation, but it has forced old line insurance companies to cut down on their exorbitant rates that used to make up the big dividends which were all out of proportion to the profits that they were justly entitled to and have met a lot of the officials of the Farmers Union, and we believe that this group can work out a cooperative hospitalization plan that will go over big and bring the farmers and their city cousins a to closer together than they are now. These things cannot be planned outright in the bigger cities as the grafting element is sure to get into the picture and in order to get a good “drag” out of it themselves they will run the rates up into too much money. “

1942 Folks, how does the idea of making… National Hospitalization a reality strike you? Right now a number of the people, and a very limited number, have hospitalization, but they have to be in a group to get it. The rest of the public is at the mercy of ruinous hospital bills in even of an accident of an illness. At the end of this war, which we hope comes soon, the bigger groups which can qualify for hospitalization will become smaller groups that cannot qualify and what is more these smaller groups under war conditions might be shy of all the requirements to get medical attention. The present set up is plumb coo coo and the time to correct it is now.

Doc Squirt passed away at a hospital in Seattle, two years later at age 60, on September 20, 1943 from a brain tumor. Two years later, a Lebanese born doctor, who had been forming health co-ops in Oklahoma, came to Seattle and gave speeches about forming them. Out of that came at least one co-op, Group Health of WA, that continues to this day and is mentioned as an example of what a health co-operative would be like in current efforts to figure out a health care system that solves Doc’s complaints 68 years ago, that ring just as true now as they did in 1941.

St Croix River Road Ramblings

Monday, February 15, 2010

Friday, January 22, 2010