Videos from the Rambler

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

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

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

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

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

Speak Up

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

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

2019 Maple Syrup Season

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

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

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

  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Youtube Channel River Road Rambler

Traveling Pests

    

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "No pet free ones at all?" 

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

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

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

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

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

   

2019 Winter Vacation

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

Texas Talk

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Garner Park Trail climb

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Margo and I took off headed south Wednesday, January 9th.  We drove 3 days south south west and got to San Angelo State Park in TX and stayed there a week. 
Today, January 21, 2019 we drove another four hours south and ended up in Garner State Park.  
To follow our trip, you can see the daily posts on facebook for Russell B Hanson. 
A brief video of some of the week's scenery at San Angelo State park can be seen at my youtube channel 
   San Angelo State park
   
Garner State Park is bereft of cell, TV, and WIFI unless you go to the office and then an abbreviated, slow version is available!   Hard to adjust to no signals in or out.  

Happy Holidays 2018

The Annual Christmas newsletter is online --
2018 Christmas Newsletter

Four Cheerios Box Tops and $1 Buys a Radio

Brother Everett and I got into radios in our early teens. It started when Uncle Lloyd loaned us a WWII crystal radio he used in the barracks.  Then I got one for Christmas from Sears.  
  Crystal Radios were very simple.  A crystal (hunk of galena -- lead ore), a tiny wire to poke into it to find a hot spot, a coil, an antenna, a ground and an earphone.  
  The simplest crystal set looks like this and can be home built easily.   (note-- all photos here are from the internet and not of my own radios, now gone, but look like them).
  

Coil with slider to tune, sharp pointed wire to poke into galena crystal (bottom right), and earphone and antenna and ground make a crystal radio. 

Our Cheerios cereal package had a deal-- 4 boxtops and a $1 and we could get a radio from General Mills (nearby in the Twin Cities). 

Eventually we had the boxtops (everyone saved boxtops from any product as sooner or later they would be useful for some deal) and the dollar.  

A few weeks later it came.  We opened the box, read the instructions, clipped the antenna coil to the wire clothesline, poked the earphone in our ear and sure enough, WCCO radio playing faintly if we tuned it by moving the rod up and down.  

I found a few of these for sale on the internet today, and they ranged from $60 - 100.  So instead of buying one, I instead downloaded the photos.  A memory is good enough as I probably couldn't hear the faint stations anymore.  

We ended up opening our radio, connecting a separate ground wire (soldering it on) that improved the signals and selectivity.  Eventually we took it apart and used the diode (a modern replacement for the galena crystal) and loopstick in making our own radio.  

The original packaging from an Internet sales offer 

The bottom came off if you bent the tabs that held it in.  The metal case was actually an aluminum radio part -- the shield that went over a coil.  It was made in the Twin Cities.   General Mills was a big part of early radio beginning broadcast station WCCO, beginning the first advertising on radio, the serials (cereals) shows and even in the electronics in broadcasting.  So putting out a little radio was right in line with their history. 

The loopstick coil had a metal core that slid up and down to tune the radio.  

  

Rocket Crystal Radios were made with the exact same insides, but more glamorous on the outside.  

Historical Map of the St Croix Falls to Grantsburg area

   Got interested in what one can do with Google Maps.  They have the satellite maps of the whole earth online and let us create our own map layers to point out significant points of interest. 
   I am making several and have several planned.  The main one right now is a local history map that we may use for the 14th annual River Road Ramble (4th Saturday of September) 2019. 
  You can explore it at this link St Croix River Historical Map

   Another map is the Genealogical History of the Hansson family beginning in Sweden and jumping to the USA and into Wisconsin.  Each marker has an explanation and maybe a photo or link. Just starting this one.  Only have Swedish sites started as of this post. 
   https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1H9t8j4cslKwCipnx-17LCDsutn3pVdrN&ll=43.04315965891002%2C-40.283705550000036&z=3 

  I am planning a cemetery map too where our relatives are buried. 

These maps are easy to make, easy to share, multiple folks can work on them and rather fun to do.  You have to have a free google account (you can create a gmail account and that does it all).

Highly zoomed view of Skee Parish, Hansson Farm, near Stromstad Sweden.  Where our Hanssons evolved out of the ooze