Week of 10/6/24

This week Monday morning out growing season came to its end as the temperature dropped to 30. I covered the tomatoes and peppers Sunday, as that was about all that was still left in the garden. Of the cucumbers, I picked all that had any size and left the rest freeze. There is still no rain so to keep the ginseng bed moist, so instead I filled the sprayer tank with water and used a hose to water them down.

The rest of the day I picked up walnuts that I will use for both cracking this winter and planting. I now have about 10 bushels of them. I am now putting wood in the woodshed by the house that we use to heat out house in the winter. There is nothing like coming in the house after chores on a cold winter day and putting your hands up against the wood stove.

Thursday, a warm sunny day like so many this fall, I worked in the woods cutting poke weed off below the soil line with a spade shovel. The poke weed takes over ta open spot in the woods, choking out the good vegetation and tree saplings. To kill it you cut the root off under the ground.

Thursday night we went to our daughter Tina’s 54th birthday party. I probably had one too many, so my wife Ruth drove us home.

Friday as usual I did the harvesting for the Saturday market, not so much to do so I was done by noon. Ruth had her baking done so in the afternoon we went to Muscoda to take care of some business. On the way we met one of them shit hauling trucks from a local big dairy. He didn’t have it closed up right or something as he totally sprayed our car with the stinking crap. We then went straight to the car wash when we got to Muscoda, but the car wash was broke down. The man working said it would take about an hour, so we did our business and then went back. The man through he had it fixed but it still wouldn’t work. The man then told us to go in the self-wash bay and that he would hand wash the car for us, so we did, and he did a really good job. When I went to pay him he refused to take my money. What a good and smart man, and I will now always have my car washed there and pass on the word.

On Saturday as usual we had a very good day. We also had a wonderful experience when the renowned author of poems Daniel Smith came to the market. He told us that he had read my book, The Heart Remembers, and he congratulated me and presented us with a signed hard cover copy of his book called, Ancestral. I never thought of myself as a reader of poetry, but after starting to read his book I really like it. It tells the stories of farmers and the hardships but also the rewards that farm life offers. In his poetry his love for the land clearly shows. He lives here in southwest Wisconsin, and works as a counselor to farm family’s in crisis. His website is www.danielgerardsmith.com.

My book, The Heart Remembers: Recollections of a Ninety-Year-Old Man, is really starting to take off, of the 50 copies we got a month ago only 6 of them are left, and we will order 50 more on Friday. The Dodgeville Public Library also carries the book now.

-Helmuth Krause