SneezingCow.com » fall creek

The Rituals of Cold Weather…

MikePerry — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 14:46:58 +0000

…will not kick in for real until the ground is hard as granite, but even now with no snow and relatively warm temperatures*, the days begin with the morning ritual of crumpled newspaper, kindling, and the sizzle of the sulfur-strike. Woodshed full as it has ever been since our move here, thanks to the help of friends and neighbors. Each time I retrieve an armful I conduct a complicated three-dimensional calculus in which I mentally drape calendar pages over the remaining stack and calculate the cubic chances of making it clear through to those last few fires in early June…

*That said, this morning’s wind is a scour salted with pellets of sneet.

“Chicken Shack” Video Up

MikePerry — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 11:39:11 +0000

The “Chicken Shack” Video that ran on In Wisconsin recently is now available online (although if your internet connection is anything like mine, it may take forever to load):

Watch the full episode. See more In Wisconsin.

Not In Front of the Children

MikePerry — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:04:04 +0000

Sent an email to my friend Jay Moore at Moose Country radio this morning (where the tagline is: If you [insert goofy jackpine knuckleheaded behavior here] … yer one of us.

The next time I smack my shin on the trailer hitch, I may have to just shut up and take it, because I’m pretty sure I used up my full annual allotment of naughty language during the hour-and-a-half it took me to hook up my “easy-attach” snowplow.

If it’s the blizzard of the decade and it STILL takes you longer to hook up your snowplow than it does to plow your quarter-mile driveway, you might be one of … well, OK, you might be ME.

Then again, if one of the great joys of your life is plowin’ snow with your little snow-suited copilots grinnin’ all gap-toothed beside you in the truck cab, well, then, yer definitely one of us.

It’s just snow, folks. Let’er buck.

Small-Town Upside

MikePerry — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 08:51:47 +0000

Continuing the theme of absent-mindedness, yesterday morning I headed for the Post Office after fruitlessly searching for the key to our PO box (I didn’t search too intently, since I leave the keys at the Post Office so regularly they oughta just put a little hook up there for me – the Postmaster in New Auburn kept them right there beside the register). When I got to the Post Office, I was informed that not only did I leave my key there last time, I had left it in the lock with the drawer pulled out. After getting my key and mail, I returned to the lot to find that the truck wouldn’t start (battery’s been dying, now it’s dead).

Upshot is, one of the staff there came out and gave me a jump. Not going to get specific, just in case it’s some sort of official violation to leave your post at the Post. But how neat it was to stand there at the counter – admittedly a little embarrassed, but not too embarrassed to ask for help – and see familiar faces smiling back with patience and a willingness to assist, even though they were all still busily sorting mail.

You can overdo the small-towns-are-wonderful thing. Bad and good everywhere, obviously. And I have been done great kindnesses by strangers in big metropoli. But it sure is nice to have a Post Office crew you know by name, and who can find a way to discharge their professional responsiblities and lend a neighborly hand in the process.

So thanks, Fall Creek Post Office crew, for all those times you give my keys safe harbor. And thanks for the jump.

OK, Let’s See…

MikePerry — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:02:04 +0000

…where did I put that snowplow?

Confluence

MikePerry — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 10:03:11 +0000

Wherever I am standing when I say it, I am from – and of – New Auburn, Wisconsin. Nothin’ without Nobbern. And these days I get my mail at the Fall Creek post office (where Shirley knows your name). But beginning in the fall of 1983 and running right up into the present, the river city of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, has forked me into tangents I never saw coming. That’s a story I’ve already told. What I like about this story is how it focuses on the new generation and what they’re doing. (Full – as they say – disclosure: in addition to his writing career (and dare we say it, banjo career) Andy Moore is also the Wisconsin Public Television producer who converts my bloopers into what has become known around here as “The Clodhopper Report“).

Are you still on the New Auburn fire department?

MikePerry — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 01:58:29 +0000

In 2007, my wife and I had the opportunity to take over my mother-in-law’s farmstead near Fall Creek, Wisconsin. I am no longer in the New Auburn fire district, but am pleased to say I am now allowed to carry a pager for the local volunteer rescue service in my township, and I still make it back to “Nobbern” regularly to see the Beagle, help out at Jamboree Days, and attend the annual banquet with all my NAAFD pals. In other words, we’re still neighbors.