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| A day's work |
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| Morning View |
The rare occurrence of five Fridays, Saturdays
and Sundays in August perhaps accounted for the wide variety of activities
packed into the month, all accompanied by LOTS of rain, so things stayed very
green in Rudolph. Mark and Hilde spent
lots of the dry time outdoors, picking vegetables, mowing, removing storm
litter and enjoying Wisconsin in general.
Mark’s big push through the month was preparation
for a two-week stray voltage trial, located right in Wood County. In fact, the opening day of the trial
displaced the Wood County Board meeting to City Hall in Rapids, which was
interesting. Mark deals with incredible details for these trials, and was
really getting his teeth into it when suddenly a mistrial was declared due to a
witness referring to a topic already ruled out.
Having things end very abruptly was very disconcerting for everyone
involved (this is the first time for any trial for Mark in 39 years of
litigating!) and the whole case delayed until NEXT August…messing up another
summer. Since this was a local trial,
Hilde’s role was stocking work room at hotel with food, arranging reservations
for lunches and then the last night, feeding several folks corn, tomatoes and
cheese for a summer feast. That was one
of the few dry evenings and helped folks slightly wind down from the mistrial.
Hilde had a hot topic to deal with in August also
as a kerfuffle had arisen with one committee deciding that a moratorium should
be placed on spraying of manure just to
try to stop one very large farm from starting up. She spent a lot of time getting FACTUAL information,
arranging an informational meeting and then successfully chairing it with
preservation of order. After lots of
back and forth, the county has appointed a study group to make recommendations
instead of launching into moratoriums or expensive and probably illegal
restrictions. Yes, Hilde is on the study
group—someone had to represent science and reason!
August is always a busy time for harvest and
preserving of food. Mark helped Hilde
with the corn and the onions, between rain falls, and frequently did some of
the picking. Hilde froze corn, beans and
made peach jam, cinnamon crab apple jelly and pickles, lots and lots of
pickles. The Henkels had somehow
completely run out of dill pickles, so when Mark’s legal assistant offered some free cukes, Hilde drove in and received
a full five gallon pail, a bag of dill and a big bunch of carrots thrown in for
color. In one day Hilde did a double
batch of dill pickles, her first batch of refrigerator pickles, sweet pickles
and a batch of pickle relish. Then the
Rudolph cukes started coming, so many more pickles were made. The new recipe for refrigerator or fermented
pickles uses five large grape leaves as the source of alum…easy to find around
Rudolph!
Mark and Hilde were determined not to work every
day of the end of summer and they succeeded in having some fun times. They enjoyed having special black belt
friends out for a corn roast before the August taekwondo testing, they enjoyed
the Farm Technology Days held in Plover
and even got up to the Edgar Steam Show, although the absolute soggy conditions
made walking treacherous and unpleasant for that one. With the opening in Mark’s schedule due to
the mistrial, they also took one day to lunch, walk around, and just relax
overlooking Green Lake. A second day off
took them to the Wisconsin Trapshooters Homegrounds, a fabulous trapshoot
facility with campground, just over the line into Adams County and then around
the flowage to the Petenwell Wilderness park for picnic and more walking and
water watching.
In every life some rain must fall---August was
the time of rains, with it coming in 1 ½ or 2 ½ inch dump loads, sometimes with
loud storms. Things got very wet on the
heavy clay soil. One diseased poplar
broke off in the storms, and mark’s radio antennas were twisted a little. Then, at the end of the month, mark
discovered a large hornet nest in and over the opening for the bathroom exhaust
fan, which required many applications of spray and water and even a crowbar to
pry out most of the mass. That wasn’t
the end: he also discovered an ENORMOUS
hornets nest in the brooder house slated for a rebuilt (the inhabitants did not
like Mark knocking on the walls testing for rot, either!). Any construction will be postponed until that
situation is dealt with.
Also in August, Mark and Hilde gave away their
hens, since they will be gone for so many trials and they were getting
old. It does seem strange not to have
the rooster crowing and the hens fussing and clucking, but at last count there
were 53 images of chickens in the kitchen, which should comfort them until
chicks can be raised.
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| The morning glories taking over |
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| Wild cucumber decorating the blue spruce |
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| Undesirable tenants |
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Mark clearing downed poplar |
