Henkel Family Blog: August 2014 with Assorted Activities

A day's work

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.