Product Details
Old Farm: A History

Old Farm: A History
By Jerry Apps

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Product Description

One of the Midwest’s best-loved storytellers shares his most personal story. In Old Farm: A History,

bestselling author Jerry Apps combines history, memoir, and call to action as he describes Roshara, the central Wisconsin farm where he and his family have spent more than forty years reaping the benefits of a close relationship to the land.

Along with historic photos, maps, and documents, Old Farm features beautiful contemporary photographs by Steve Apps capturing life at Roshara in all seasons, from snow-capped fenceposts to bacon sizzling on the woodstove. This lovely, highly personal book will delight Jerry Apps’s fans and newcomers alike.

2009 Gold Award for the Great Lakes Region from the Independent Publishers Book Awards
2009 First Place in Outdoors from the Council for Wisconsin Writers
2009 Winner in Nature from the Midwest Independent Publishers Association Midwest Book Awards
2009 Bronze Award in Environment for ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Award
2009 Finalist in Midwest Regional and Nature from the Midwest Independent Publishers Association Midwest Book Awards
2009 Finalist in History from the National Indie Excellence Awards
2009 Finalist in History/Historical Nonfiction from the Next Generation Indie Book Awards
2008 Midwest Connections Pick from the Midwest Booksellers Association

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #478480 in Books
  • Published on: 2008-10-07
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • 240 pages

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
Apps, author of numerous books about rural life and history, teams up with his photographer son to document the history of Roshara, a Wisconsin farm purchased by his family 40 years ago. But the history of the farm doesn’t begin there; it begins about a century earlier, when a Civil War veteran took advantage of the Homestead Act to settle on a parcel of untamed and unfriendly land and turned it into a place to raise a family. The book, then, isn’t merely the story of family farm; it’s a story of farming, and of family. Lavishly illustrated with photographs—both contemporary and historical—the book explores the bond between people and their land. Apps writes about his family farm lovingly, describing its flora and fauna and telling us about it the way we might tell a friend about some special and essential part of our lives. A beautiful blending of words and pictures. --David Pitt

Review

"Part stewardship manual, part memoir, and above all a consideration for the intangible power of a few buildings on a patch of land, Old Farm blends instruction, reflection, and whimsy (giant zucchini, anyone?) to give us a record of the past that is vital to the future. Jerry Apps has a historian's eye and a storyteller's heart -- count me among his legion of grateful readers." - Michael Perry, author of Population 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time and Truck: A Love Story



"In 1970, Gaylord Nelson said that Jerry Apps 'talks of a purity and a simplicity of existence that, for most of us, is lost forever ... Perhaps we cannot return to the Apps cabin in Roshara, or to Thoreau's Walden, but we can affirm our own reverence for the land by doing something to protect it.' Nearly four decades later these words hold true -- perhaps truer than ever as our natural places face increasing pressures from development and climate change. Jerry Apps reminds us that an appreciation for the outdoors contributes to a richer life;  his Old Farm is a heartfelt call for stewardship." - Tia Nelson, Executive Secretary, Wisconsin Board of Commissioners of Public Lands



"Listen to the voices you will find here -- a remarkable combination of farmstead nostalgia, Leopold-like descriptions of ecology, and the clear message that the land can speak to you if you are wise enough to listen." - Ben Logan, author of The Land Remembers

About the Author

Jerry Apps is professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the author of more than twenty-five books, many of them on rural history and country life. Jerry’s nonfiction books include Every Farm Tells a Story, Living a Country Year

, When Chores Were Done, Humor from the Country, Country Ways and Country Days, and Ringlingville USA. He has written two books for young readers, Tents, Tigers and the Ringling Brothers and Casper Jaggi: Master Swiss Cheese Maker, and two novels, The Travels of Increase Joseph and In a Pickle: A Family Farm Story. He received the 2007 Major Achievement Award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers and the 2007 Notable Wisconsin Author Award from the Wisconsin Library Association.

Jerry was born and raised on a small farm in Wuashara County, Wisconsin, about two miles from the land that is the subject of Old Farm. He and his family have owned Roshara since 1966, and he and his wife, Ruth, continue to live there part time. Once a small dairy farm, the property is now a tree farm with an ongoing prairie renovation.

 

Steve Apps is an award-winning photojournalist with twenty-three years in the newspaper industry. As a Wisconsin State Journal staff photographer he has covered a wide range of assignments including the Green Bay Packers and University of Wisconsin–Madison sports. He enjoys documenting Wisconsin and in particular photographing at the family farm in Waushara County.