Ridge Stories: Herding Hens, Powdering Pigs, and Other Recollections from a Boyhood in the Driftless

by Gary Jones

Overview

Straight talk from up on the farm

Raised on a small dairy farm in the Driftless Area in the mid-twentieth century, Gary Jones gets real about his rural roots. In this collection of interrelated stories, Jones writes with plainspoken warmth and irreverence about farm, family, and folks on the ridge. Readers will meet Gramp Jones, whose oversized overalls saved him from losing a chunk of flesh to an irate sow; the young one-room-school teacher who helped the kids make sled jumps at recess; Charlotte, the lawn-mowing sheep who once ended up in the living room; Victor the pig-cutter, who learned his trade from folk tradition rather than vet school; and other colorful characters of the ridge. Often humorous and occasionally touching, Jones’s essays paint a vivid picture that will entertain city and country folk alike. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780870209246
Publisher:	Wisconsin Historical Society
Publication date:	09/11/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	NOOK Book
Pages:	199
File size:	436 KB

About the Author

Gary Jones has written professionally as a freelancer since the 1970s, publishing in the Milwaukee Journal, Milwaukee Sentinel, Milwaukee Magazine, and several Door County publications. He taught high school English for many years and in retirement has taught college composition courses at University of Wisconsin–Platteville. 

Gary Jones earned a bachelor of science degree from UW-Platteville, a master's from UW- Madison, and a PhD from UW-Milwaukee. 

Table of Contents

Contents Introduction If the Overalls Fit Rubber Duckies Edna Boyhood Games Pleasant Ridge School Reading, Writing, and Sledding A Cold Lunch Program Do Ghosts Eat Cake? Ida Putting Powder on a Pig Free-Range Chickens Charlotte A Civil Defense Hike to Steeple Rock In Gramp’s Shoes Farm Forecasts The Grasshopper Milking Time Making Hay While the Sun Shines Threshing on the Ridge Getting Up Wood Down on the Farm, TV Style Memorial Day on Pleasant Ridge When Angels Wore Bedsheets Minnie and Mae The Church Band The Catholics Hills and Valleys Snowbound Mixed Nuts Within Walking Distance The Good Life Steve Bryant, the Storyteller Victor, the Pig-Cutter The Pressure Cooker Silas Breese Cursing Like a Farmwife The Longs and the Shorts of It Ain’t That Pretty Foods of the Ridge Good Gardens Uncle Jake Raspberry Queen of the Ridge A Life of Pie Crazy Quilter Searching for My Father Burying My Father