Innehållsförteckning för January 2019 från Country Extra

My parents spent their honeymoon vacationing along the Wisconsin side of Lake Superior, and when we were growing up, they brought us to “the big lake” many times. I’m not sure if that’s why I’ve always had a big place in my heart for the lakeshore, but I love spending time there. I shot this photo in 2017 at Amnicon Falls State Park in South Range. That weekend my younger sister, Holly, and I were out exploring. Before heading home, we stopped to see how the falls looked in the winter, after having seen it often in the warmer months. Judging from the lack of tracks in the freshly fallen snow, not many people ventured out in the cold to visit the park. The wind made the air feel a…

Our ranch still does our cow work the old-fashioned way, with horses and dogs. To prepare for calving season, we bring all of our cows back to the home ranch in Avon. My husband, Travis, works with his parents on his grandparents’ ranch. We are a family outfit, and now we have two sons who are learning the ranching ropes as the next generation. On this day, Travis’ parents were in the lead, and he took the tail end of the string with the help of our dogs, Lucy and Kix. I captured this picture of Travis riding our horse Louie when there was still lots of snow on the ground. Once all of the cows are rounded up and safely back at the ranch, we start sorting the heavies…

They say that everything in life happens for a reason, and I tend to agree. During the early months of 2012, I had major heart surgery and it changed my life forever. I spent the next several months walking and hiking trails in and around the Prince Albert area to rebuild my strength, and it was during this time that I discovered my love for nature and the outdoors. It was as if I was seeing the world for the first time. As the year went on, I craved new places to explore and wanted to see more of the beautiful boreal forest, so I branched out and started traveling to Prince Albert National Park twice a week. Located in north-central Saskatchewan and less than an hour away from my…

For more than six decades, my grandpa Bill Haas has created masterpieces. He spent his professional career building homes and also made some “for fun” structures in his backyard, including a church, a covered bridge, a log cabin and a replica of the one-room pioneer schoolhouse he attended as a child. Now a retired carpenter, he still enjoys preserving history through his craft by building scale tabletop models. He re-created his family’s German-style barn, my Grandma Judy’s Dutch-style barn, and other relics in miniature. “I just love doing this,” he said. “It has always been my dream to preserve the history of the area. But I can’t climb anymore, so now I’ve got to think smaller.” Most recently, my grandpa constructed a scale model of the World’s Largest Round Barn,…

1. COLORFUL CHARM While visiting New Hampshire for the holidays, snow fell the night before. I couldn’t resist capturing this scene with my camera. PAUL JARVIS Helena, Alabama 2. CATCHING A FEW WINKS One wintry day, I just happened to glance out the window and spotted this barred owl. He looked so majestic and peaceful while sitting in the snowy tree. SARAH WENTZEL Hines, Minnesota 3. AWESOME AURORA We had guests stay for a few days at our remote lodge. They planned to watch fireworks on New Year’s Eve in Anchorage, but nature had other plans. A storm rolled in, and once the sky cleared a stunning show took place. JOSEPH BRAMANTE Palmer, Alaska 4. PASTURE PALS Our youngest son, Christian, loves to pet and feed the…

1 OLD SAUTEE STORE Sautee Nacoochee, Georgia sauteestore.com Nestled in Georgia’s Appalachian foothills, a landmark general store established in 1872 beckons tourists and locals to experience days gone by. Field Editor Sandra Warwick, of Cleveland, Georgia, says, “Homemade soaps, pens, paper, clothing and shoes fill the aisles. An old music box and a fireplace add charm. And true to southern hospitality, everyone who swings by gets a sample of Swedish Farmer Cheese.” 2 TROUTDALE GENERAL STORE Troutdale, Oregon 503-492-7912 A popular spot for cyclists to stop for lunch at the gateway to the Columbia River Gorge, the store also offers made-in-Oregon specialties, and holiday decor items are sold year-round. Field Editor Tawny Nelson, of North Plains, Oregon, says her family liked browsing the gifts and toys, both…

Early one Monday in January 2007, when a foot of snow had fallen overnight and the temperature had plummeted to minus 10, I was initiated into the routine familiar to generations of Minnesota settlers. “Morning.” My dad, also named John, stated a fact that was not obvious, given the darkness. “We need to clear the driveway. I have to be at work in two hours.” Dad grew up on a Minnesota farm shoveling grain, feeding cattle, walking beans, picking rocks and driving tractors. He did not believe in snowblowers. He still fought the snow with a shovel. Though annoyed, I dutifully got out of bed and dressed in layer after layer: underwear, shirt, socks, sweatpants, sweatshirt, snowpants, coat, boots, face mask, gloves and stocking cap. I braced myself, opened the…

NATURE’S MAGIC With all the thermal activity in Yellowstone National Park, there’s always steam in the air. With a light breeze, the water droplets freeze a delicate filigree onto the branches, like these in the Upper Geyser Basin. It’s a stunning surprise on a winter walk. FROZEN IN TIME Longfellow’s Wayside Inn, located in Sudbury, Massachusetts, is the United States’ oldest operating inn. Henry Ford preserved the site as a living history museum. The grist mill, built in 1929, produces cornmeal and wheat flour for the inn’s baked goods, which taste delicious on a chilly day. A PRISTINE PAUSE A horse takes a refreshing drink of water from the Middle River near Swoope, Virginia. It’s worth waking up early to see the scenic splendor of the Shenandoah Valley on a…

Minnesota is a wonderful place to be in winter! Here my sister Anna, in gray, and her friend Katie, in blue, are getting ready to go ice skating on a pond near Sauk Centre. Laughing, they pull each other up and slowly waddle to the cattails. Then with a shout they are off on a race! You can hear them all the way across the pond. When the girls have had their fun, they come in with rosy red cheeks and make themselves some hot chocolate. This photo was taken in the first week of January in 2018. It was a cold, blustery day, but the girls headed out anyway. I like to skate, too, but I just watched out the window this time. We love this season! There are…

Before our school had a gym or a public place to play basketball or roller-skate, kids like me living on farms found our fun in the barn, especially in the winter. Our barn was one of the largest for miles around. Measuring 32 feet by 72 feet, it had room for eight horses, 30 milk cows, one bull, and 24 calves and heifers. It also had a separator and a milk room, and a silo was attached. Above everything in the barn was a hayloft big enough to store winter feed for the livestock, which included three cuttings of alfalfa, timothy and clover, and chopped dry cornstalks. By the first of October, our hayloft was filled to capacity. It was so full we crawled on our stomachs over the hay…

My husband and I were out for a ride in Greensboro, North Carolina, when we came upon this mailbox. I had to get a picture! We thought it was really unique, and we wanted to submit it so others could enjoy it too. Shirley Cook Belews Creek, North Carolina “OH, THESE RIPE Railroad Raspberries!” (July, page 18) brought back sweet memories of spending summers with my maternal grandparents in Bay Shore, New York. Bay Shore in the mid-1940s was rural, dotted with farms and dairies. Back then trains were steam-driven. And for a mile or so on either side of the tracks were huckleberry bushes. My grandmother gave me and my cousin Jim pails to fill. Our reward was a dish of berries with cream. The berry bushes…

MY GRANDFATHER William Brewer (pictured below) was born on our family farm in Pierrepont, New York, in 1935. When he married his wife, Iona, in 1958, they planted a 5-acre forest of red pine on unused land. Each year they planted a few more acres until they had a 40-acre forest. After 60 years of hard work planting, thinning and trimming, it was time for the timber to be harvested. In the winter of 2018, at age 82, William and his son, Rick, cut the timber, which was to be made into telephone poles. In a few weeks, they hauled out three tractor-trailer loads of logs, totaling 163 trees. And there are still 35 acres of timber left standing to be harvested in the future.…

My dear husband, Patrick, and I moved from southern Mississippi to central Idaho’s Big Lost River Valley during one of the heaviest snowstorms and harshest winters in Idaho’s recent history. It was 20 below zero when we moved into our unfinished home amid swirling, blowing snow. The house didn’t even have a front door, and on the third floor, where a window was missing, a pair of giant white barn owls had made a nest. On our first night in the house, those owls swooped from the top floor, flew past us and out the open door. We named our place White Owl Farm in honor of that encounter. We knew we were going to make the Big Lost River Valley our home when we drove through the area on…

And a few years ago, my husband, Christian, and I discovered one such place in Montana’s Beartooth Mountains. Spectacular peaks, stunning valleys, pristine air, unique alpine vegetation and breathtaking scenery make this segment of the Rocky Mountains unforgettable. The ruggedness of the Beartooth Mountains (named for the jagged appearance of Beartooth Peak) beckons nature lovers and outdoor enthusiasts. Here, many peaks rise more than 12,000 feet high, including Montana’s highest, Granite Peak. EXPLORING WESTERN DESTINATIONS FULL OF EXTRAORDINARY BEAUTY IS MY PASSION. On our first trip, Christian and I arrived at the end of summer, so the Beartooth Highway, a 68-mile stretch of U.S. Route 212 from Red Lodge to Cooke City, was still open. The storied “All-American Road” allowed us to explore this vast and open area. About 19…

Norm and Ellie Schiefer will always remember their early years as tenant farmers in the 1950s. They raised chickens and dairy cattle and had just enough money for necessities. From a young age Ellie learned to use whatever fabric was on hand, including feed sacks, for clothing and household items. Over the years she collected more than 100 feed sacks, so she and Norm had some made into 23 aprons as gifts for women in their family. The couple wanted the next generation to have a piece of history from those days when feed sacks were a popular source of fabric for farm families. The earliest sacks, dating back to the mid-1800s, made of heavy canvas and burlap, were recyclable. But in the early 1900s Eshelman Milling Co.’s Red Rose…