Oshkosh Public Library

Dear county agent guy, calf pulling, husband training, and other dispatches from the heart of the Midwest, Jerry Nelson

eng

contains biographical information

illustrations

no index present

non fiction

Dear county agent guy

913610140

Jerry Nelson

calf pulling, husband training, and other dispatches from the heart of the Midwest

"In the tradition of Mark Twain and Jean Shepherd, Dave Barry and Garrison Keillor, Jerry Nelson is a humorist whose beat is the American heartland, a small-town world of pickup trucks and Sunday night pancake dinners, dropping in on neighbors and complaining to the country agent. A fourth-generation dairy farmer, Jerry Nelson discovered his voice after he wrote a tongue-in-cheek letter to his county agent for advice on what to do, after a period of heavy rain, about the ducks and Jet Skiers frolicking in his cornfields. From then on Jerry had a new calling to go along with his day job-writing a humorous column called "Dear County Agent Guy." Jerry's depictions of daily life, from the point of view of a taciturn husband with a twinkle in his eye, are read by 250,000 people a week--and occasionally woven into A Prairie Home Companion scripts. These are stories of courtship (Jerry refers to himself as a Norwegian bachelor farmer); childbirth (he offers the delivery room doctor the use of his calf puller); family (he beautifully describes rummaging with his sons through an abandoned family homestead); the duties of a husband (exactly why is it that a man who spends his days in cow manure can't change a baby's diaper?); the days of chores (never will the reader look at a grain silo the same way again). Knee-slappingly funny one moment, poignant the next, it's a very special look at a distinctly American way of life"--, Provided by publisher

Living the country life, or why "let's get plowed!" doesn't mean the same thing to city folks as it does to farmers. A Norwegian bachelor dairy farmer finds a wife! -- The throwback -- Silo time -- That old house -- The modern marvel -- Adventures in cow herding -- Domestic lessons -- My new address -- Old Frank -- The lady vet -- Don Quixote, tax reformer -- Farm supply stories -- Lutefisk season -- Dear county agent guy -- How to raise farm-fresh kids in twenty-five years or less! Labor and delivery -- Electric fencing 101 -- Christmas shopping with a caveman -- Never sleep with a baby chick -- Surviving parenthood -- The ghosts of horses past -- Deep diaper doo-doo -- Uncle Wilmer -- Husband training made easy -- Monkey business -- I'm gonna marry Mrs. Mortimer! -- Staying married to a dairy farmer -- Hawaii boy -- Never kick a fresh cow pie: lessons learned from a lifetime of dairy farming. A dairy farmer's vacation -- My shameful affair with the farm program -- Out in the trees -- Of silos and learjets -- What's in a cow's name? -- A dog named Sam -- Farm corporate jargon -- A lesson in organic chemistry -- You stinker! -- Experiments in fermentation -- Winter storm stories -- Visiting -- The four seasons of farming