Farmer Boy chapter 22 "Fall of the Year"   Join us this week as we discuss beechnuts, why snow is "poor man's fertilizer", banking walls, saltpeter, and candlemaking. 

Farmer Boy Chapter 21 "The County Fair"   Join us this week as we discuss 1866 money values in 2022, thoroughbred horses, Belgian horses, mules, Chester white pigs, succotash, sulkies, and the world's record for running a mile.

Farmer Boy chapter 20, "Late Harvest"   Join us this week as we discuss the harvest moon, the world's largest pumpkin, how big a hogshead is, the physics of potatoes exploding, and what a poultice is.

Farmer Boy Chapter 19 "Early Harvest"   Join us this week as we talk about timothy grass, swath(e), the difference between eastern and western meadlowlarks, egg nog, windrows, foreshadowing The Long Winter, a bucolic lifestyle and thrift, cutting oats with cradles, shocking oats, mauls, $250 in 1866 dollars, and bombazine.

Episode 31   Farmer Boy Chapter 18, "Keeping House"   Join us this week as we discuss Uncle Andrew Day, lap robes, how to pick a ripe melon, wabbling, watermlon rind preserves, what pigs should eat, hydrangeas, pound cakes, parlors, horsehair cloth, and what nots.

Farmer Boy Chapter 17 "Summer Time"   Join us this week as we discuss growing big pumpkins, pig prices, why you fish when it rains, speckled trout, Lake Chateaugay, black bears in New York State, and jelly vs. jam vs. preserves.

Episode 29 Chapter 16 "Independence Day"   Join us this week as we discuss French calico, the song "Yankee Doodle", downtown Malone, the "Star-Spangled Banner", how many stars on the Flag in 1866, pink lemonade, the word "lief", the value of a half dollar in 1866, sucking pigs, and the Great American Desert.

Episode 28 Farmer Boy Chapter 15 "Cold Snap"   This week we will dicuss carding wool, dyeing wool, planting pumpkins in May, planting corn and pumpkins together, how big an acre really is, 1866 crop yields, and saving freezing corn.

Ch. 14 "Sheep Sheering"   Join us this week as we talk about shearing sheep, sheep swimming, sheep butting, how long it takes to shear by hand, how often to shear, merino wool, and fleece weight.

Join us for a discussion of Chapter 13 of Farmer Boy, "The Strange Dog".   Topics for this episode include Morgan horses, horses' teeth, $200 in 2022 dollars, how much a Morgan horse is, setting the sponge for baking, and woodlots.

Farmer Boy Chapter 12 "The Tin Peddler"   This week we talk about rubbing down horses with clean cloths, Saranac New York, working exclusively with tin, trading rags, and a peddlars cart.

Farmer Boy Chapter 11 "Springtime"   Today we will discuss door sills, horse traces, furrows, the St. Lawrence River, pumphouses, lizards in New York (five-lined skinks), whistling girls, and Canada peas.

Chapter 10 "The Turn of the Year"   Today we discuss Scottish proverbs, winterberries, sugaring off, how big a bushel is, the railroad in Malone, how much $500 of 1866 dollars is in 2022, straw on the floors, and whitewashing.    

Chapter 9 "Breaking in the Calves"   Join us as we discuss moosewood, gee and haw, oxen vs. cattle, Rocky Mountain oysters, augers, lynchpins, and sacré bleu! 

Chapter 8 "Sunday"   Join us this week as we discuss currycombs, fullcloth, broadcloth, stock ties, merino wool, Uncle Wesley and Cousin Frank, how to make potato starch, the word "harrow", and apple pies with a slice of cheese.

Join us this week for chapter 7 of Farmer Boy entitled "Saturday Nights".   We discuss donuts, the Comanche, soft soap, shirts, and underwaists.

Chapter 6 "Filling the Ice House"   Join us this week as we discuss the Trout River, the French-Canadian population of Franklin County in 1860, crosscut saws, ice tongs, sawdust as insulation, apples and onions, and bird's nest pudding.

Chapter 5 "Birthday"   Join us this week as we discuss Almanzo's true year of birth, yokes, barn jumpers, weaving, hanks of yarn, stanchions, and freezing your tongue to a flagpole.

Chapter 4 "Surprise"   This week's episode covers primers, schoolhouse entries, and whips.

Chapter 3 "Winter Night"   In this week's episode, we discuss tallow, pannikins, hossocks, popcorn, and the Wilder "dialect". 

Chapter 2 "Winter Evening"   Join us this week as we talk about threshing floors, fanning mils, sheep folds, haymows, James Wilder, hoop skirts, Angelina Wilder, and air castles.

Welcome to the first chapter of "Farmer Boy", School Days!   In this chapter we will talk about the Wilder family, fullcloth, and Hardscrabble Hill.

"Deer in the Wood"   This week we discuss quilts, "O Susannah", and "Auld Lang Syne".

"The Wonderful Machine"   This week's podcast discusses sumac, hubbard squash, hulled corn, threshing machines, and johnnycakes.

"Harvest"   This week we discuss Laura's cousin Charley, harvesting oats the old-fashioned way*, yellowjackets, and herbs for fevers.

Chapter 10 "Summertime"   Come with us as we discuss Laura's Uncle Henry, her neighbors the Petersons, the Huleatts, the Godey's Ladies Book, Aunt Lotty, polishing stoves, making cheese, "Old Grimes", and a grubbing hoe. Would Pa really not have been stung by bees while looking for honey? 

"Going to Town"   Today our chapter covers hazel bushes, thimble flowers, grass flowers, jack knives, turkey red*, galluses, the "Roses Are Red" poem, and "Be It Ever So Humble There's No Place Like Home."

Chapter 8 "Dance at Grandpa's"   Today's topics covered include much of Pa's family (his parents and some of his siblings), hasty pudding, undergarments, darning socks, jewelry, "O You Buffalo Gals", "The Irish Washerwoman", salt-rising bread.

"The Sugar Snow"   Today's podcast episode discusses maple syrup production, milkpans, delaine fabric, basques and whalebone structuring in garments, and "I'm Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines".

"The Two Big Bears"   Today we talk bears, latched doors, shades of blue, bedtime prayers, and "My Sweet Kitty Wells".

Join us this week for Chapter 5 from "Little House in the Big Woods," "Sundays." We will explore what Laura could and couldn't do on Sundays, the story of Grandpa's Sled and the Pig, as well as several songs of the era.

Chapter 4 of Little House in the Big Woods is "Christmas." Join us for a discussion on Christmas cooking, the Ingalls cousins, old-fashioned songs, and toys.

Chapter 3 "The Long Rifle"   Please join us this week as we discuss Pa cleaning his rifle, making bullets, and loading the rifle.

In today's podcast episode, we discuss bear meat, housekeeping in a log cabin, churning butter, patty pans, kerosene lanterns, and whether or not you can still find black panthers in Wiconsin today.