Chris Hardie

A few weeks ago, my wife Sherry and I hiked to the top of Brady’s Bluff in Perrot State Park near Trempealeau on a cool fall afternoon. As we stood atop the bluff some 460 feet above the river, I was struck by the breathtaking vista before us.

Halloween is the season for ghost stories and hauntings, but are there even bigger creatures that go bump in the night?

In less than a month — Nov. 7 at 2 a.m. to be precise — most of the nation’s clocks will be turned back an hour as we return to standard time. At that time, the clock in Chris Hardie’s office will again display the correct tim.

It’s harvest time in the country, with farmers busy in the fields at all hours of the day collecting the annual crops. The warm and dry fall has created ideal harvest conditions so far across much of Wisconsin.

A sycamore tree growing on the Hardie farm is about 50 years old, surviving Wisconsin winters much colder than its preferred climates.

Memories are strange things at times because you never know what triggers recollections from the aging gray matter. Recently, the warm weather triggered decades-old memories of a Shetland pony named Cinnamon.

And suddenly, summer is over. Another summer that began with such high hopes that we had turned the corner on the pandemic is fading just as we face another spike in COVID-19 cases.

Whether it was at Grandma’s or Aunt Sara’s, I’ve always loved hearing stories. So, it should be no surprise that I was drawn into a career of hearing them and telling them.

One of the best things about living in Wisconsin is traveling around our beautiful state and experiencing places and activities that are not far from home.

Bit by bit, the smaller homestead farms disappear a little more each year as houses and buildings are torn down or left to decay. But if you look closely while driving through farm country you can still spot one legacy of farming that still exists in many places — the treasure troves that some may call junkyards.