The Present My Bro Could not Give.

COLFAX, WISCONSIN do you know that since 1969, the US has lost 85 percent of its dairy farms. And do you know that since 1969, Wisconsin has lost just about seventy % of its dairy farms?

Ralph, writer of the books Xmas in Dairyland ( True Stories from a Wisconsin Farm ) ( Aug 2003 ) and Give Me a Home Where the milk cows Wander ( October 2004 ). Figures from the Census of farming and from the North American Farm Bureau Federation indicate that in 1969 more than a half 1,000,000 dairy farms operated in the US, but by the year two thousand, only 83,000 dairy farms stayed. And according to stats from the U Census of farming, in the last thirty years of the 20th century, Wisconsin went from 66,000 dairy farms down to twenty thousand dairy farms. "that's the reason why I made up my mind to write stories about being raised on a dairy farm. They have just about vanished from the landscape," Ralph said. "My pa milked twenty cows and knew every one of them by name. Ralph's new book, Give Me a Home Where the diary cattle Wander ( 192 pages ; $13. 95 ; ISBN 1-59113-592-3 ) is a collection of twenty true stories that took place on her family's farm forty years back. According to Midwest Book Review, Ralph's first book, Xmas In Dairyland : True Stories From A Wisconsin Farm "is a charming anthology of true yarns of agricultural life on a Wisconsin dairy farm. From the book A Heartland Yuletide Collection. As Xmas approached, we all searched for the ideal gift for each member of the family. Since I knew Jim harbored a hidden desire to scribble, I acquired him 2 beautifully hardbound books composed of nothing apart from empty pages, so he could fill them with his very own words. As we gathered around our elders ' tree on Xmas morning, Jim's grin shown brightly as he observed his family begin to uncover the strangest collection of gifts I had ever seen. Tiffany wall lamps. My little brother opened a half-empty box of incense. But Jim just sat cross-legged on the floor, unfazed by the puzzled looks and embarrassed thank you's. Even though Wisconsin is still known as America's Dairyland, life on a family homestead is fast being replaced by company agribusiness, and the memories valued in Xmas In Dairyland are fast becoming unique milestones of an age having to be saved in thought and print in the interests of generations to come. Ralph made a Bachelor of humanities in English with a writing stress from the College of Wisconsin-Whitewater and also earned a professional at humanities in Teaching from UW-Whitewater. Give Me a Home Where the diary cattle Wander and Yuletide in Dairyland ( True Stories from a Wisconsin Farm ) are available thru Barnes & Noble and Amazon.