The Mick Hill

No rolling plains, fruited or otherwise, characterize the driftless region of Wisconsin.  We are a land of hills and valleys.  Fruit trees typically are raised on hilltops, the height protecting orchards from blossom-killing spring frosts that tend to settle into the valleys.  And from those ridges, the blue skies appear especially spacious, the series of hills and valleys in all directions from a summer highpoint lookout, like ocean waves of green.

            And because hills and valleys were such a part of the lives of past residents in northern Richland County, they are all named.  If from my birthplace on Pleasant Ridge you walk west on County D, you will descend the Mick Hill.  Should you walk east, and in a quarter mile turn right on County DD, you will travel down the Dicks Hill.  But if you continue on County D along the ridge a couple of miles, you will come to the Pauls Hill.

            Hills tend to take their names from their adjacent property owners, and the topographical identifications remained long after the demise of the namesakes, at least among those who remember.  Now, if you were giving directions and mentioned the Mick Hill, the Dicks Hill, or the Pauls Hill, you would in all likelihood receive a blank stare from the lost traveler.

            Valleys are more likely to take their names from landscape features, Snow Valley, Wheat Hollow, and Bear Valley, and especially streams of water, such as the Upper and Lower Buck Creek Valley, Little Willow Valley, and Fancy Creek.   Direction givers, however, now use the alphabetical or numerical identifications of roads, and the confident automated female voice of GPS has replaced neighbors who point in a direction yonder and ramble on listing landmarks to watch for.

            If you take County D down Upper Buck Creek (also known as the north branch) you’ll pass the homestead of Isaac Johnson where my future Granny, Hattie was born, and farther down the valley, the home of her grandfather, Civil War veteran John Clark Davis.  But if you take the south branch down County DD, you’ll pass the homestead of Fred Jones, father of Charlie, my future Gramp.   Hattie and Charlie married and settled on an 80-acre ridge farm located near the convergence of the tops of the two valleys, a topographical compromise symbolizing the nature of a union that results in a long-lasting marriage.

            The two branches of Buck Creek merged near the lower junction of D and DD, becoming a tributary of the Pine River that eventually flowed into the Wisconsin River which emptied into the Mississippi River and finally the Gulf of Mexico, water world without end.

            Back on the ridge-top farm where I was born, the only water we saw was pumped out of the ground.  Buck Creek was a brook we saw on our way to town, driving down the Mick Hill, a landmark that figured largely into our lives.  At the end of summer my mother would send me down that hill where I’d climb the fence into the young cattle pasture through the gate by the driven well pipe that filled a stock tank with water and technically was the beginning of our branch of Buck Creek, springs farther down the valley adding to its size.

            Up the pasture hill adjacent to our fields was an heirloom apple orchard that bore fruit destined for my mother’s first pies of the season.  I’d trudge back up the Mick Hill with a paper grocery bag of apples, gnawing on one during my ascent, visions of fresh pie apple dancing in my head.

            The Mick Hill could be treacherous during winter.  Country roads at that time were flanked by steep-cut banks bristling with brush.  Subsequently even light snowfalls would drift if the wind were blowing.  More than once in the middle of a winter’s night we’d hear a pounding on our front door, and after my father had yanked on his pants to investigate, he’d find some guy who on his way home from a night out in Hub City (a village with a church, a gas station, and a half-dozen taverns) had slid off the road and could my father possibly pull him up the hill?

            My good-natured dad would agree, and while the unfortunate motorist melted snow on the rug by the front door, Paw would finish dressing, put on a coat, hat, gloves, and boots, and walk out to the machine shed, fetch a log chain, and with the visitor leaning on a fender, drive his tractor down the hill to the ditched car.

            Sometimes the assisted motorist would open his wallet, but more often the wallet had been emptied at Hub City and my father would be rewarded for his services only with heart-felt words of thanks.

            Farther above our home north forty lay the farm of Don Armstrong, an elderly small time dairy farmer nearing retirement from milking cows, but still going strong drinking beer.  He and his wife Tillie, (who always dressed in black and wore a wide-brimmed matching hat, reminding me as an adult of the British gardening expert Gertrude Jekyl) would spend winter afternoons at a tavern in Hub City.

            On their way home late one afternoon Armstrong was spinning out and losing traction on the Mick Hill, and in his inebriated concentration didn’t notice when his elderly wife opened the door and stepped outside to push, just as his car regained a purchase on the hill and managed to achieve the summit.

            He was sitting blurry-eyed at the kitchen table waiting for his supper when the door opened and Tillie walked in.  Oh, he said, finally realizing what had transpired.  I wondered who that old woman was I saw walking up the Mick Hill behind me!

            My grandparents Jones had taken over the 80-acre homestead of Granny’s father Isaac Johnson, and later Gramp bought an adjoining 100 acres.  When my father was ready to retire from farming, I purchased 90 acres of that larger parcel, both as an emotional and financial investment.

            After my wife and I had made our final land-contract payment, we found that our tax bill for the property indicated that we held 92 acres of land.  This has to be a mistake, my wife said, studying the bill, and phoned the township clerk to clear up the problem. 

            There can be no orphan land, he said, and then explained that before the 1930s, the road went up the north side of the ravine that led up the Mick Hill.  When County D was paved, the road was rerouted up the south side, making the two-acre slice of land inaccessible to the Micks.

            Technically, I have a right to rename that ascent The Jones Hill, but I will let tradition prevail.  Death and taxes have traditionally been the reality of a man’s existence.  The receipt of free land from the tax man was an unexpected bonus and gives me hope for other good things to drift into my life!