That's My Entertainment!

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

I was sitting with my uncle in his garage one summer in Wautoma, Wisconsin on a summer day.  He was sharing with me about his winter window entertainment.

He told his neighbor that he, and his kids could deer hunt on his farm all he wants. No charge at all. The only thing that he had to do was to leave the head, hide, legs and entrails on a certain spot. This certain spot was about 40 yards from his living room window. He explained that while the Wisconsin snows were blowing, he can view the entrails from his living room window. 

He explained it like this: the crows find it first, as they are squawking and eating,  the hawks notice it. The hawks chase off the crows to have a turn to eat. The eagles then show up.  The eagles chase off the hawks to have their turn to eat. 

After all of those birds are well feed, then the coyotes find it. The coyotes will eat what meat is left, plus the bones and hide. It's then all consumed.  While all of this is happening over many days, my uncle is watching it all from his living room window. He says that this is his winter entertainment!

William James Roop

Roop-Crappell Ministries

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

The Chicken Story

 Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

I was in a tavern in central Wisconsin, just a few miles south of Wautoma.  My wife and I were eating a chicken dinner with an elderly lady, seventy-two years old, but looking like she is twenty years younger. She was very nice and a bit plump. The chicken dinner reminded her of the chicken story.

With a sly smile she explained how that years ago, her and her now deceased husband, lived in Milwaukee, and had a small farm here in central Wisconsin. They would work and live in Milwaukee, then spend the weekends at the farm, a little over a hundred miles away.

At their country weekend farm, they grew vegetables, hay,  and chickens. One weekend,  when they were leaving back for home, they stopped at a McDonald's and a few stores before arriving home.  They spent several hours at the stores and a two hour drive home. While they were gone a neighbor looked after the little farm for the eggs that the chickens provided.

They unloaded the car, then went in for the night.  Soon, a neighbor knocked on their door. They answered, and the neighbor asked if they have any chickens.  After they said yes, the neighbor pointed outside. 

Out in their front yard was a chicken walking around!  Apparently,  a chicken had hidden underneath the car as they left the farm, and stayed there as they made their extra stops, the the two hour drive home to Milwaukee!

That goes to show us that we should never underestimate the prowess of a determined chicken! If only we could be as determined as that hen in life.  They guided the chicken into the garage and kept her there until the next trip to the farm.

William James Roop

Roop-Crappell Ministries

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

The Amish Driver

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

My wife and I were washing clothes at a washateria in Wautoma, a little town in Central Wisconsin. Another gentleman soon joined us. He was tall and slim and in his sixties. We soon started talking while our clothes were washing.

His name is Bill, just like mine. In fact, we have a lot in common. He is a missionary, attended Bible College, Bible Seminary, and is a minister. We have all of that in common! Once he started talking it was off to the races!

Bill is a missionary to the Amish people here in central Wisconsin. He does this by serving that community as a driver. He drives Amish men in his large pickup truck around the local area to there jobs. For being a  people who live very simply, the Amish can be a very complicated society. They don't believe in driving cars themselves, but it's okay to hire someone else to drive them around!

Some of them work at sawmills and farmers fields too far for their horse and buggy's, so they hire Bill and his big pickup truck to take them around the area to their job sites. That gives him an opportunity to witness about his personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

That kind of decision is up to the local Amish Bishops. In the Wautoma area there are four Amish bishops. There are many other ways that they can be different and complicated, that is one that Bill can interact, and let them know that they can have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

William James Roop, M.A.B.S.

Roop-Crappell Ministries

My Author Page

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

They Are Always Looking Up

Hello everyone. Praise the Lord!

My mother, my wife, and I flew  to Wisconsin, to spend a week with my Uncle Jerry and Aunt Nancy. They live in small town called Wautoma, in Central Wisconsin. They live on the old family farmhouse.

We were all sitting around the kitchen table and Jerry was talking about ice fishing. Ice fishing is a very big activity here in Wisconsin.

Because of ice fishing rules in Wisconsin is no more than three holes and one pole per hole. Well you have one hole in three poles. They guys around there always cut out three holes with one pole and one tip-up per pole. So one fisherman can only have three tip-ups at a time.

They told us that the game warden can drive the top of the hill, and from his car with his binoculars, look to see how many tip-ups you may have. If you have too many tip-ups, you'll get a big fine!

He told us they us live fish on the hooks, and let them flop around. He said the big northerns pikes that they like to catch, just sit at the bottom of lake and look up all the time. They're always looking up. Because that's where the sick fish go. When fish that are sick, they swim to the top of the lake to get more oxygen. Those big northerns will swim up and eat them!

So they put their bait in the water connected to a tip-up. When the fish swims up take the bait, the tip up will be pulled up. When you see your tip-up go from laying down, to straight up, you know you have a fish at the end.

You then walk over to the hole, grab the tip-up, and then hook the fish really good. Very slowly, pull on the line, and pull the fish up out of the water, and up through the hole. Then you're free to save the fish, or eat it on the spot.

Fisherman in Wisconsin have these little wooden shacks that are heated, have TVs, and radios, and they pull them on the ice. So while they're waiting for a tip-up, they can hang-out comfort. They have portable stoves for heating or cooking their freshly caught fish.

Have you ever been ice fishing? Can you tell us about it in the comment section? If you like these stories, and want to catch on again you can click on the follow button I could talk with the page.

William James Roop

 Roop-Crappell Ministries 

 Hospice Care and Dying 

 The Trucking Tango 

 Apostolic Theological Seminary 

Dumpster Love

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

My wife and I, and my mother flew up to Wautoma, Wisconsin, to see my Aunt and Uncle, and other relatives my mother has of there.

We had a great time sitting around visiting, drinking coffee, and just enjoying everyday. One morning, my Uncle Jerry Mankowski, said he needs to go to the dump. He had a couple small bags of trash.

Tell me that the dump opens at eleven in the morning. He wanted be there by at least quarter till to get line. He said that there usually a long line at the dump. So I was kind of expecting dozens of people in line down the road.

We walk down to his pickup truck and throw a couple bags in the back. We drive down to the dump about twenty miles an hour. Tell me small country lanes that's probably fast enough. The dump wasn't very far away. Wautoma is a very small town in Central Wisconsin. 

We got there and we were third in line! When the dump finally opened, for the grand total of six cars line! Even though we were third in line it took us a grand total of ten minutes to be in and out! We waited at the gate longer than we were in the dump.

While we're driving around to the dumpster, Jerry tells me a story. He said a few years ago he was dumping the trash. The middle age to elderly lady pulled up behind him, to do the same. She struck up a conversation with him. She said she was looking for a boyfriend and want to know if he was interested!

He thought it was kind of funny that this woman was interested in him. I kind of laughed and said that's a great story. But to myself I told knew that this woman was just looking for a rich old man. She was looking for someone to leach money off. Small town problems same thing reflect big town problems.

William James Roop

 Roop-Crappell Ministries 

 Hospice Volunteer Stories 

 The Trucking Tango 

 Apostolic Theological Seminary 

Solar Power Airport

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

I was just up in Wisconsin with my wife and mother. My mother was born and raised in the area. A lot of my mother's family still live in that area of Central Wisconsin.

One of the big news this summer up there was the airport in Wautoma, Wisconsin. They have a small general aviation airport there with lots of acreage around the airport. So they came up with with an idea to utilize that acreage.

Except for the runways and taxiways, they are going to put solar panels all around the airport to generate electricity for the town and area. The city is going to put solar panels on around two-hundred acres, which should generate ninety-nine megawatts of power, to power around fifty-thousand homes!

I thought it was a fantastic idea and a good way to use land but otherwise would be unusable. But it seems a lot of people I'm town don't like it. I would suspect that most of those people whom are complaining, never go out to the airport anyway!

Seems like a great way to produce electricity free from the sun without having to generate it. And it's going to be on land which no one goes out to anyway. Unless you're a pilot, or a family member of a pilot, we have no reason to go to a general aviation airport, so why would it matter to them?

You might say well it's going to cost the town money. That's not the case since a private company will build and provide the maintenance, in exchange for the ensuing profit it would regenerate.  So the local taxpayers would not be burdened with increased costs.  Seems like a good idea to me.

William James Roop

 Roop-Crappell Ministries 

 Hospice Volunteer Stories 

 The Trucking Tango 

 Apostolic Theological Seminary 

The Secret Bomb Shelter

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

I and my wife with my mother was up visiting my Uncle and Aunt, Jerry and Nancy and Mankowski. They both are still living on the old family dairy farm. My mother still has a lot of family living in that area.

I was sitting down with my uncle, and he was telling me about the local news. He said that a couple of towns over, they had leveled a building, so that they could build a parking lot.

When they leveled of the building they found underneath something very interesting. They discovered an old nuclear fallout shelter that was constructed for the town. They built the shelter in the nineteen-fifties, to I'm sure, a great fanfare. But since that time it was slowly forgotten about, except for a few city officials. After the Cold War they sealed the shelter off.

After about thirty years everybody had forgotten about the shelter. That's until they tore down the building that was over it. That's when they re-discovered the long lost shelter that was underground. The shelter was full of dehydrated food stuffs, for the hundreds of people they planned on keeping safe in there for weeks at a time.

The city officials decided to just throw away all the dehydrated food, and fill in the old shelter with dirt! I just shook my head and told my uncle that I thought that was a great waste. But when word of the dehydrated food, most of it was taken by the local hunters.  But for just a little money, that could keep the shelter in place, and just put it in the parking lot on top of it.

It's just a little extra money they could have kept their nuclear fallout shelter! But these days you never know if you're going to need one! Both Russia and China are still threatening us with nuclear war! I thought it would be a good investment just to keep it around.

William James Roop

 Roop-Crappell Ministries 

 Hospice Volunteer Stories 

 The Trucking Tango 

 Apostolic Theological Seminary