Larry Scheckel

I have been writing a science column for nearly 20 years, published weekly in the Tomah Journal newspaper. In 2011, we put 233 of those question and answer columns in a book entitled Ask Your Science Teacher.
A new, updated, improved, and expanded book Ask A Science Teacher, (notice the slight name change) has been published by Experiment Publishing located in New York City.
I am so very proud of this book, as it has been carefully copyedited and fact checked. The release date is listed as December 17, 2013. But it is available on Amazon.com and is being sent to Barnes and Noble stores across the United States. Ask A Science Teacher will also be found in smaller and independent book stores across this great land of ours.

An excerpt from forth coming book:

Seneca Seasons: A Farm Boy Remembers

Coon Hunting    part 4 of 4

Then there appeared a glimmer of orange light on the distance horizon. The moon was coming up over Lynch’s farm up on Highway 27. Big and bright, we could see the outline of Lynch’s barn against the moon yellow-orange glow. Now I could see where I was, could make out our own farm buildings, the Big Barn, the Small Barn, the granary and the big oak tree out by the road.

            Soon, the whole moon was above the horizon. We were now crossing the Oak Tree field, approaching Oak Grove Ridge road that would take us to our farm buildings.

            On our return Dad again talked about hunting and growing up on a farm in Springbrook, Iowa when he was a kid. We liked hearing these stories, although I believe we forgot most of them, remembering only bits and pieces. He talked about the hunting accident in which a friend and neighbor was killed. About cultivating corn in the river bottoms near Green Island, Iowa located a dozen miles below Bellevue.

            Dad talked about how mules would plow and cultivate all day, with no complaints, and that a farmer got a lot more out of mules, than horses. But come noontime, those mules knew when it was time for lunch. They just took off for the barn. No need to try to stop them.  If you have one more row to cultivate, and wanted to extend the working time another 20 minutes. Well, you can just forget about it. Those mules knew how to tell time.

            This was before the time the dams were put in on the Mississippi River.  The river was narrow and faster, not the large pools we have now behind each dam.  Dad talked about laying sod in a gully on his Dad’s home farm south of Springbrook, and how a storm came up and washed away two days of hard work.

            We were getting a glimpse of our Dad’s past, that he did not often share.  Years later, our uncle Florian, Dad’s brother, hinted widely that their father, Mathias Scheckel, was not always the caring and loving father depicted in his obituary.

            Regardless of that relationship, the Scheckel boys on Oak Grove Ridge never experienced such ill feelings. We were most fortunate.  It seems that every year the following passage from Colossians 3:21 would be read in Church, “Fathers, do not anger your children, lest they lose heart”. It is one of few Bible quotes that I can remember.

            Dad told us about the time when some bootleggers took him and some other Iowa lads out in the woods at night. The bootleggers showed Dad a whiskey still.  The bad guys were toting machine guns. We peppered Dad with questions. “Why don’t we have mules, instead of horses?” No real answer, except “mules are harder to get”. “Did the bootleggers shoot their machine guns?” It was well after 10 o’clock when we got home.  What a great adventure that evening!

            Dad skinned that coon the next day.  He stretched its hide over a board. Coonskin caps were big at that time. I remember seeing in our Weekly Reader at school that a Tennessee guy named Estes Kefauver ran for President and went around campaigning wearing a coonskin cap.

            Some Sunday evenings we would walk up to the Fradette family that lived on the Kuntz farm.  We Scheckels didn’t have television, but the Fradettes did and we watched the NBC program Davy Crockett at 6 o’clock. Fess Parker wore a coonskin cap and so did his sidekick, George Russell, played by Buddy Ebsen.  The tail of the raccoon hung down over the frontiersman’s back.

            I don’t recall how much Dad got for that pelt. But that hunt was worth a million dollars to his sons!

An excerpt from forth coming book:
Seneca Seasons: A Farm Boy Remembers
Coon Hunting part 3 of 4
“Bring the flashlight closer, Phillip” Dad said. Dad wanted the flashlight beam to be in line somewhat with the gun sights. Dad shoots, misses, the coon moves a few feet further up the tree, partially hidden behind a limb. This is one cagey coon!
Dad reloads the .22 rifle. Phillip was holding the flashlight slightly behind Dad’s head and the beam of light right in line with the raccoon. Dad slowly pulled the trigger, the gunshot echoing in the fall night, and the coon came tumbling out of the tree, striking the ground with a thud. Browser rushes over, grabs the coon, and lets go, realizing perhaps that this is not a squirrel. No need to shake the living daylights out of this monster!
We examine the coon via the flashlight beam. Dad finds a small twig about eight inches long, cuts the tendon behind both hind legs of the raccoon, and threads the stick thru the tendon. showed us years earlier how to use this technique to carry squirrels. Squirrels are much lighter than coons, and only one hind leg is sufficient.
We trudge up the hill. I am totally disoriented. I don’t even know where we are or what direction is north. Knowing which way north was is very important to me, because that is how I know where I am, and what direction I need to go.
But thankfully, Dad knows where we are. We boys follow behind. Soon we are off “the bench”, into the “small field” and onto the “long field”.
We follow the “long field” fence that separates the Scheckel land from our neighbor Rudy Kozelka. The stars overhead seem so close you could reach up and touch them. The Milky Way was clearly visible from southwest to northeast. I had read about the Milky Way at Oak Grove School that past year.

An excerpt from forthcoming book “Seneca Seasons: A Farm Boy Remembers”.
Part 2

We were now down on the Kettle Hollow floor, next to the small stream that started several miles to the southeast, near the Reed farm, and coursed its way to the Mississippi River, some five miles distant. We walked nearly to the fence that crosses the creek bed and separates the Scheckel property from the Sutton farm.
In the distance we hear Browser baying and barking, mostly barking. But we liked to think we have a coon dog, so we settle on baying. The sound comes from up on “the bench”. It is one of two easy paths up and out of Kettle Hollow, still on the Scheckel property. There was a much older road there.
That road is overgrown with brush and small trees, but quite discernible. We scramble up the hill with Browser’s baying guiding us. Pitch dark, stumbling, sand had washed down this abandoned road, so the going was tough. And off to our left was a very deep ravine, always in back of our minds.
We’re up on the bench now, nearing Browser, Dad’s flashlight catching a glimpse of him jumping up and down. Ole Browser had come through again! He’d treed a raccoon. Dad shines the flashlight up in the tree, a search pattern back and forth stroking, and sure enough, about 20 feet off the ground is a raccoon, sitting in the crotch of a mid size oak tree, the leaves mostly gone as this is late October and there are more leaves on the ground than on the trees.
Dad hands the flashlight to Phillip.
“Keep the light right on that coon”, Dad admonishes Phillip.
Dad loads a single .22 caliber “short” in the breach of the rifle. It is the smallest bullet for that gun. A bigger bullet would be a “long” and a bigger bullet than a “long” is a “long rifle”. Dad would not buy anything more than a “short”.
We had heard that Dad was a good shot. His brother, Arnold, told us. “I saw your Dad hit a rabbit on the run, got him with one shot as he jumped over a log”. Well, that was good enough for us boys. An uncle’s testimony has to be worth something, we thought.
“Bring the flashlight closer, Phillip” Dad said. Dad wanted the flashlight beam to be in line somewhat with the gun sights. Dad shoots, misses, the coon moves a few feet further up the tree, partially hidden behind a limb. This is one cagey coon!

An excerpt from forth coming book:
Seneca Seasons: A Farm Boy Remembers
Coon Hunting
Raccoons came around the farm buildings at night. They were after anything we had, that tasted good to a raccoon, like young chickens, lambs, and piglets. These farm critters were all good meals for the “masked bandits”, as we called them. Besides, coons carried rabies, and if you got bit by a coon, or any animal that a rabid coon bit, you had instant death. And a painful one at that! That was the wisdom on the Scheckel farm. So the raccoons were no friend of the farmer, that we knew for sure!
We never saw a raccoon during the day. Dad said they only came out at night. The Berniers down the road had a raccoon in a cage for some time. Their nephews, Bob and Don Laskaski, found a baby coon out in the woods. They kept it in a wire cage that was normally used to raise rabbits. They fed it table scraps, the animal grew fast, got too fat, and died.
Several times Dad took Phillip, Bob and me coon hunting in the early 1950’s. One night was memorable and special. We took my dog Browser. Browser was a mutt, not a coon dog. But at least, he was a dog. And who knows, he might even tree a coon. Something about “teaching an old dog new tricks”.
We walked down the Oak Grove Ridge road, crossed the fence and started down into the summer cattle pasture that lead to Kettle Hollow. Dad carried the single shot rifle and a flashlight. Phillip and I each toted a kerosene lantern. We three boys thought we were on a trek, a safari, an adventure of a lifetime.
It was pitch dark, no moon, and we stumbled over projecting roots and rocks. Cattle and cows are creatures of habit and they will take the same path over and over. I marveled at the cow paths cut into the very steep hill pasture, something like those terraces seen in exotic far away countries. Cows could reach every blade of grass on the side hill using the paths they made about eight feet apart.
Browser, my faithful brown mutt, ran out ahead, occasionally coming back to greet his companions and masters. I sensed that Browser knew that we were on a special voyage. The flashlight picked up the surreal glare of the dog’s eye.
To be continued…..

Excerpt from forthcoming book “Seneca Seasons: A Farm Boy Remembers”

Gopher Cat

She was a yellow calico cat. Very quiet, the way cats are supposed to be. She arched her back up when you reached down to stroke her. She didn’t have a name, so we simply called her Cat. Cat would sit on an owner’s lap and form a perfect ball. Cat had 3 or 4 whiskers on each side of the head. I wondered what those whiskers were for. Other animals didn’t have whiskers. Tweak those whiskers and Cat would pull her head back. We would put our head close to the stomach of Cat. and listen to the purring growling sounds.

Phillip: “It’s digesting food. That the stomach growling.”

Lawrence: “No its not. That’s the heart pumping blood.”

Bob: “Tain’t neither one. Cats got special parts that make ’em do that. That’s why those Egyptian pharaohs had cats running around.”

Cat was a house cat in winter and bad weather. She could hang out in the kitchen, living room, or basement. Cat would get a slice of bread soaked in milk, placed on a saucer. Cat was treated special, different that the other farm cats. 

But in summer, Cat was a moneymaker. You see, Cat hunted gophers and gophers had a Crawford County bounty of a nickel. Gopher tails brought  five cents, mole feet garnered a quarter, and monies paid for rattlesnakes varied depending on the number of rattles or eggs. 

We would observe Cat out in the fields and along the roadway, crouching down, as still as could be, not making a move. Cat was waiting, watching, ready to pounce on a mouse or, as we hoped, a gopher. We knew what Cat was up to. We did not disturb her. But some time later, maybe an hour, we would see Cat walking across the lawn, a gopher dangling from her mouth.

Slowly we would approach Cat, convince her to drop her prey, get the pinchers from the garage, cut that prized tail off, and return the gopher to Cat. We had it all figured out. If Cat didn’t get her gopher returned, she just might not bring the gopher around for us to see. Cat just might eat the gopher out in the pastures or roadside, and we would never be the wiser.

Gopher tails was stored in a fruit jar of salt kept in the garage. The salt preserved the gopher tails and mole feet. Perhaps once a year that jar made it over to the Chuck Sprosty farm on Highway E that led down to Lynxville. Mr. Sprosty was the Seneca Township treasurer who counted the contents and paid the bounty.

Why a bounty? It was thought the gophers and moles created tunnels in the soil and on those tunnels and holes led to erosion on the steep hillsides of Crawford County.

How’s Your Writing Going?
It’s a question friends, neighbors, and relatives often ask. Well, it’s going OK. We keep writing a weekly column for the Tomah Journal entitled “Ask Your Science Teacher”. Our first book, by the same name, Ask Your Science Teacher, has been out for about 18 months.
Whenever a book is on Amazon.com, publishers will look at the sales numbers and ask to “pick it up” and republish if the numbers look good. So our new, revised, top-notch, Grade A book will come out in November published by Experiment Publishing out of New York. Completely revamped, updated, and added to. They changed the title slightly to Ask a Science Teacher. It has 250 articles about how the world works and things you always wanted to know.
Our second science book Ask Your Science Teacher-Volume 2 will be ready in about 4 months. We don’t know who the publisher will be.
Our pride and joy right now is an account of growing up on that Crawford County, Wisconsin farm out on Oak Grove Ridge a few miles northwest of Seneca.
The basic manuscript is done, but needs a ton of editing and reworking. I have an artist doing sketches, another artist doing the color front cover, and a learned person, former Air Force colonel, doing the first read-through.
Each continuing blog will contain a snippet from the manuscript and I invite your comments and feedback.
Shocking oats
I was a typical kid on the farm, always wanting to do more grownup things. During oat harvesting time, carrying water to the workers in the field was the first assigned task. When we were about 12 years old we learned to shock grain.
Learning to make a good shock that would stand up to the wind was not easy. Dad or Mom had showed us how. We wore a straw hat with string beneath the chin. That straw hat was the only protection against the scorching summer sun. No sun screen lotion and no sunglasses. Sunglasses were for city dudes and Hollywood types. We donned long sleeve shirts so the grain bristles did not cut into the arms. Levis or blue jeans, , whitish canvas gloves from Johnson’s One-Stop Shopping Center and farmers high-back leather shoes completed our grain shocking outfit.
The Scheckels made a nine bundle shock. A bundle was grabbed under each arm. One knee was thrust forward a tad and a bundle placed on each side of the knee with the tops of each bundle touching. Usually the two bundles, with bristle ends on the ground about 18 inches apart, could support themselves free-standing. If not, you picked the bundles up and tried again.
This technique was repeated two more times, two bundles on each side of the original two and slightly turned in on the ends. Now, a competent “shocker” had a good start. Six bundles free standing, three on one side, three on the other.
Two more bundles were added, one on each side, and placed at the center of the three on each side. Finally a cap, to shed the rain, was made. That last, and ninth bundle, was held with the stalk ends against the tummy, and the tops bent and fanned out. The bristle ends of the bundle were fanned out. Then this cap was placed on top of the eight bundles, with further bending of the stalks fanned out and down.

QUESTION:
Why does the moon have craters?
ANSWER:
Our Moon’s surface is pock-marked with craters formed by collisions from meteorites, comets, and asteroids. The average speed of an asteroid striking the Moon is about 12 miles per second. When one of these visitors strikes the solid surface of the Moon, the resulting shock wave fractures the rock and digs a cavity, or bowl shaped hole, about 10 to 20 times the diameter of the impacting rock.
The colliding asteroid is shattered into smaller pieces that may either melt or vaporize. The Earth has many craters formed by the collision from asteroids and meteorites. But the Earth has a thick atmosphere that acts as a shield.
As soon as an asteroid comes in contract with our atmosphere, the air in front of the asteroid packs together, increasing the temperature to thousands of degrees. The meteorite catches fire. We see it as a shooting star or falling star.
Most of these meteorites disintegrate before they have a chance to reach the surface of the Earth. Our atmosphere acts as a safety shield and a cushion to protect the surface we live on. The Moon has no such protecting atmosphere. It is estimated that the Moon is hit with over a ton of meteorites every day.
The Moon has been beat up really bad. The surface of the Moon reveals the evidence of millions of years of bombardment. Copernicus is a large crater that is 60 miles across. The impact craters on Earth have been eroded away by plate tectonics, wind, rain, glaciers, and surface changes. Geologic processes have not erased the Moon craters over billions of year.
The Earth actually has more impact craters than the Moon. The Earth is four times the diameter of the moon. It presents a bigger target for wayward asteroids and comets.
All the solid bodies of the solar system exhibit impact craters. Mercury looks much like the Moon. Venus is covered with thick carbon dioxide clouds, but remote robotic landers show the surface to be heavily cratered. Venus and Mars have had volcanic activity that filled in the craters.
There are 57 known impact craters in North America alone, with over 170 spread over the Earth. The Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico is not easily seen, but satellite images, changes in the gravity field, and ringlike structures give clues to its size. The resulting fires, tsunamis, and clouds of dust and water vapor are believed to have led to the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
The oldest and largest impact crater recognized on Earth is the Vredefort crater in South Africa. It is two billion years old and 185 miles across.
A visit the Barringer Crater near Winslow, Arizona must be put on your bucket list. A 160 foot wide iron-rich meteoroid struck there 50,000 years ago. It left a crater about a half mile wide and 650 feet deep. They have a beautifully constructed visitor center, extensive displays, and guided tours. You can walk down into the crater or all the way around it if so inclined.
In 1908, a large meteoroid or comet hit in Siberia, Russia near the Tunguska River. This Tunguska event was a powerful explosion equivalent to 1,000 A-bombs dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945. The blast knocked over 80 million trees killed a lot of reindeer.
Recently, on February 16, 2013, a 55 foot wide rock lit up the skies over Ural region of Russia. It was traveling at 44,000 miles per hour. It broke up at 15 miles above the earth’s surface. The shockwave injured 1,200 people.

QUESTION:
How do animals protect themselves from danger?
ANSWER:
Animals have developed numerous remarkable defenses to keep from being devoured by their enemies.
Grazing animals will feed in herds. The deer, buffalo, and zebra fall in this category. They will scatter when attacked, confusing their pursuers.
Some change their behavior. The opossum will play dead. Some beetles and millipedes will also fake death. The meadowlark pretends it has a broken wing.
Many animals have a keen sense of hearing, smell, and sight. They survive by running or flying away. The crow is one of the best at sensing danger.
Some creatures have horns or antlers that they will use to fend off predators.
There is a whole category of animals, such as garden snails, tortoises, crabs, and clams that are covered by a hard shell. Clams close up their shell. The tortoise or turtle can pull in its head and legs for greater protection.
Porcupines and starfish have needles or spines to ward off enemies.
The sting of poison protects wasps, scorpions, centipedes, and some snakes.
Animals can change their color to match their surroundings. The arctic fox has grey fur in spring and summer. As fall and winter approaches, the fur changes to a white to go with the snow color. The chameleon and iguana change skin color to match its background. Camouflage is a powerful tool in the animal kingdom.
Tigers, raccoons, and bears have extremely sharp claws and teeth that discourage others from messing with them.
The daddy long-legs spider has a long, thin body that looks like a stick or twig. Its color blends in with trees and branches. Leaf insects are hard to sport as they merge in with the green leaf.
A few creatures don’t taste good to their foe. Many of these have bright colors to let their enemies know that they are not worth eating. Sea slugs are a prime example.
Squids emit a black ink to hide themselves in the water. The skunk smells bad. Some animals don’t hang around in the same place. Some migrate, others hibernate. Some stay close to home and can dart underground when danger lurks. The gopher and prairie dogs are examples.
Animals that find ways to protect themselves and live long enough to have families will survive. Creatures that do not find such means will be killed off by their enemies. It’s a cruel world out there!
When all the animals of any kind are easily killed by their enemies, or by cold, heat, or lack of food, that type of animal becomes extinct.