Jerry Apps is a former county extension agent and is now professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he taught for thirty years. Today he works as a rural historian and full-time writer and is the author of many books on rural history, country life, and the environment. He has created six-hour-long documentaries with PBS Wisconsin, has won several awards for his writing, and won a regional Emmy Award for the TV program A Farm Winter. Jerry and his wife, Ruth, have three children, seven grandchildren, and three great-grandsons. They divide their time between their home in Madison, Wisconsin, and their farm, Roshara, in Waushara County