OUR DEAR LITTLE FARM

I wonder if there are others like me, who have lived in several homes, but only felt a true connection to one?

After I married, we lived in twelve different places. I have some good memories of each place, especially those where we lived when my children were born, but there is one place that always ignites a longing deep within my soul when I think of it. Maybe it's the place itself, but most likely it's the memories it brings back to me.

In 1963 we bought a 15 acre farm on a road called "CHANCE!"

I have to say the name of the road certainly discouraged me, but when we took our four children (the fifth was born later) to see it for the first time, all my reservations quickly disappeared.

I watched these little city kids running through the fields of buttercups and daisies, squealing with delight, and this place settled in my soul and I felt my roots begin to dig in to the earth right then and there.

Our choices at that time were a large and lovely old farmhouse with all the original antique furniture included, and several acres. Oh how I wanted it, but my husband liked the Chance Road place. The house was so tiny, four rooms not counting the bathroom. It had once been a tall farm house but had been remodeled to look more modern by cutting the top story off and placing a slanted roof on it. I called it may squashed matchbox. It was painted an ugly shade of pink with dirt, moss and rusty looking stuff creeping down it's sides. I eventually painted it green.

My husband had worked at several jobs but ended up starting his own logging company, which did very well eventually, but in the beginning money was tight and we didn't have enough money for much outside entertainment, so we had to invent fun things for the kids to do at home.

One of my special memories of this place are the days when the kids were bored. I used to get chores done, then make sandwiches and take the kids for a picnic walk in our woods. Sometimes to pick mushrooms or berries, sometimes to explore like Lewis and Clark, or eat wild berries like the Indians, or to identify trees and plants, and on the hot summer days so they could play in our creek while I picked Salmon Berries that grew alongside the creek bed to make golden jelly.

When Mikey was a baby he used to stick unripe blackberries up his nose. I guess he got bored and needed something to do. I have to say it was really hard to get them out. He really packed them in.

It's interesting that these kids, now grown and grandparents themselves, remember those walks in the woods and cherish the memory but don't seem to recall the costly things like the circus and carnivals, movies, etc.

Well there is a lot more to tell about the Chance road, but let me just say that Frank Sinatra sang a song saying he left his heart in San Francisco, I left a piece of mine on the Chance Road.

I'm glad we took a chance!

(borrowed photo)

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