Memories

It is a chilly sixteen degrees here this morning.  I was shocked when I looked at the thermometer.  And, I was pleased, of course, and felt smug that we got our Spring bulbs planted yesterday.  It feels exciting to think of flowers appearing in those first tentative days, though I am very much hoping to be thoroughly frozen in between now and then.

Speaking of first tentative days, here are some photos of the Old Davis Homeplace back when it was the Old Howell Homeplace, a 4.3 acre piece of a larger 80-acre (or so) farm.  The outbuildings were made of American chestnut, built to stay and lean.  How did many a UPS man find our house?  The old leaning barn.  Oh, how I wish I could go back and see all these things again, as they were.

I want to say that my parents purchased it in 1981, complete with a little farmhouse the burned down in quick and mysterious fashion.  No, really, mysterious.  As were the holes in the yard they would wake up to.  Someone was convinced there was a fortune buried on the property.  The wealth was the land itself, as far as I am concerned.

My parents built their home over a period of six years (give or take) and lived in a single wide trailer in the back yard.  It had followed my mother from college to the first four years of my life.  And then one day, it sold and a truck came to haul it away.  I remember that day.

For a cute bonus, because I am dying of cute here, I guess this to be Easter of 1986.  I suppose I could have checked the back of the photo.  Oh, well.  This reminds me of Laurel when she is all dressed up.  That girl is an interesting mix of bear-wrestling strength and sweet flowers.

And here's the homeplace today, the big old trees gone and new ones having grown up.  The old buildings--the tobacco shed, well house, grainery, and barn are long gone.  A couple old apple trees remain from the orchard and my parents have had a few horses graze their way through the field.

Well, happy day to you, ever how you feel about it, whatever you are doing.