I walked on the farm again on Saturday. I wrote the following four years ago. I decided to share it again:
I walked on the farm this
morning. It is the only home I knew growing up. It remained my father’s home
until he died five years ago. Now it belongs to my sister, my two brothers, and
me. It is a sort of pilgrimage site for me. It contains layers of memories.
We rent the land to a
young farmer who rented it from my father after he retired. That farmer bought
and lives on the farm a mile or so to the east where my dad grew up and where
my grandparents lived until Grandma died 12 years ago.
I start back the lane, a
cornfield on my left and soy beans on my bright, serenaded by red-winged black
birds.
I pass by the spot where a
big walnut tree used to stand. I remember the purply black stains handling the
light yellow-green husks would leave on my hands.
A rabbit hops across the
lane a few yards ahead of me.
At the dog-leg in the lane I turn left
then right and continue back the lane, now with a cornfield on my right. On my
left is the solid green wall of the Huckleberry Marsh where we used to pick the
berries for which it was named. It is also the place where, as a boy, I
imagined exploring a prehistoric swamp. And where I hunted frogs.
I can hear the huu huu
grunt of a deer but cannot see him.
I cross under the electric
lines and the great steel tower that was built beside the lane when I was a
kid. My father had offered to pay to have them go around our farm, but imminent
domain won out and so an electric buzz drowns out most natural sounds for a
bit.
Passing beyond the Huckleberry Marsh I have a field of corn on my left. As I approach what is now
the end of the lane, a kite or falcon skims the top of the corn and flies to
the electrical tower behind me.
I stop for a bit where the
lane ends. A couple of monarch butterflies dance among a stand of trees on my
left. Ahead and to the right is the Muck Field planted in soy beans. Across the
muck field, to the right, is Windmill Hill. The windmill is long gone, but I
remember it. The lane picks up at the hill and enters the Back Woods.
Straight ahead, at the end
of the field, is Christmas Tree Hill. When my dad first bought the farm, he
planted some pine trees there. When I was little we went back to this hill to
select our Christmas trees. I remember the tree dragging behind the tractor
leaving a pine-swept trail in the snow.
Between the hills a bluish
mist blankets the soy beans and the tall grass beyond.
At the far left corner of
the field I see a doe. After watching her for some time, I notice a buck almost
straight ahead at the foot of Christmas Tree Hill near where the Gravel Pit
used to be – now a grass-covered scoop in the hill. He must be the one I heard
grunting earlier. I head in that direction, walking between the rows of soy
beans. I get a little closer to the buck and stop. We stare at each other for a
while. Then he bounds up the hill and disappears among the trees. But I can
hear him snorting and stamping for a while longer.
Continuing to the scoop
that was the gravel pit I walk up the hill. I hear the deep chatter of
squirrels and see one in a tree to my left and another in an oak tree to my
right. I walk to the base of the oak, notice the entry to a ground hog den at
its base, and look up at the loquacious squirrel. He scolds me for a while and
then climbs further up the tree.
I come down the hill and
head into the field between Christmas Tree Hill and the Back Woods. The soy
beans end where I suppose the field has become too wet to plant. There is
nothing but tall grass soaked with dew. I head into it and am soon soaked myself
up to my hips. I try to avoid the occasional nettle plant. Despite my caution I
begin to feel a familiar sting on the outside of my left calf where I must have
brushed a nettle.
At the end of this field I
reach the Muskrat Pond. Though it might not be particularly ‘PC’ I have fond
memories of trapping the eponymous water rodents to sell to a furrier for
spending money when I was a teenager. The pond is full of lily pads – more
than I remember.
There is a scar on the
side of my left hand from a barbed wire incident near here. This place has
marked me in more ways than one.
I turn right and head into
the Back Woods. It is good to get out of the wet grass, but my hiking boots and
socks continue to squish as I walk on the brown carpet of last year’s leaves.
Now I am home. These trees
were – are – my friends. This was the refuge of a young, day-dreamy introvert.
Here is where extended
family and friends would hunt mushrooms each spring. Soaked in brine, rolled in
a soda cracker batter and fried in large batches, they tasted simultaneously
wild, earthy, and homey.
Walking on I see a hickory
tree that, about twenty feet up the trunk, is split – I suppose by lightning.
One half rests on the ground, its leaves still green. The other half is cradled
in the branches of neighboring trees.
A little further on there
is an old rotting, sawed-off stump. I am filled with memories. My father, who
owned a sawmill along with the farm, would occasionally cull lumber-worthy
trees from these woods. I am flooded with memories of the sound of whining
chainsaws and crashing timber and the smell of sawdust. And the biting cold of
frozen steel log chains, leading to numb fingers and toes when the logging happened in
winter.
I walk on and come upon an
arrow on the ground. It has not been here long. Perhaps last fall’s hunting
season? The three-bladed tip is slightly rusted, but still looks deadly. It
evidently missed its target. Did that deer live to see another day? I take the
arrow with me.
I find the lane and
continue to walk through the woods, soaking up the sights and sounds and
smells. I come out of the woods at the top of Wind Mill Hill. And there in the
middle of the muck field is another doe prancing through the soy beans. She
meets up with another and together they gracefully bound away from me across
the field, waving their white-flag tails until they disappear into some trees.
Crossing the muck field I
head back up the lane, grasshoppers, dragonflies, and little white butterflies
dancing in front of my feet now and again as I walk.
Nostalgia and contentment
mingle as I make my way back. Much has changed. I have changed. But this place
endures. And being here grounds me and nourishes my spirit like nowhere else.
In the homogenized, contextless space that is much of our contemporary world where
we are reduced to tourists and consumers, I am aware of the gift it is to have
such a sense of place. And I am grateful.
