So how did this all start……

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My Onkel, aka Father Goose, circa  1970

Years ago, my Onkel, at the ripe ol’ age of twenty something, found this 100 acre property, got his heart set on it and off he went to the lumber camps, saved his pennies and returned to buy it. Being a bachelor at the time, he built a small cabin and proceeded to aquire his flocks and herds and eventually a family. It was a place that as children we loved to visit, especially at Easter because the egg hunt covered a ridiculous amout of property. I have some very vague memories of him hatching eggs in his oven at the start and I seriously remember the day that we were to have a family outing to his homestead to help process the ducks, .............the thing I remember most about this was pulling out every procrastination skill that I had, just so that we would be able to arrive after the actual killing was done. And much later, as a teenager, with a summer job that required me to cross his field every afternoon to return home, I distinctly remember his crazed horse Rhubarb would catch sight of me at the far end of the field ( I always had to figure out where that stupid critter was and plan my approach accordingly ) and then he'd start all the cows into a stampede headed straight for me..........me that was running madly to reach the far side and very ungraciously launch myself into the bush in true WingNut fashion. It's no wonder that I always excelled at the 100 yard dash, or maybe excelling at it is why I am still here to talk about it.


But the reality now is that this is the total extent of my experience with anything farmlike or livestockish.


A small corner of the acreage was severed off for my parents when I was 16, and the building of This My Parents Old House began………….and like any true teenager…………I was soooo NOT paying attention to how beautiful this property is or anything else except for the fact that by the time we were moving in, I was 18 and there was NO PHONE. A year later I was off to colllege and I never lived in the house again.

So 6 years ago, my parents were straddling the 80yr old mark in their lives and they announced that they wanted to "talk"……………..you know this is going to have an impact of some sort, you just don’t know what.

We had just months earlier moved to a new house and were literally going through boxes in the garage to find the dishes to pull off this dinner and "talk". I was bracing myself for health issues.

I so did not see it coming when my, "I love my land, and healthy as an ox", Dad said that they had come to a point in their lives where they want to move to town…………...and they want the property to stay in the "family".

Frig!!!, I’m an only child, "family" would be me !! There are no brothers or sisters sitting at this table that I could turn to and say "you do it" There were so many thoughts going through my head at that minute, they all came together, crashed, exploded, rolled down my spine and regrouped in the pit of my stomach to make me feel physically ill…………..and we hadn’t even started to eat yet.
　

I mean, really, who in their right mind would want to live way out there, in a house that is reminiscent of an episode of The 70’s Show, with 2 teenagers in high school, 45 minutes away by car, 2 hours by bus. I mean really, who would want to do that,

I lied…………..and said, yes, I would.

And I’ve never looked back.