I just read a paper in one of my classes that a peer wrote. It was on the Vermont family farms. It really stirred a lot of thoughts of mine. I thought I would post them here since this blog is also a journal of my life.
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I grew up one generation removed from an active farming family. My grandparents were farmers and were still active at it while I was child living across the road from them. My grandfather lived in the same house all of his 72 years. He was born in the house across the creek from where I live. When he was married to my grandmother and was ready to move out, his parents moved out. He bought the house from them and never had to move. That is the house I remember crossing the road to visit when I was a little boy. I would sit on his lap and he would crack walnuts that he had picked up from a walnut tree out behind the barns. It was the house that was his home at the time of his death, although he did not pass away there but died of a heart attack at his winter vacation home in Sarasota, Florida.
I remember spending countless hours playing on and around a giant tree in the front yard. The tree might now be gone, but that tree brought lots of memories. There was a swing that my mother swung from when she was little, and it was the swing, albeit with a different rope, that I swung from when I was little.
There is something sacred about a place where childhood memories are made. My uncle lives there now after having been away and having a financially prosperous life. Sadly, we are now just owners of all the land my ancestors worked hard on. The house I live in was acquired by our family farm around fifteen years ago when they acquired it at an auction of the neighboring farm. I guess we are part of agribusiness.
