One of the many things I love about frequent long walks is how you notice the landscape changing with the seasons. The neighborhood where I now live is fairly new, carved out of farmland less than a decade ago. There are many empty lots as well as surrounding patches of woods. Near my usual turn-around point, I noticed a lovely old tree. With the leaves gone for the winter, its limbs seem even more beautiful.
See how most of the trees around it are pines?
From wandering land in rural Arkansas with my grandpa, I learned that pines are often a mark of transition in the South. Abandoned fields grow over with broomsedge and other grasses. Briars work their way in. Then comes privet and saplings -- including fast-growing pines -- as a forest begins to form.
Grandpa showed me that when you see a huge hardwood among pines with thin trunks, you know they didn't start growing at the same time. So why would there have been a big old hardwood growing in the middle of then-open land? Shade on a hot summer's day. A solitary old hardwood among pines is often a sentinel standing over a former home place.
As winter came and more leaves fell, I saw other telltale signs. I found cedar trees, deceptively old for their size and growing in a line. They grew up like weeds along the fence rows once upon a time. The fences crumbled long ago, but those cedars quietly mark the old boundaries.
Weeks passed. More leaves fell. And then one day I saw an outline, dark against the morning light...
The next dry and sunny morning, I came back with my camera. I wriggled my way through the brambles, getting more than a few scratches. But there before me, standing on wobbly red bricks, was a small farm outbuilding.
More clues. Up near the peak of the roof was an open window. Hayloft? The building was high enough off the ground that it wouldn't have been a very good space for sheltering animals. The building was also quite small. It couldn't have been a barn. Then I saw another shadow through the bare limbs of the winter trees...
It took me a little while to creep my way over. I had on thick boots, but a decaying farm often means boards full of rusty nails, broken glass, pottery shards, and old equipment hidden under piles of leaves. I also didn't want to blunder upon another feature of old farms -- the well!
The other structure was much bigger. It had a red, sandy dirt floor, liberally pocked with the soft cones made by ant lion bugs. The corrugated tin roof was full of rust on top, yet still somewhat shiny beneath. Spaces for horses or cows were neatly laid out, although now cluttered with brown leaves from autumn storms. Some of the mangers still held clumps of matted, dry hay.
I stopped for a while, listening to the wind in the trees and an occasional whoosh of a car passing on the highway. Dust motes swirling through rays of sunshine. A squirrel rustling a few dozen yards away. A hard winter leaf dropping to the forest floor now and then. Hushed.
The word "home" conjures up images bright and tidy. This home place is dark and falling down. It isn't home to people or farm animals anymore. But it is full of life of a different kind.
And it is full of peace.
I can't wait to take Eli on such adventures when he is older. My love of history started with my grandparents' stories and with finding traces of the past on rural land. If you've got a child old enough to safely explore such spots with you, a lovely picture book to start with is Home Place by Crescent Dragonwagon. While hiking, a family comes across traces of an old home. Jerry Pickney's soft watercolor illustrations give the past dreamy life. This book has long been a favorite and sometimes sits on my coffee table for folks to stop and wander through on an otherwise busy day.
Wonderful post!!
Posted by: Bridgit's Bell | 16 February 2013 at 05:11 PM
Thanks, Bridgit!
Posted by: Valerie J. Frey | 17 February 2013 at 09:28 PM