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vaneramosAfter leaving the Agreement Forest we drove down a dirt road and stopped so I could take pictures of the house in the country where we lived when Brenna was born. It is a passive solar house on two acres of old meadow, which turned to white lace in May with the blossoms of wild apples, hawthorns and chokecherries. A slope leads down to an ephemeral spring pond. The new owners have cleared parts of the meadow where blue-eyed grass and pussytoes used to grow, but the white flags in the ground probably indicate where wildflowers have been planted. Gardens have been added.
The three years that I lived there represent one of the most unhappy times of my life, except for Brenna's birth and this property, which I loved. With Marian's help I established a large, productive vegetable garden despite stony, infertile soil. I added many native trees and shrubs. I kept planting and dreaming, hoping my problems would go away. I named the place Elmbrae, but I notice the elm, for which it was named, that stood behind the house is gone; it must have died.
Marian remembers waking up on Christmas morning when she had just turned four and seeing a white-tailed buck out her bedroom window, which is the second-floor window visible in the photo. We also found turtles laying eggs in our driveway. The bird feeder was well attended in winter, in fact a varied thrush spent the winter there in 1994. It is a West Coast bird. People came from Quebec, Ohio and New York to see it.
I moved out in January 1996, when Marian and Brenna had just turned 4 and 2. At the time I was too heartbroken about other things to give any thought to the property, but I have missed it ever since. The house was sold the following August.
"I would love to live there again," said Brenna.
So would I. But I pointed out that the cornfield next door has become a gravel pit, with a second one up the road. If we had continued to live there, that would have broken our hearts, too.
The house, with the row of wild apples along the driveway
The pond
The three years that I lived there represent one of the most unhappy times of my life, except for Brenna's birth and this property, which I loved. With Marian's help I established a large, productive vegetable garden despite stony, infertile soil. I added many native trees and shrubs. I kept planting and dreaming, hoping my problems would go away. I named the place Elmbrae, but I notice the elm, for which it was named, that stood behind the house is gone; it must have died.
Marian remembers waking up on Christmas morning when she had just turned four and seeing a white-tailed buck out her bedroom window, which is the second-floor window visible in the photo. We also found turtles laying eggs in our driveway. The bird feeder was well attended in winter, in fact a varied thrush spent the winter there in 1994. It is a West Coast bird. People came from Quebec, Ohio and New York to see it.
I moved out in January 1996, when Marian and Brenna had just turned 4 and 2. At the time I was too heartbroken about other things to give any thought to the property, but I have missed it ever since. The house was sold the following August.
"I would love to live there again," said Brenna.
So would I. But I pointed out that the cornfield next door has become a gravel pit, with a second one up the road. If we had continued to live there, that would have broken our hearts, too.
The house, with the row of wild apples along the driveway
The pond
