Memories and Inspirations

Recently I scanned some old family photos. Among those photographs was this aerial photo of the farm where we lived until I was nine years old. My grandfather owned this farm and we lived there until I was 9 years old when my dad bought his own farm about 20 miles away. After we moved to our new home my cousins moved to my grandfather’s farm and lived there for a number of years. So I have many memories of this place for much of my childhood.

Memories and Inspirations

I have mostly happy memories of this place. This was the place of my true childhood when my brothers and I played together and rambled all over the farm. We ran through, climbed and explored every nook and cranny of this place. When I was brave enough I even climbed into the hay mow of the barn with my brothers, ran through the pasture down to the creek, climbed trees and and played chase games under the trees. In the grove near the chicken house there were old farm implements that were no longer used from days gone by. We liked to climb on them and make up stories of adventures and travels. Nowadays I would probably shudder at the potential for injury from falls, sharp edges, slivers, and rusted metal. But back then I was oblivious to such dangers. I loved the swing set that was behind the house under the shade of a big maple tree. It was my special place to dream and swing away any sorrows.

The last time I drove by this old farm, which was sold decades years ago to a nearby farmer, I hardly recognized the place. It looked worn and tired, with peeling paint and falling down buildings. Everything looked smaller than I remembered and it was certainly more worn. No one had lived there for decades and it bore little resemblance to the place of my memories.

This farm was the source of my great love of nature and the outdoors. My memories of playing under the trees and living so closely with nature never left me. And those experiences shaped and inspired my photographic sensibilities.

I remember lots of fresh produce from the gardens and orchard—strawberries, cherries, black raspberries, apples, vegetables, rhubarb, and more. I grew up drinking unpasteurized, unhomogenized milk from cows raised on our farm, and eating freshly laid eggs, garden and orchard food, and pork, beef, and chickens that my father raised on the farm.

Once when I was very young, my dad brought me down to the barn with him while he was milking the cows. He brought a mug with him and when he finished milking one of the cows he poured a cup of sweet warm milk into the mug and gave it to me. “You’ll never taste anything sweeter or better than milk fresh from the cow,” he told me. And because I idolized my dad and believed everything he said, I thought it was the sweetest best thing I’d ever tasted.

Days of Grace and Challenge

Life is never as simple as our early childhood memories (if they’re good memories). But I like to believe it’s not as difficult as our most painful memories either.

“You can have the other words-chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I’ll take grace. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I’ll take it.” – Mary Oliver

It is only through the eyes of myself as an adult that I can see how hard my parents worked every day from dawn until dusk. Farming was the only thing my dad ever wanted to do. But, oh, how hard it was on his body. And I shudder to think of my mother’s unending tasks, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, ironing clothes, gardening, and preserving food while raising 5 children. I could not have done everything she did.

I still remember the wringer washing machine my mom used, the lye soap she made, all of the clothes she hung outside to dry, and the old stove in which we burned corn cobs for cooking and baking. Every day was filled with hard work and when one of us kids was sick she stayed up at night soothing and rocking us. She told me once that when one of us got sick we tended to spread it from one to another so that she might have a week or more of little sleep. “Looking back,” she said, “I don’t know how I survived it.”

Still when family came to visit she and the other women would take a walk down to the garden to see everything growing there and take a tour of the flower gardens around the house. Despite all the hard work, I felt my parents’ love of growing things and of the land.

“I know many lives worth living.” – Mary Oliver

With the distance of age and with growing wisdom I am learning more and more gratitude for the life I have led and the events and people who shaped the person I have become. I will always be a farm girl, even though I’ve spent more of my life living in towns and cities. My love of nature, fresh garden food, and appreciation for the land will abide with me for my entire life.

What memories and inspirations have you brought from your childhood?

May you walk in beauty.

Cowboys 1955

Me in front of house with pet pigeon, 1961

First Day of School Photo 1959