Goodbye, Bucolic Views

All my family has been partial to settling in a spot that backs up to a natural “break” so that no neighbors could encroach. Immutable forest, mountain, creek, or the like. Jim’s family chose flood plain. This past week the farm was sold for what is called “The Bottom” where the cattle graze.

Nearly every time I visit I take a photo of the hay barn at sunrise, my favorite time to do so, after walking Zoe I get out the camera and find out how the morning light is playing on the old red wood. Jim’s father has worked this land for over thirty years, ran a dairy then a cattle ranch as he got further up in years.

This prime land is being encroached upon by the Dallas metroplex, a carniverous beast that eats anything in its path. The people of Dallas are in need of more water, and “The Bottom” will eventually be flooded (not to be a pretty lake but it will be waterfront acreage) in order to do so.

This has been talked about locally for years, but finally it’s down to brass tacks, sell to the government or be forced out. A few years ago Jim’s folks bought some acreage an hour or so’s drive east of the ranch, and Margie’s been poring over and altering house plans since before then! I don’t know why, as she didn’t make mistakes when she was a woman of perhaps 23 planning their current home. Higher ceilings, says Jim, but that’s only because he is 6′ 4″ so that’s to be expected.

On a farm, one needs a mud room and practical flooring. I know she’d like more sound windows this time around, and perhaps a second story for guests to visit. The new land will take us up a different path that doesn’t pass by Nanny’s. It may be a shorter trip for brother John and family. It may be a shorter drive to church.

I think I’ll ask the birthday boy to take me out on the four-wheeler next trip so I can take some photos of the old creek et al. Wouldn’t you know that Nanny’s backed up to a flood plain as well and even her town’s golf course may be under water at times.

We moved so many times that only one childhood place stands out as my home, and we only lived there for three years. Jim has been at the farm nearly his entire life. Instead of hanging out at the mall (what mall, you might ask), he built his own workshop I need to see that too, and the rest of the milk barn.

At an earlier home in town, he was quizzed by his teacher on his address, as part of a lesson to teach these young kids their phone number and address in case they became lost and the police needed to help them find their way home. Jim, the math whiz, didn’t know the number but knew the cross streets and how to find his own darned way home. Apparently he failed that particular exercise. His high school physics teacher nearly quit because he asked too many questions. “Why?” “Yes, I know your answer is right but I came to it from a different direction. Why is yours better?” That’s my guy. All mine.

I’m an arts and literature gal. Often we come to the same or similar conclusion but take vastly different mental routes to get there. No, I won’t chart them for you. There are too many to think about.

Certainly Jim will miss his childhood home. We always enjoy visiting a place where doors are not always locked and if you’re outside everyone who drives by waves, even if it’s me, a total stranger. To send nephew Joseph out to get the mail – yippee! I cringe at all the circulars we receive and don’t even have a mail key on my main key chain.

One more story. Joseph at age four (he’s now a sage six) and his father had shot Bambi and brought the corpse back on the four-wheeler. I actually felt the deer, and Jim marveled that he couldn’t even see how it was shot. We’d taken young Joseph across the street by the hand, as he wasn’t yet allowed to cross by himself. He looked at us as if we were idiots and said, “With a gun.” Duh.

And that was that. He did enjoy making holiday cranberry centerpieces with his sisters over Thanksgiving. Just call me Martha. Dee