We lived there once before…did I ever mention that? The site of the Runamuk farm of tomorrow. My blog was known then as The Scientific Homeschool, and I was raising babies in the woods without plumbing. I put together the “Chronological History of the World Unit-Studies for Secular Homeschoolers” (yeah-say that 3 times fast!) –so important was it to me that we incorporate Earth Studies into our family’s education.
When my eldest was just an infant we lived in a camper for the summer, then in a ramshackle trailer through the worst part of the winter–without a heating system to speak of. But we managed, and the five years we spent on the old Burns farm–without plumbing, raising babies in the woods–were the beginning of a beautiful relationship.
It fairly destroyed me to leave that place. Maybe that seems a bit dramatic–but it’s the honest truth.
For many years I suffered from depression, mainly due to an-er–shall we say–unfortunate? childhood. Living in the forest, so closely attuned to nature, discovering myself–acted like a balm to my wounded soul.
I would sit on the front steps and watch the sun evaporate the early morning mist, revealing first the trees of the surrounding forest, and then the grasses and wildflowers of the shrubby undergrowth. I tended my family and my garden, hauling water by hand in a bucket, up out of an old stone farm well. My children, human and animal (mostly human, canine and feline) followed me on a daily basis into the forest, walking up hillside, and down into valleys on the opposite side.
Always the ordinary miracle of life in the forest entranced me. We observed birds, frogs, snakes, and deer while listening to the trees whisper across the hillside. If it hadn’t been for the love I bear my children, their health and happiness, I would have never given up that paradise–no matter the hardship.
It’s a mysterious thing–this connection to the old Burns Farm that I bear like a cross. And to have such an attachment to a piece of land that I would not have known had I not set my sights upon Keith back in high school…it’s bizarre.
What is it about this piece of sprawling forested hillside that calls to me?
Sam, so well written…your such a wonderful writer! And ‘what’ it is that calls to you?….it’s Home.