Going home

Yesterday, Angus and I spent the day at Dad's. Karen and I are working on a Cookie Day book (that's another story) and wanted to get a good start.  And Dad wanted me to take some pictures so he and Karen could get their Christmas cards. 

Most of the people who read the Chronicles know that there are no trees in the Cohagen area.  Well, there ARE trees, but they're all planted in rows, for the most part. It's truly prairie and beautiful in its own way.  What a lot of you don't know is that I grew up on a creek with big, old, old cottonwood trees. 

Summer nights, with the windows open, I fell asleep to the swooshy sounds of leaves in the breeze.  As kids, we played for hours amongst the fallen trees, the shadows of the creek bottom, and had countless caches of food and "supplies" we'd purloined from the store room in the basement. (Wonder if I could find some, still...) 

We had a wonderful treehouse...big, with a rope swing and boards nailed up for stairs and seats and everything.  It had been Dad and Rosie's when they were kids, so that made it even more special to us. It had little niches to sit in and read and really great branches to hang off of.  It was a magnificent fort...one could really pelt the enemy from its ancient turrets, with sticks and apple cores. 

You can't imagine how homesick I get for trees.  

Yesterday, when we popped over the hill to the ranch, I almost cried.  Well, I did have a couple tears, actually.  It was so beautiful, and I was 9 years old again. 

Here's where I grew up.  This is the setting of my childhood, the fabric of my memories....it hasn't changed much at all, really.  And here's my Dad, the way I'll always see him...

I'm not going to reveal the Christmas card pictures, but I am going to show you around a little...

Dad and Angus next to the new flagpole....isn't that flag beautiful?

I included this picture so you could see the country, all the buttes and hills beyond the house.

 The old red truck....you know how I love old trucks.  Looks exactly as it did when I was a kid. Probably runs the same, too.

The paddock that used to be white.  When we were kids, we got to paint on it every summer.  We didn't make much progress and really thought we were being abused by having to do it.  (Now that I'm a parent, I can only imagine how painful it must've been to watch us s-l-o-w-l-y pretending to paint the fence.)

I had a lot of empathy for Tom Sawyer.  And my brother and sister never fell for the "privilege of painting" trick, because they knew the story, too.

 This view is looking down from up by the house.  There's the shop, with the old John Deere in front, and Grandma's house sits behind those trees to the left.  I still sort of expect to see Gramps under the tree in his red down coat and felt cowboy hat, reading political papers. Only he'd be in the sun, because he was always cold.

 This is a crazy sort of tank that stored oats for the horses.  I remember scooping oats out of that little metal tube, into a bucket.  It was handy to be able to walk by and grab a handful, to lure my horse so I could catch him...

 And speaking of horses, here's Little Joe.  He's the grandkid horse that Grammy Karen graciously shares.

 Meet Tiggy Winkles, the kitty that came from our house.  She's such a beauty!  And a mousing machine.  She came strolling out after her barn patrol to greet us.

 He's in trouble.  When we were trying to take pictures, all he wanted to do was get to the barn....SO, when he finally did get to the barn, he got tied to the trailer for a few hours to think about it.  The equine equivilant of being sent to your room. Dad said maybe he won't think the barn is such a great place after this little session.  I think he's probably just as stubborn as Dad, and probably didn't think that at all... 

 The old sheep shed that's used for storage, and the loading chute.  See all the trees?

 Barry's basketball hoop on the grainary...

 You can't see it, but the old treehouse is down there.  And the creek will be filled with sweet smelling gold cottonwood leaves in about a week....I'd like to go back and swoosh through them.

 Cowboy PopPops and Grammy Karen, with their only grandson, walking back to the house to get a peanut butter cookie or three.

Sometimes, you CAN go home again.