A Farm by Any Other Name..

Ivy Hill Farm is my sister's place in northeastern, Ohio. The barn is the largest in its county. It stands in an area long known as the "Western Reserve." The property and buildings, like the area itself - is very old for America - dating back to the early nineteenth century. Once upon a time, Ivy Hill Farm was known as Sand Springs Farm. The man who built the place (in 1845) was a smart farmer by the name of Ira Grizwold. He used the natural spring to bottle water for medicinal remedy. I have not done the research to support my theory but I betcha he was right. The minerals flowing from the spring probably were good for those who drank its waters.

Yesterday it was Sand Spring Farm, today it is Ivy Hill. Whatever name it goes by, the feeling evoked from standing still is very old, deeply connected to the earth. I like to stand on the middle of the farm and close my eyes. Listening to the birds overhead, feeling the breeze blow through my hair - I like to "go back" to the time when this was a working farm with nearly a thousand acres of cows, corn, wheat, chickens and horses. Is it my imagination or can I really hear the happy, sweating workers as they go about their days' work? "It's probably just the breeze" I tell myself but I could have sworn I heard someone say, "Yo, swing open the gate" and my inner eye opens to the sight of a pair of Drafts backing in unison towards the plow... the whinny of a pony wakens me from my daydream and I am faced with nothing but an empty lane..