Out with the Old, In with the New - is it better?

In the farthest part of the barn, along the concrete wall that once served as the milking station for Griswold's dairy cows, rests an old sign that reads, "Ivy Hill." The sign is battered and rusted and broken right in half. Not original to the property, we think the name Ivy Hill came along sometime in the 1960's when the ancestors of "Old Man Griswold" died out and the property changed hands. By the time my sister bought the place in the early nineties, the new sign and name were already well-known to the area.

No longer a working farm, my sister's family works hard for the privileged of living there. My niece and nephew pitch in too - They do this willingly - they love the "farm lifestyle" and enjoy the land and the property.

Sadly, the last fifteen years have seen insurmountable growth to this area bringing with it, urban sprawl and a changing value system. Where once songbirds competed with cicada in the late afternoon, cars blasting bass rhythms loud enough to knock the flow blue dishes off the cupboard shelf is a common-enough sound at day's end begging the country dweller's question.. "Why do city folks move to the country if they miss the city so much?" If only they would turn off their stereos and learn to listen to the sounds of nature.... ?

As the UPS man tells the story, one day he was stopped in front of Ivy Hill Farm preparing to deliver a package. Behind him, a new car with a booming sound loomed. Impatient and without reverence, the lady driver decided to pass the UPS truck on the inside - between his truck and the Ivy Hill driveway. When she did this, she took out the old hand-painted sign and nearly killed the UPS man who was on foot and barely fell away in time. From his back in the marshy wet bed of Iris the UPS man watched as the old sign post smashed through the right side of the driver's windshield splintering its old sign into a thousand pieces before it fell under the wheels of a the Chrysler 300. Without hesitation or the slightest concern, the lady in the big car just kept on driving, leaving echos rhythms of Eminem in her wake...

Look out, we're going to be seeing more of this in the future. As an octogenarian likes to tell me, "The old ways are being replaced by the new"

Will it be better?

You tell me...

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..