The View From Home

View of "Savanna" from the hill ... the top of the main barn and silo. That's Cecil Kolterman's farm in the distance. That gravel road, going west, leads to Onaga (about 6 miles away) and going east, leads to Havensville (about 4 miles away). As a kid I logged many a mile down that road, both ways, on my ol' Schwinn bike with big maypop tires ... tough travelin' dat, what with fishing poles, tackle box, bait bucket, etc. Lotsa times I'd catch BIG HUGE fish when I went fishin' ... but couldn't tote them home on dat bike, so I hadda throw'em back. That's mah story, and I'm stickin' to it ~ yeh.

View from the hill just east of the farm ~ the house is hidden by treetops but the roof of the barn is visable. That's me in the lower right hand corner of the pic ~ I had given my camera to a friend & asked him to go up to the highest point of the hill and take this pic.

View from the SE (I was standing out by the old hen house) of the main barn, calf barn, brooder house, pump house and loading chute.

From the east, view of the main barn, the brooder house and the pump house. The pump house is the lil' white building next to the brooder house ... it housed the electric pumps that pumped water from the natural well below it, to the house. The pump house had a sliding roof on it (the only way to get inside the pump house) and I have memories of my dad spending hours inside there in brutal cold subzero temperatures, with an old blowtorch, trying to thaw the water pipes when they would freeze in the winter. Even though it was well insulated and dad would stack bales of hay all around it in the winter to act as a windbreak ... the pipes still froze every winter. Several times every winter ~ meaning no running water in the house ... no bath ... no toilet facilities, etc. Hard times, come again no more.

"Let us pause in life's pleasures
And count its many tears
While we all sup sorrow with the poor...
There's a song that will linger
Forever in our ears
Oh hard times come again no more"

The "calf barn" ... we also raised pedigreed dogs (cockers and scotties) for several years, and kept them in this building.

~~~**~~~**~~~

Bryan Bowers ~ The View From Home

Black crow sitting on a red roof, house on a hill
Old yellow truck in the driveway got some miles on her still
Out front the pavement's buckled where the roots have taken hold
To the south lies the mountain, a glory to behold

Down on the lake, countless boats are sailing
Up on the shoreline, a single figure runs
And off in the distance, the Cascades rise fiery
Burned in gold by the setting sun

Up north lies Alaska, our last true frontier
Out west lies the ocean, and Olympics so near
Back east lies madness, say what you will
Say I'm a maniac, singing on a hill

Out on the road, we tell all the turkeys
Yes it's always raining and the sun never shines
But all the natives know when the mountain lifts her skirts
The view from home will flat-out melt your mind