The Old Farm

Last weekend, Tim, his family, and I went down to southeast Ohio to see his cousin get married. Tim and his brother-in-law were excited to show me “The Old Farm” that his grandpa Hogue owned. We didn’t get to it until the last day, and I couldn’t figure out what would be so thrilling about going to see an ordinary farm.

It turns out that not only is it an old farm, it’s an abandoned farm. The farmhouse has been uninhabited for over 30 years. It was built in 1905, and the house that was there before it was the original house, built in the 1700s when the Hogue family was granted a piece of land (Tim’s uncle has the original sheepskin deed) by president John Adams.

Both Tim’s dad and grandfather grew up on this farm, so I imagine they both have stories to tell, but we had not the time for any.

I took pictures because of the unusual setting of the farm. We took the 1/2 mile driveway back into the fields and trees, past several plots of land that were sold off years ago, reducing the farm from the original 250 acres to 75 acres. There are rolling hills everywhere in southeast Ohio, it was pretty magnificent.

The driveway stopped at the entrance to a large field, which bordered a forest. The rest of the driveway led into the forest, and wasn’t passable, so we walked alongside it in the field until we finally saw buildings a ways into the woods. We had to hike down a steep ravine to get down to the farmhouse.

Here are pictures of The Old Farm, now in the middle of the forest.

The Bee-Bop Video

Tonight I fondly recalled a moment from my childhood, and am now making it available for your viewing pleasure:

When I was 4 or 5, my parents rented a camcorder for a weekend. One of those huge VHS cameras. So they proceeded to make a home video, like all good 90’s parents did. As far as I know, it was the only home video we ever made, and we had it for years. We affectionately named it “The Bee-Bop Video.” I’m not sure if there is a story behind the name, or if we, being little tots, just thought it was the coolest title ever.

Here are the tidbits I remember from the video:

Mom took the camcorder on a tour around the house (a mobile home). I remember her going into the bathroom, and pointing the lens at a plaque of some kind on the wall, but the camera couldn’t focus in on the words. Then I remember her taking it outside onto the back porch, and my younger sister Hannah was standing outside smiling at the camera.

I think we recorded Family Devotions with Dad. If not, then I just have a single memory of doing devotions with the family at the trailer. I think my memory is so foggy here because when we watched The Bee-Bop Video over the years, we generally skipped the devotions part, because of course, devotions are boring. ;-) At any rate, it was just before bed, and we were all gathered around in the living room in our pajamas.

After devotions, we took turns doing cute things in front of the camera. My siblings and I were making “forts” in the living room, with afghans and blankies. My brother John (TJ as we called him) wanted to use MY blankie (a yellow blanket with a soft ruffle around the edge. I used to “twiddle” the ruffle through my fingers to help me fall asleep), but of course I wanted to hold onto it and suck my thumb (Mmm, it tasted like orange juice). So in the background, I was whining, “Heeeyyyy sneaky!” And that is one of the popular things to quote in my family every now and then.

At some point we were having popcorn, because my older sister Rachel was crawling around on the floor, pretending to be a puppy, eating up the scattered popcorn on the floor with her tongue.

Dad pointed the camera at me, and asked me to sing “Jesus Loves Me.” But I shyly requested to sing my own song. So I started singing a made-up song, that went something along the lines of “Jesus is so wonderful…”

And that is all I remember from The Bee-Bop Video. At some point in my early teens, when recording TV shows onto VHS tapes was all the rage in my family (I used to be able to quote “The Emperor’s New Groove” beginning to end because we had it on tape), we accidentally recorded over The Bee-Bop Video, and it has been an unsolved mystery ever since. I’m glad I never found out who the culprit was, because I would probably hold an eternal grudge against him or her, for stealing away my only visual memory of my childhood home at the trailer park.

Spelling from the mind of a 5-year-old.

I watched a video about big bird and the alphabet, and it reminded me of a story.

This past fall, Tim and I had the opportunity to babysit our neice and nephew, Samantha and Sawyer. We had a lot of fun, and mostly did crafts and played with toys. My neice Sammy did something that I thought was really cute.

We were drawing with crayons on construction paper, and I drew a big pumpkin for Sammy, and wrote the word PUMPKIN underneath. I told her, “look, it says pumpkin!”

A few minutes later, I glanced at her paper, and she had written SAM in big letters across the top of her paper.

“It’s your name!” I exclaimed.

“Yep.” she said, and proceeded to write SAM again, underneath the first. “This says ’scissors,’” she pointed.

“But, that’s your name…” I hesitated. I decided that S, A, and M must be the only letters she knew.

“No, this says ’scissors,’” she insisted. Then she said to me, as if she was my teacher and I was the 5 year old, “You see, I can use letters to make my own words.”

Hooray

It’s official! We got a phone call Thursday evening, and we are officially approved. We get the keys next Thursday and our move-in date is next Friday. Tonight I’m hoping they will let us in to look around one more time and take pictures. Then I can post them here.

Let the packing begin.

All in a day’s work

Today was “Jeans Day” at the office. Instead of our normal, professional attire, people came to work wearing jeans, tennis shoes, and some even sweatshirts. We also had a staff picnic, ate some awesome food, and played Frisbee Golf (I discovered that Frisbee Golf is not my hidden talent). Later, we stood around eating cake as we said goodbye to a dear friend and coworker who is leaving us. There was a lot of reminiscing, laughing, and hugs.

I love my job. I love my coworkers.