But once again we were on the move to a new horizon. This one, almost 30 miles away in a place called Bucks County was a real farm, with acres and a pond, a barn and an fruit orchard and a stream. It was a colonial manor far from the city. The road was partially dirt, and I could have as many pets as I wanted. I opted for a calf, a goat and geese. My mom wanted chickens and cats. My sister grew pumpkins she sold at a little farm market in the nearest town Chalfont; we picked out my Shepard collie, Ollie from the animal shelter. He was to become my best friend. I would soon first shoot the guns and hunt the farm for Thanksgiving pheasant. Ollie would be my hunting dog and the most loyal friend I ever had.
This is about Stone End Farm on Curley Mill Road, now part of progress, suburban sprawl, and million dollar homes. This is about the best years of life of my family, and how issues and man and the environment, then poorly defined and hazy set my path in life.
Mom wanted me to go to Temple medical school. Dad was almost tearful when I showed no interest in engineering. How proud he would have been to see me rebuild those engines from a tech manual, or manage whole divisions of pesky civil engineers years later, actually having inherited his mechanical savvy and love of design and machines. Although mom; later respected my concern for my streams and fish, our water, and my wealth that it indirectly brought, I somehow always thought she really wanted me to be a doctor. As she had wanted to be, but was held back to due to rheumatic fever, and getting only her B.S. in Medical Technology from Penn.
That fall on the farm I remember very well. The apple orchard was brimming with the fruit of ancient trees. Only much later did I put together the big wooded barrels in the cellar with the fruit trees. As was popular in colonial America, they were making cider.
The fall flowers were splendid. I was 10 now (almost) so dad pulled out the 22 rifle that he had shot with mom, and my son still has. I was a good marksman. He bought a 12-gauge shotgun for himself, and a Stevens 20 gauge single shot for me. After endless hours of safety training, we shot clay pigeons. There would be no hunting until I was a good shot. Dad said all it takes is one shot, any more and you are just lousy with a gun. I hold to this truth today and I am still an expert with anything that holds gunpowder and a bullet.
That January of 1966 I started keeping a diary. It was a little brown one-day one-page book. I kept the habit almost 35 years.
That first diary entry we had just gone shopping on Saturday night, January 22, 1966. Dad had bought a blue Volkswagen Beetle that he loved. He had a far trip to King of Prussia to his engineering job there. It was the first car I later drove on the farm, and almost backed into the barn wall. On this night it was snowing and we had gone to Montgomeryville to an odd place called the Mart. We all packed in to go to this indoor flea market really in the middle of nowhere. There was livestock, chickens and goats, produce; odds and ends-odd food stands run by people speaking German and Polish. Meats, pizza, and drinks. We loved to waddle around with the old farmers there. It was a weekend treat. Today that place is long gone. It was replaced by a modern mall, expensive condos, and lots of asphalt and concrete at the intersection of routes US 202 and US 309.
But I can still smell the popcorn and feel my dad’s V.W. slide off the mart’s driveway into the ditch that snowy night long ago. Not to worry, we all had family fun. It is clear and a great little memory.
More than anything is my memory of my times exploring our 88 acres with Ollie and/or my sister. The rear of the farm was an open field of green lawn, flowers and dogwoods and cherry trees. Beyond was a 20-acre cornfield rented to our dairy farmer neighbour, Mr. Lewis. Beyond that were swampy woods, more fields and ancient colonial structures begging for investigation. Across the road was the rest of our place. A swampy field, a, stream that had small fish and a dense thicket of a wood, brimming with black raspberries, black berries and stickers that coated Ollie and us.
Far in the Northwestern corner of the land was a pond. It had been excavated long ago. The original part of our home had been a colonial mill and icehouse. The pond was dug when Bucks County was still in a British colony. Spring fed and loaded with clear water, colourful water plants and lots of salamanders, frogs, spring peepers and toads, I had my first laboratory. I read every book on pond life and amphibians, and plants that I could.
Once I brought home many salamander eggs to hatch in jars. I had failed and a whole generation of red efts died because of lack of oxygen. I was miserable, remembering the destruction in my New Jersey woods. It was my first lesson. God and nature know best to leave it as it is. Later to my youthful horror I would stock the pond with sunfish, bass, and catfish after intense study. But the pond was too small, ancient, pure and delicate and it actually died, at my hands. I remember seeing a big ball of tiny catfish boil up in what was once my clear pond. Out of balance and control I murdered a treasure. The only saving grace was that this was way before anyone cared but me. They had started to build houses up gradient of my pond and it silted in. Everything but the slime died. I will never forget that sight, only a few years after first studying my pristine pond, it was dead.
In another ill-fated attempt to learn about nature I tried incubating goose eggs in my room, under a bright light. I loved the fat little greenish goslings and wanted to observe their hatching. Well, the light was too bright for me to sleep and I covered the light with a blanket. My room caught fire and almost set the whole house ablaze. I was never so scared and in shock. All of my plastic and wooden models of army planes and navy ships I had built over years were gone, all the clothes, but my wood turtle tut survived hiding behind a door. I had caught him while fishing with dad on French Creek (odd for a land turtle) and now he was like a second dog. It was years later tut would escape and mom feel awful about his box blowing over. It was years later the fire I caused probably caused us to, in an odd way; to have to move from the farm. It was then, after we moved in 1971 dad became sick and died. We all loved that place, to the very core of bone. Mom painted a large oil painting of the beloved flag stone back patio on the farm. It was done with great love, my golden chain tree and its heaven scented blossoms, Ollie and the cats, my sister with fresh sunflowers and a basket of pumpkins grown by her hands, and a little me with my beloved goat kid Hilda on my lap. Both mom and my sister are fine accomplished artists of the Bucks County school, long before its popularity. This painting is missing now and unless it’s hanging in some sharp-eyed Bucks County collector’s room .................others hang in galleries....................
16 years ago
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