The Friendly Ghosts Of An Old Farm

Shar and I have largely spent these last few months, the "time of the covids," hunkered down here in The Farmhouse, a little west of Port Angeles. This view is to the north so that low line of hills edging up here and there above the the trees is Vancouver Island, across the Strait of Juan de Fuca, in British Columbia. Victoria is over there, its lights obvious at night from the farmyard where you see the Conestoga parked. Canada is so close yet has come to feel so far away with the border closed and Coho, the venerable connecting ferry, docked by the virus. For those not from around here, the vibrant yellows framing this shot are Scotch Broom, brought in from Europe as ornamentals and for erosion control. The Broom are insidious, invasive, and damaging. For you southern folks, the kudzu of the Pacific Northwest, just more colorful. Here they offer a lively introduction to what was once Laird Farm, first cleared and put to the plow by Mace Laird in 1916.

Once upon a time the Laird dairy farm looked like this.

Of course, that magnificent barn is gone, along with its nearest outbuilding, but that building dead center, the one with the vertical white trim line and the power pole poking above, is the worn wood sided, green metal roofed shed to the left of the Conestoga in the first photo, I use it to keep and chop firewood. The outbuilding between the apple trees and the wood shed in the old photo was the chickenhouse when this was a working farm and it is there on the right with the gray metal roof in the color shot. And the house is the one we are living in today, those chimneys in place, the larger one still ready to be the tapered backdrop of family photos as it was for generations. The silo, added along the way, nestled up next to the barn, its concrete skin not vulnerable to being 'bug et' and collapse, offers no sign of weakness.

We rented this place while we were still in Colorado, sight unseen, as they say; although there was a virtual, video tour. We didn't know that it had been the Laird Farm and we didn't know that, along with the roof over our heads and a place to make meals, we would receive so many gifts from the skies.

Vivid rainbows kissing the fields just to the north.

The ever satisfying east, hosting a simple spring moon,

or the fogs that envelope the farmyard so many mornings,

or a frosty, glowing steel sunrise.

To the south, behind and above the silo, the clouds are often making some statement or another, maybe snagged by or filtering through the trees on Dry or Dry Creek Hill or Mountain (we haven't been able to sort the name out quite yet) or, like these stratocumulus beauties hanging higher, moved about by Pacific storms along the western coast or the arctic air coming down out of Canada, or whatever is going on up in the glaciated Olympic Mountains just out of sight.

Out the gate to the west, sunsets drop on fire and with colors layered by whatever the day's weather pushed in. At night, walking back to the house from closing the gate at the end of the of that driveway, feeling the air, basking in the gentle glow of the stars or the moon (if the clouds allow), feeling the rain, hearing the wind work the trees, it is easy to wonder how many times since 1916 Mace Laird, his heirs, and the others who have lived here walked down this path and were touched in much the same way. There would have been the sounds and smells of cows for much of that time, and a whole different world around them. What did they think about the Elwha River dams, just out of sight and now removed, providing power but killing off one of the most productive salmon rivers on the west coast, or about the clearcutting of old growth forests, or the hubbub over Franklin Roosevelt designating Olympic National Park, or relations with the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe, or the World Wars. Did they spend much time worrying about such things at all? If they did, or if there were times when they were overwhelmed by the burdens of farm or family, did quiet moments in this delicious air give them comfort, as it does me? I can only assume so, that however focused or burdened a person might be, the calm richness of such moments must seep through.

One Sunday, a few months after we moved in, a woman knocked on the door of the Farmhouse. Delores Laird had been raised on this farm where she spent her childhood milking, tending cows, plowing, planting, harvesting, filling up that big ol' silo, hating the feel of live chickens, yodeling, swearing that she would never marry a farmer, then marrying a farmer. She wanted to introduce herself and eventually her sister, Christine, and their husbands, Dick and Phil; and she hoped to look around the old place. She and Christine shared so much with us about the farm and the family, including the old photo of the farm above and this great one of Delores and Christine's aunt on the workhorse Farmall tractor Delores wrestled with for much of her young life. As Delores pointed out when I initially, and mistakenly, identified her behind the wheel, "When I was on that tractor I wasn't so nicely dressed."

They showed us where things had been around the property, how the house had been laid out, and where work was done. For instance, the rusting gate looking things below on the left are stanchions, racks where the cows were held in place during milking. Now they stand out in the field beyond where that beautiful old barn had been. Those vines on the stanchions are Himalayan blackberries and the old barn site is covered in them. Turns out they, like the broom, are invasive, grow like maniacs, and the thorns have done interesting damage to my old down jacket...vicious. But they are blackberries and the second we settled in Shar charged into making her first jam; great stuff, by the way. Hearing this, Delores and Christine shared that her mother, Mabel, did her canning in the basement (where our kids are sure an ax murder happened, just like in every other basement that looks like this one) on this old wooden stove. Sweet. That's Shar, not Mabel, in the Farmhouse kitchen, with the delicious color of blackberry jam.

Delores explained that the building below, the one in all of those east view photos, was the chicken house where she developed her eternal disgust for the feel of a chicken when you're retrieving eggs from under her. Strange for a farm girl, she admits, but 'yech.' Even today she did not even want to go near the place.

She described the process of filling the silo, which they did with an auger attached to the engine of that old Farmall tractor her aunt's riding above, and showed me how to open the thing, which I had assumed was sealed up. Hoses used to fill the tower are still inside, the rounded cone on top is textured like a modest cathedral ceiling, and when Delores stuck her head into yodel, holy cow. There are acoustics somebody would pay real money for. As you can see, the main ladder up is covered; but there is an emergency ladder there on the right which nearly caused Mabel to up and die the one time her little girl, Delores had to climb down that way. Me too, just at the thought.

Dolores and Christine offered us delightful insight into this old farm, these buildings; a window into a different time and the lives lived here. And poking around on our own has borne its own gifts. There are subtle hints of earlier times, whispers I said before, everywhere you look. You just have to squint a little to see the dual satisfactions of sweat and love. There by the chicken house I kicked some grass away from a piece of what looked like concrete, then kicked some more, then reached for a shovel. There are children's prints, maybe adults, their names, their pets and pets names, and precious-to-them stones. This is from the early 2000s and wasn't left by the Lairds. No less of a treasure.

Between the farmhouse and chicken house this single clothes line pole is keeping the faith, although its mate disappeared long before we arrived. I've found the deserter's concrete foot, still shaped like a matching four by four, patiently nestling in the yard. I don't know if these bells were for a horse or cow. I found them tacked to inside of the chicken house door, maybe as a warning, maybe for joy at the sound. Who knows how many generations of deer that gate has witnessed eating the late season pears. Apparently enough to make it get tired and fall over.

And there are the subtly rich contents of this building, the garage or workshop or whatever it was called while whoever was using it. It is the surviving building near the barn in that old picture of the farm. I've been using it as the wood shed, where the view to the east takes in whatever the evening is doing. The white door opens out to look at the old chimney sharing the roof with solar panels these days. The bottom panel of that door is busted out, who knows what wanders in and out. Not that it matters, the garage looking opening hasn't closed for years, doesn't have a door. But, inside...

Along the wall behind the wood pile, somebody's blades, gears, shoes, tool rack, and jerry rigged lighting.

Then there is this room, where my little city/suburban imagination starts too churn. The walls of this workshop, spare parts store room, office, and apparently potato storing, calf nurturing spa of sorts chatters to me indistinctly, sighing over generations of work and worry within these walls at all hours and in all sorts of weather. Look more closely

For some reason, the sight of used to exhaustion cabinetry, walls, and gadgetry is quietly intoxicating, warm, and sad. Maybe it is the thought of lives already spent, the wondering of what has become of those lives, dreams realized or not, the steady trod of time, other overly dramatic notions. But the cabinets, the old fuse box, the work bench, even the long forgotten gasket hanging on a wall are cool. And that bath tub looking thing held potatoes in the winter and new born calves.

And my absolute favorite thing. This are gallon tallies penciled onto the wall, looks like sometime in the 1960s. How close to a old dairy farm can a guy get?

Tacked to the door of the building, this rusted but proud proclamation. Washington farmer's lived and worked here. I know that none of the Lairds or the others left any particular message for me but there are whispers in the corners of these building, murmurs from the people who built and grew things here. They may not be telling me much, except that those lives were lived, and maybe that is all that any ghost is really trying to say.

We'll be leaving this farmhouse in two or three month. Can't wait for the new place. But when people ask me if I miss the farm, no doubt you can guess my answer.