When I was about twenty-five years old this farm began to represent for me an other-worldly hope that I cannot put into words. I had known it all my life but was drawn to it now with a peculiar intensity, and I did not know exactly why this was. The hope of living close to the land, attending to the seasons, depending on home-grown food, and sharing these years with family in this place seemed like an impossible ideal. Could it actually happen, though, this side of heaven? It could. It can. It did. It happened for me!
1975-2000 – grew up visiting this beautiful farm where my grandparents lived
1998 – Grandfather passed away, ten years before my grandmother in ’08 after she went to live in Jackson for 5-6 years
2000 – started visiting Water Valley to take long walks and write about the farm
2001 – interviewed about “the old ways” a neighbor, Tillet Swindoll (b. approx. 1920), who grew up on our farm; also interviewed my Grandmother whose father owned it
2002 – led extended family on a tour of farm with stories from land history and made a display of farming hand tools and mule-drawn farm equipment which we had discovered stored on the farm
2003-2006 – kept visiting farm and writing and scheming how to move to the farm
2007 – moved to the farm
2011 – moved away from the farm, sad but also cherishing some great memories; learning to trust God with a broken dream
2013-14 – returned with my dad and my son and some friends on two weekend trips to finish the barn
2015 – moved far away from Water Valley to the MS Gulf Coast
2016-21 – annual trips to visit the farm
2022 – planning to get there this year too
2024 – planned a weekend in April with my brothers and our dad to hang out at the farm
The pics above are just of the yard behind the house, but I call it part of the farm, too. I am due another walk here soon.
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