Maggie's Farm

When my parents moved to NE before I was born, they had big plans for trips here and there: to NYC, to the Cape, to the Berkshires, what have you. They did make those trips, but in much less volume than they originally anticipated. Some of this was due to the time requirements of simultaneously caring for children and rehabbing an old farmhouse room by room. My father did most of the rehabbing himself, with assistance from my mother.

But even after the old house was rehabbed, and the time requirements of caring for children were much reduced, they didn't make many trips from the home place. At one time I considered them sticks in the mud for not traveling that much around NE. I now realize that they didn't so because in many respects the area around the home place already had many of the characteristics of a vacation spot. Lake or pond for swimming? Visible from the kitchen window. Beautiful forests? The home place was surrounded by forests. The nearest neighbor was a quarter mile away. I could walk a mile west from the home place before hitting a road. Walking north, a half mile. Walking east, after crossing the road by our house, no road for a mile- and that was a dirt road. Varied ecosystem? Creek, river, swamp, pond/lake, forest, meadow all within sight of the home place. A vacation spot right at home.