Dad's Farm

Here are some more pictures from the vacation Gretchen and I took with the boys earlier this month. This property used to be Dad's tree farm in Penn Yan. It's 55 acres, which includes a 3 acre pond. Seventeen acres were tillable and 35 acres were hardwood forested. He bought it in 1982 and sold it in 1995.

He hired some local Mennonite men to build the house and barn. Dad spent many a weekend down there, planned on retiring to this place. Mom worried about him being alone down here so he finally had a phone line put in when electricity made it down the dirt road it sits on. (Dad, correct me about any of this in the comments!) I think Dad and a down-the-street neighbor paid to run the electricity up to their end of the road. He finally even had indoor plumbing installed but that was right before

he sold it. Up until then, one had to use the outhouse, or the privy as Dad liked to call it. That's it behind the house, small building, barely visible here. You can imagine how thrilled Mom and Gretchen and I were with that! Guess that was Dad's intention, kept visitors few and far between.

This is the other side of the house, opposite the driveway. Two of my strongest memories of visiting Dad here were the mega numbers of cluster flies. I'd never heard of them before that and man, were they gross. There were so many of them, Dad used to suck them up with the shop vac. And there were bats. Inside the house. I'm not sure if I ever actually saw one but Simon did and Dad confirmed it. Bats are a good thing. Outside, eating bugs where they belong! Dad had a bat house on the back of the house, with a big pile of bat droppings beneath it. Oh goody, more evidence of bats.

This really was a neat place, don't get me wrong. I'm not sure my description is doing it justice. Maybe I better shut up and we'll just enjoy the pictures.

This is the barn, that was built a few years after the house. Gretchen and I were both very surprised that the whole place looked just like it did when Dad left it, to our recollection anyway. I thought it would be all modernized and improved or something. We were half hoping the owners would be home and invite us in, but no dice.

This is the pond, as seen from the yard. We used to park the car by the pond, on the other side and walk up to it but it seemed so overgrown on that side, I don't think that's possible anymore. I remember the boys trying to skip stones in the pond, just like Grampa did.

This is my artsy shot of the fence. That's Gretchen taking pictures over on the right side there. It makes me kind of sad that Dad sold it. I never thought about the future or anything but when I do, who am I kidding? For me to live there would require some major renovation. De-batting the place would be first, followed by the installation of central air conditioning and a high speed Internet connection, not necessarily in that order. I love rustic but more that it's a nice place to visit, not sure I want to live there. I love the location and the solitude though.