Food, Family and Fire, The Trifecta of a great day

Saturday May 16th, 2015

Hannah and I went to Detroit to see the family for a day of clearing for the family cemetery.  It is part of the deed of the Basford property, on the most beautiful piece of land I have ever seen.

A wonderful few hours of walking in the woods with Hannah and Mom, Hannah asking lots of great questions about what she saw and Mom telling her many of the same things she taught me at the same age. At one point, Hannah holding my hand and her gram-gram's hand.

Zeb bought a new gas grill which Kimmy, Wes and Zeb spend a few hours putting together. They put in the pick-up truck to move out to the bonfire so  H got her first ride in the back of a pick-up and is now sold that its the way to travel!

Uncle Wayne,  Zeb, the skidda, and chainsaw started clearing.  Aaron and Jen arrived. As a side note, if anyone hasn't been watching Aaron and Jen's year of fitness and health, you have to go check our their Facebook pages, truly amazing!

I, Grace, twisted my ankle on my second trip out in the field as part of my master plan to not have to work so I set up near the grill but no I didn't cook.  Aunt Ginny arrived driven by McKenna with her newly acquired license.  Jeremy and JJ's and children arrived by bike and ATV.  Great conversations about where the road used to be, where the different generations ice skated in the field, where the paths between the farm and the "little" house were and who used them along with current activity of cheer-leading, who has a girlfriend (wont embarrass Ian) and how many kiddos graduate next year from the family. There was plenty of food, beer and fire

As I write this, I try to think if there was something remarkable about the day that makes it worth a blog and I realized yes, Family. No One cares if you comb your hair (ask Hannah) or if you have a huge hole in the butt of your pants (ask Zeb), they just care. No matter how long since you have seen each other, you belong.   

Nathaniel Basford has the right idea, live there, die there then let your body go back to the land there

Freshly-hayed fields

It's that time of year again, hay season.  It's one of my favorite times of year around here because you have wide-open fields and reminds me of my youth (why is always your youth you're reminded of?)
It mostly reminds me of the endless hours playing baseball in those fields with other family members and other kids from this end of town.  A field, a bat, a ball, a few gloves and a handful of kids was all you needed to play and we played often.

I've also been known to hit a few golf balls around in these fields and, of course, countless walks and other youthful endeavors.  Have you ever laid out in an open field at night and gazed at the stars?  I also remember getting paid a couple of hay seasons helping Mr. Walker, I think it was, hay the fields, which was hard, hot work but the payoff was a few bucks to spend and a new ballfield to play in.  Then there's always that great smell.
Anyone else have similar or different memories about this or anything else regarding the farm or being a Basford?  Would love to hear from you.  Please leave any comments you have here in the comment section of this post or whichever one you're commenting on.  Please check and see if you've read every piece that's been written here.
Looking forward to seeing many of you at the get-together at the end of August.  Anyone want to volunteer to write about it and share the pics here?

THE LAND AND THE FARM

In answer to Zeb’s query about memories of the flat, my first memory would be of haying the fields. Will do a whole piece on haying and other work that we did on the farm another time. When the fields were no longer hayed, the blueberries came in. I know the younger kids remember picking them. This lasted for a few years until the brush and trees came in. We picked strawberries there some and also in the “Five Acre Piece”, which is now Wayne’s field. Of course we did a lot of walking in the woods and especially liked the pines on the knoll on the north side of the road.
I remember Grammie Basford having chickens in the field where my house is now during the summers. Before I can remember there were beans planted, the dry bean type. Later this field and a portion of the woods was pasture. I frequently come across remnants of the barbed wire fences. There were a number of hen houses next to the farm house, three I think. The building right next to the house was used to store grain and feeders, etc. for the chickens. As you may know, the largest hen house was once the school house for South Detroit and was moved around the corner from Rt. 220.

Picture taken in the early 1920s

The farm house, of course, looks pretty much as the old one did from the outside. Some of you remember the pantry, which had a spring or a well under it. Mom did have the refrigerator in it but otherwise was used more to store tools, etc than as a pantry. There was a small shed next to the kitchen with a set of stairs leading to the open chamber over the kitchen. Firewood was brought in through the shed and the woodbox set right next to the door. There was also an open shed next to the house where Dad would put sawdust for the cows and shavings for the chickens. Then there was kind of an open shed with the ‘lovely’ outhouse at the end. There had been a pig pen next to that but we didn’t have pigs in my memory. More details about the original farm house later.
One of the differences in the restored barn is the loss of the silo. As you went in through the front door, there were grain bins on the right and then kind of a walkway leading to the silo that was on the north side of the barn. We kept corn silage in that. Not sure when it fell over but think it was during a hurricane in the 1950’s. The left section of the barn was the tie-up where the cows were kept. The cows were tied up to the right as you entered that section. There were doors with hinges on them in front of the cows and hay would be put through to feed them. The small building to the left of the barn was the milk house. For some reason we usually referred to it as the milk room but it was always a separate building that held the milk cooler. The milk cooler was a tank filled with cold water to cool down the milk, which was dumped in milk cans after milking.

Little rivers and rock walls

The fields behind Mom's are full of rivers today, as it's so warm you could be out with a t-shirt, and the snow is melting rapidly.  The high point near where we used to play baseball in the field (to the left of the tree island) is bare and dry.  (Just a week ago I was able to walk the snowmobile trail back from Rick Pease's)  Ever since I was a boy one of my favorite things about early spring was watching all these little rivers flow above and beneath the snow, eventually coming together into a big river heading down the west field.
I had set out with Todd going around the east of the tree island looking for places dry enough that I could walk back to the woods road.  I finally made it back near where the road goes into the woods, but then the rock wall, which has always been fascinating to me, drew me in.  So we ended up walking the perimeter of  the field to the west, me investigating areas of the rock wall and occasionally picking up limbs, Todd investigating who-knows-what.  Dogs love spring, everything smells like shit to sniff.
I find these rock walls to be beautiful works of art and awesome feats of engineering.  Look at how well they're put together, like a mason building a stone chimney; and conversely look at how long the walls are around the property and imagine how many rocks and the physical effort it took to build them.
Sorry I don't have a camera but I'm sure your imagination is better than any picture I could take.  But if anyone has one they'd like to share, just let me know in the comments.  Also, if anyone has any information on who, how and when the walls were built or any story related to them, it would be great to see someone post a story.