Walnut Grove: "Little House" or Haunted House?: 10 Years at the Farm

Thursday, November 01, 2012

"Little House" or Haunted House?: 10 Years at the Farm

1919

2012

On Halloween day 2002, Lance and I signed the deed that would make Walnut Grove Farm our own. Ten years later, we are older, hopefully wiser, definitely more tired, and thankfully more sarcastic. Though originally envisioned as something akin to "Little House on the Prairie," in many ways, our homesteading and restoration story has unfolded more like a Stephen King horror novel with a vengeful and animate house at the center. (Case in point: Hours before this year's Halloween party, the wind blew the exterior door to the laundry room closed, shattering all the glass in its window.) Perhaps if we had signed the deed on Christmas day, things would have gone more cheerily? But all horror stories are really just projections of our own fears and frustrations, aren't they? The house isn't cursed, we are. Is this REALLY how it goes?

Overall, the enduring lesson has been a very Buddhist one: nothing is permanent. We were not the first inhabitants of Walnut Grove, and we will not be the last. The world changes ownership, after all. Just as the families before us were unlucky in their loss of the farm (the great-nephew of the original owner had the farm sold out from under him; the woman who lived here for 25 years before us lost her husband to a younger woman and subsequently had to auction off the farm), we were lucky to find such a beautiful place to create our home, and though we have suffered many a stressful moment working on it, we have yet been forced to give it up against our own volition. (So take that Halloween House Curse!) We hope that it will provide an inspiring and instructive environment for Thomas to grow up in, and that he will choose to be its next steward. (If not, then note to new owners: Don't leave the laundry room door open!)