Misty Meadows Homestead

By the time I was 9 I had attended over six schools and moved over 10 times. My parents had been in love but through the brokenness of their pasts they managed to tear one another apart.. Separations, reunions, separate homes.. nights together.. country rides.. explorations for the dream home.. searching and dreaming.. times when my mother, father and me were happy to be. Then one new years day we drove along a winding road out past a lake and a round barn.. and saw it there... lonesome and longing for us.. empty and alone by the roadside. Two window eyes looking out for us upstairs.. The soul of the house reaching out to have a family again to make it whole. It was a foggy gray day and the meadows were misty. I believe that a deer lay dead below the apple trees. It looked as though a transient had made a nest in the hay on the porch.. His sleeping bag still lay there. The windows were boarded up.. the house sat crooked on its four boulder foundation. It was a historic house.. one of the first built in the valley. The year 1904.. Oh that I could visit back to the days in the beginning when all was new.. A doctors office I believe.. and now it had the potential to heal my broken family. There was hope planted in our hearts.. It was the home with acreage and a creek and apple trees.. A place away from the constrictions of an interwoven life with in laws.. A place to start a new.. A little trailer in front said "For sale Misty Meadows" There were 30 acres total and a river lay along the base below the mountains of fir and lamb creek ran along the side... It didn't matter that the house was rickety.. My dad was wired to be a woodworker and he could handle that.. and all I could see were horses in the fields and me being able to ride... Oh.. the dream come true.. We explored then headed home.. fragmented and cold in the emerald valley of death. My gerbil had died. My turtle was lost.. "Call them dad, Call them~ See how much that place is.. " "We don't have a job or money".." so call anyway... you don't want an old broken down place.. oh dad cant you see the potential... call them dad.. call." and call he did. 30 acres for 30,000 or 10 for $10,000... $500 down.. Wow! can you imagine..!! 1973? Was it..

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