Farm History in Brief

In 1955 my paternal grandparents moved from the northern portion of the state to the rolling hills of southeastern Ohio, where both had been born and raised. My grandfather wished to fulfill his dream of retiring to a farm and purchased 23 acres of a mixture of bottomland and terrace on a tributary of the great Ohio River.

They weren't rich, but you didn't have to be wealthy to afford such a parcel in those days. The county was quiet and rural. The farm was mostly treeless except for the ones that lined the riverbank and an enormous hemlock in the pasture. Locks and dams on the Ohio had turned the small tributary that formed the farm's border into a literal backwater.

My grandfather raised a few head of cattle for freezer beef, and boarded trotters that competed in local harness races. He kept chickens and grew a large garden. The flattest land of the farm was rented out to two bachelor brothers who raised corn on it. The highest land, a trapezoidal piece that sloped upwards to the east of the house was an orchard of gnarled apple trees where the biddy house sat. At the top, a line of towering cherry trees marked the border with the neighbor's property.

I visited the farm often as a child and gained the valuable skills of coaxing the hens into their house in the evening, and using a chamber pot. There was a bathroom downstairs, but my grandmother worried about my navigating stairs in the night. After my grandparents passed on, my father inherited the farm and somewhat reluctantly rented out the house to a young local couple who expressed interest. A succession of renters followed until, in 2001, after years spent out-of-state, I moved back to the area with my partner and newborn son to take up farm residence. As the moving truck traveled the narrow lane leading to the house, the changes in the farm became obvious. The apple trees were gone, having lived out their natural life span; the orchard was now a wide expanse of lawn. The tall cherry trees at the top were missing, replaced by a mobile home. Trees were thriving in the former pasture however, which had grown up with ashes, cherries, and silver maples. The huge hemlock lay rotting, but a healthy offspring grew nearby, surrounded by pawpaws.

Some things hadn't changed. The bachelor farmers still put in corn each year in the flat front field and in the bottom. The lowest land still flooded regularly. The aging barn appeared only slightly more weathered on the outside; a bit more junk had collected on the inside.

A few years later the aging bachelors retired, ending an informal lease agreement that had lasted decades. During that time neither, my grandfather, my father, nor I had thought to amend the original agreement, so the fee they had been paying was a nominal $150 per year. Loss of this income hardly compared to the what was regained: about 15 arable acres that were now free of yearly pesticide and fertilizer drenchings. I commenced the gargantuan (for me) task of fencing the rear bottomland into permanent pasture, which is now happily grazed in season by the most destructive force known to humankind, the pleasure horse.

Out of money, time, and ideas, I let the abandoned front field sit neglected. Years of abuse in the form of agricultural chemicals and possibly escaped fracking fluids have left their mark, and in many areas there is very little life with the exception of blackberry brambles and goldenrod. This past fall had some encouraging signs, namely the advance of paw paw trees across the field, signaling that the forest has begun to return. In the moister areas closer to the river, adolescent sycamores are breaking free of the Japanese honeysuckle and reaching heights of 20 feet or more. Most encouraging of all, the neighbor has caught footage of a bobcat on his trail cam. Other locals aren't impressed by this occurrence, and have told me that the beasts are becoming much more common in these parts, but I remain excited and hopeful of finding further signs that this beautiful predator is visiting regularly.

On paper, the farm might appear to be less productive now than in the past, since no commodities like corn are being exported from the land. In less tangible ways it has become vastly more productive. Permanent pasture and wooded areas are building soil where cornfields contributed to erosion and soil loss. More water is retained on the land, contributing to tree growth, and helping to mitigate flooding. The orchard is regrowing, this time with hazel bushes, and native shrubs like spicebush and Carolina sweet shrub. (I even tucked a fiber banana start up there in the fall.) We're making a conscious effort to create wildlife habitat by digging vernal pools, optimistically called ponds, and creating brush and wood piles to attract snakes, small rodents, and birds.

Looking at old photos from the 60's, I'm amazed at how barren the place was. The house sits in a yard that is like a fenced island in a sea of bare field and pasture. The majority of the improvements over time--increased privacy and beauty, less erosion and water pollution, ecosystem re-establishment--have been largely achieved by doing nothing. We live on an earth that wants to heal itself, and the farm is in an area that hasn't been degraded beyond the point if no return. Much of the land in the eastern U.S could be similarly restored by convincing landowners to be lazier. Sit back, relax, quit doing all that work. A sound basis for a successful movement in my opinion.