H.A. Byrd

I walk dogs. My small, one-person business pairs well with the process of writing books. I���m lucky to live in a historic ���old town��� of a semi-rural region. This hilly, wooded area offers me lovely places to walk while I gather inspiration. The bend of a spectacular, ever-changing river flows right through my walking range, and the trail which runs across the street from my house offers sixty miles of strolling along old railroad grades.

One of my favorite places to take the dogs is an old dairy farm set right in the very crook of the river. Some of the property is up on a bluff, the rest is river bottomland, green and fertile, bounded by alder woods and then stony beach. Dogs love it there. There���s open fields, a swimmable, broad and rocky area of the river, and more interesting smells than a dog knows what to do with. I love it there, too.

I didn���t grow up in this town, but I���ve been walking daily in the area for five years or so. I���ve come to know the community within an hour���s walk from my door. I���ve seen some gorgeous historic buildings fall to the hands of greedy developers, and it broke my heart to watch the dairy���s old barn get bulldozed.

"Oregon dairy cows" by Oregon State University is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 [image error][image error][image error]

When one spends time in a place a certain sort of bonding is bound to happen. It���s a kind of mutual ownership. The land, in a way, begins to belong to the person. And, in a way, the person begins to belong to the land. There���s a connection which takes place, a mutual trust between the person and the spirit of the land. This is a powerful bond, strengthened by generations of occupation. So, although I have no actual claim to the old dairy land, I feel that it is a part of myself.

They put the signs up a few years ago. I knew they���d be ripping out the beautiful old barn. I knew they���d fill the bluff with ticky tacky quadruplexes. A sports field complex is planned for the bottomlands. This, and word of the similar destruction of another breathtaking piece of nature where I walk dogs just north of town, broke my heart. My family and I seriously considered moving out to a remote area on the open coast.

"dairy cows" by pascalk is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 [image error][image error][image error][image error]

But, we stayed. And I decided to feature this dairy land as a backdrop for one of the short stories in my upcoming book. I wanted to honor the land. Honestly, I also wanted the people who move into those new homes to read about what lay under their built-in-a-day foundations. I care about history. As I researched the history of the farm for my story, I learned more than I had bargained for. And largely, what I learned was about myself, my attitudes, and how easily influenced I am.

At first, I found out that the old farmer had supported local sports and had donated the lowlands to the city. This made me feel better about the whole thing. I have no use for sports fields myself, but some people do, and it was the farmer���s wishes. It will ruin the scenery, which is sad, but it felt better to know about this. Later I found out that he���d given some land to the city, but made tidy millions by selling the rest of his bottomland to them. Okay, fine. Then, as I learned more by talking with some of the elders in the community, the story changed. My information is unverified, but the impression now is that this farmer was not a nice man. Not at all.

"Shelburne Farms (1886) ��� Dairy Barn (1891)" by origamidon is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 [image error][image error][image error][image error]

In addition I learned that, while my idyllic image of dairy cows grazing in the bottomland may have been true in the past, for quite some time most dairy cows have spent their entire productive lives standing on cement, never leaving the barn.

My heart has gone through connecting with the land, to feeling defensive of it, to then feeling humbled by my out-of-towner ignorance. Now, I see that the picture is more complicated than I had assumed. I realize I���ve had a series of assumptions on which I���ve based my feelings, and most of these assumptions were wrong! At this point my perspective is that it���s a good thing the farm is no longer in operation. The area below the bluff is now open for public use. That���s why I���ve been able to enjoy it. I still can���t really forgive them for the barn, though. They could have incorporated it into their housing complex as a shed or recreation facility. That farm dated from 1890, the greedy bastards.