The Farm

When I was about 8 years old, we moved from our house in the city of Molalla to a huge old farm on the outskirts of town.  My Mom was not happy about the move.  In fact, I remember her crawling into bed with me on the last night in our old house and sobbing hysterically.  This was all my Dad's plan.  The new house and farm was a fantastical playground in the daytime and a nightmare at night.  It was over 100 years old when we moved into it and had the look of a horror movie set, complete with gothic arched windows and an on-site graveyard.  I remember thinking as we turned down the long driveway and I got a look at the facade of the house, "I"ll never sleep again." And so I was introduced to the place where I would spend the rest of my childhood.
The house and outbuildings had lacked regular maintenance for some time, so my parents had their work cut out for them.  The house needed extensive updating.  This was the kind of thing that my Dad enjoyed tremendously; my Mom, not so much.  My Dad tried to press my brother, Keith and I into service whenever he could get a hold of us.  We kept pretty busy exploring the barn and fields and I suspect we were too young to be very useful to him.  I remember having to sweep the wood floors after they had been sanded in preparation for refinishing.  There was the sharp smell of sawdust and hazy air everywhere.  Perhaps Keith had to do more than I did, as that was certainly the case later on.