I am by inclination a historian. I come by it naturally; got it from my grandfather. I love old houses, and that is why I put up with the idiosyncrasies of the antique which I call home. I have lived in this house longer than anyplace else. I have no desire to ever leave. Luckily I am pretty handy and can keep up with its ever changing challenges - bad floors, composting windowsills, no central heating, and right now, one electrical circuit that had ceased to function, making lighting in half of the downstairs a challenge. But I do love the history of the place and knowing a bit about those who have been here before me. We have been fortunate to have know people who were raised here and who could tell us stories. The house was built in 1862, from plans you could get back then, from wood that was cut on this land and with a cut stone foundation which was also gotten on the property. We have tried to keep it as original as possible, with the 'modern' stuff in an addition on the back that we added when we took off the 1940s addition that had pretty much composted. The Stewarts owned it back in the late 1800s or early 1900s, but only had a daughter who inherited the house with her Rhoric husband, hence the name of our road. When Hank bought the place, it was one of only 2 houses on the road, a distance of about 2 miles. There were usually only 2 cars to come by a day - the mail person and the newspaper person. Times have changed a bit since then, but it is still quiet and without much traffic. This was a dairy farm for many years, and one of the owners 'drove' the horse drawn schoolbus. They farmed with horses, 2 of which are buried on the hill above the back garden. It was a farm in our early years here too - horses, pigs, geese, chickens, ducks, goats and I'm probably forgetting something. It has evolved from that to being purely a pleasure garden - pretties and not much to eat, though I do stick edibles here and there and hope the deer and rabbits don't find them. But enough talk. Here are some photos from times past.
This first one is take just about at the end of the driveway. The horses used to bring in the firewood. Amazing how not wooded it is down there compared to now.
This is one of the sheep the year she had quadruplets. This was taken back near where the bog is now
And 2 geese, Gus and Gloria
The back barn and Roch, the horse. The back pasture was a lot cleaner then as the sheep grazed over there back then .
This was the parking lot back then it was for growing potatoes or popcorn or sunflowers.
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