A Walk at the Farm (Blogophlia 7.14)

I recently moved to a new home adjacent to one of the units of the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area. With immediate access to almost 20 miles of trail, It is paradise to a day hiker like me.

But the coolest place to hike isn’t on Federal land. It is Hyde Farm , a Cobb County operated cultural site and park about a half mile walk from the house.

The old barn

Back when I was in high school, it was a working farm. In typical teenage fashion, we would skip school and go to the parking lot of Morgan Falls dam, which is at the bottom of the ravine below the farm and party. We would see old Mr. Hyde (he was pretty old back then) plowing the lower field with his mule, fussing about one thing or another. Sometimes, we’d get ambitious and swim across the river to the far bank, only to have him threaten to call the police on us.

Morgan Falls from the far shore

In the 1970s, in response to a large bridge project, the river park system was proposed as a way to protect the riverbank from erosion and development. Someone with clout managed to get President Carter’s ear, who shepherded the bill through Congress, saying since a lot of the low lying area was utility easements, it would a great idea to keep them from being developed. It was fairly successful.

When the government approached Mr. Hyde to see if he would be interested, the refused. And after he passed away, his family was even more adamant. They had heard the developer’s money call and had subdivided the property in several places, including the land my subdivision sits on.

Finally, after much thought, negotiation, and a delinquent property tax bill, the family did agree to deed over the central 40 acres with the original buildings to Cobb County with the understanding the farm would be preserved.

When you come down the main road, you feel like you have stepped back in time to the early part of the 20th century.

Well House

The County has chosen not to paint or whitewash anything but to leave the wood to age naturally, but do other repairs (like the roof) to maintain the integrity of the structures.

The main house

The farm consists of the main house, a seven stall horse barn, a couple of tool sheds, five chicken coups (one of which is still working with about a dozen hens),

a hay loft, a outhouse, and an old fashioned dog house. An arbor of Muscadine vines runs along a pasture fence.

A Caretaker lives on the property and makes sure nothing burns down or gets vandalized.

There are about a mile of paths around the property. It is so quiet, you don’t realize you are not in the middle of suburbia. Instead, you wish for a pony to ride and to forget about the world.

I might have found paradise. And I didn’t need the dashboard light.

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It’s a Writer Choice week.

I thought about making a Quaalude joke, but that would have gone better with last week’s post.

Topic-Step Back in time

Hard prompt-Use a Jim Steinman/Meatloaf lyric (Paradise by the Dashboard Light)

Easy Prompt-Chickens.

Pic-Collen Keller Bruenig

Pic guesses. Cherrytree Lane, Primrose Path, Avenue, spring, arbor, pink dream