Let It Be

Every now and then I drive over to my parents' home on the Wabash River and check on it. It is the place where I grew up and had my very first horses, but now it is vacant and owned by Wabash River Enhancement, a group dedicated to preserving the Wabash River corridor. 

My parents bought this property in 1970 and lived here almost fifty years. After my mother passed away in 2016, her wishes were to sell it to WRE so that the woods and riverfront would be preserved.  Their home is now being allowed to return to nature, something that they very much wanted.

This is the concrete staircase down the side of Whiskey Ravine to where my horses' paddock used to be.

A closer look. You can see the old red handrail better in this photo. I used to carry hay, grain, water, and tack up and down those stairs. Now they are pretty much impassable.

This is an old picture of the bottom of the ravine at the base of those stairs. The view is now totally obscured. (Er, that's a hay wheelbarrow I am lounging in, not one that carried manure!!)

I also cared for our neighbors' two horses and donkey at their barn down the road until I went off to college. Rather than go the long way around, I used to take a short cut right down the side of this moraine and through the woods. I don't think I could get through there any more!

The house is becoming more and more obscured by vegetation.This is the back door and porch with the kitchen window. It was the entrance we used most. (I wanted so badly to grab a broom and sweep that porch and steps!)

I once took my horse, Pokey, up on the patio and through that door into the house - just to see if I could! Boy, was I toast when my mother caught me! And to this day, I honestly do not know why I brought him into the house. I just did!

Recently a huge tree fell during a storm and across the driveway. (Yes, that's a driveway. You can barely still see the gravel peeking through the ground cover.) The tree blocks the rest of the way up to the barn and just missed the power lines to the house. (I was VERY cautious when I first saw it, and checked to be sure that there were no downed power lines that I could step on.)

Sadly, the barn is being overwhelmed, too. 

It was once such a beautiful home high on a moraine overlooking the Wabash with nine acres of woods and pastures.

Sometimes it is difficult to honor and carry out someone's wishes. I will admit that seeing my former home in such disrepair makes me terribly sad. There are so many happy memories here, of family, friends, and my earliest horse-owner memories.

But, this is what my parents wanted, and so we let it be.