What is a place. rewite

What is a place?

XXXX Olga road. This would be my address. I never owned a home before this one. A lot goes in to finding a place to purchase. Our agent might say, location, location, location, but I needed a place for my children to call home. A place that they could always come back to for warmth and comfort. The perfect place to make all the memories worth remembering and sharing.

When My husband and I started thinking of purchasing a home, we tried to decide what the  important key features would be. We strongly believe in being more self sufficient and wanted some acreage, running water and trees.  We wanted the opportunity to hunt and fish, farm and garden. To play outside, run and be loud. Nothing too close to any roads or neighbors.When we finally got serious about looking, we asked our agent to email us listings to view, so that we could choose the places that were worth driving up to see. We were in Grove Oklahoma at the time, and had to drive around three hours to get up here to see them.

I'll never forget the day we first drove out to look at our place. It was a cold, drab day in early spring. We were all bundled up in our scarves and coats. It seemed that we had been in the car forever! I recall driving down Hwy 60 East, and spotting a milk dairy with the words "milk in glass bottles" painted on it's roof. I thought the idea of fresh milk and cream in the glass bottles was so neat, I could not wait to go in and check it out. As we made the turn on to Z Hwy we could see the Bryers peach orchard sign. The thought of making fresh cobblers and jams from local growers was exciting to us.

The highway twisted and turned in every direction before we reached the driveway. As we pulled in, it started to snow and the first thing I noticed was a tree lined drive with the most beautiful, white blossom plum trees. They almost glowed against the gray backdrop of the sky.  At least twenty of them. You could not see the house from the road, but we passed a small pond right off the side of the drive. As soon as we topped the incline of a small hill, our view opened up to a large, well manicured lawn, with lots of mature, trimmed trees, and in the clearing was our home.

The brown ranch style house was not magnificent by any means, but it has appeal to all of us, plenty of room, a basement, and is sturdy built. Everyone would have their own room and not have to fight over bathroom time. The bonus feature for me was the large country size kitchen and pantry. It turned out to be ideal for making the big, traditional, family style meals for any occasion. Joshua was sold on the lush forest and abundant wildlife. As for the kids, they can play outside without us worrying about someone nabbing them from the yard, or hitting them with their car. Now we worry about them sneaking down to the fish infested  Finley River, which boarders two sides of our property or running in to a black bear, which we see from time to time on our place. Bears had nearly vanished from Missouri but began to recolonize following reintroductions in Arkansas (Misissippi). The river actually separates our property from the land my parents just purchased. I can almost imagine them swimming across to get over to Ma and Pa's side.

Since the time of purchase, we have been the host to many birthday parties, Easter egg hunts, and bottle rocket wars. The house gets filled to capacity with guests and the party spill out into the yard. Walking outside and hearing the childrens high pitch  laugh and watching them sprint from each other or race to the next destination is magical. We love possessing the space to entertain and create a fun environment for gatherings.

Many people in our community visited our home before it was technically ours. We actually purchased it from  our neighbors the Wright's. They own the farm right next to us. They bought the place for one of their daughters, but she was unable to live out this far due to a medical condition. Most of the land out here belonged to Mr.Wrights grandparents. Everyone in our circle of friends say we live in the old Kingsberry place (Williams). All I know of them would be, they were the ones who built house. We just tell people we live down Olga Road, on the Finley River.

The Finley River, a tributary of the James River, gets its start in the high land around Cedar Gap. That's about a 30 minute drive from our home. It flows east to west for a distance of 52.8 miles. Though it starts in Webster County, 48 miles of its length are in Christian County the with final 3 miles in the northeast corner of Stone County. Only the last 19 miles are floatable in high or medium-high water(ozarksfishin).   
The Finley River  has a waterfall. This picture, taken in Ozark Missouri, looks like a perfect place for a family photograph or picnic (Quessenberry).



We have not had the pleasure of taking our canoe on an adventurous ride down the Finley, but hope to get the chance soon. Cutting wood and watering the chickens take up a lot of our free time, But with five sets of hands to help with the chores, it goes by fast.

We speculate about what life will be like around here, after the kids are grown. It breaks our hearts to think of them running off and settling somewhere else. If it were up to Joshua and I, the kids would build a place of there own on the back side of the property and we would get to hear the sounds of our grandchildren reliving their parents childhood. Now that's what makes this place perfect to me.

Works Cited

http://ozarksfishin.wordpress.com/rivers/finley-river/. Blog at WordPress.com. The Fusion Theme., 2011. Web. 26 Nov. 2013.     

Misissippi State University. http://www.fwrc.msstate.edu/carnivore/mo_bear/index.asp. Ed. Jerrold Belant, Jeff Beringer, and Lori Eggert. Mississippi State University Forest and Wildlife Research Center, 20 Sept. 2012. Web. 26 Nov. 2013.   

Quessenberry, Derek. Http://www.derekquessenberryphotography.com/landscapes/finley-river-bridge/. 2013. http://www.derekquessenberryphotography.com/, San Francisco, California. Web. 26 Nov. 2013.

Williams, Judy A. Personal interview. .