My Parents’ Farm
1985
The car Camille learned to drive on in 1969.
The barn which is crammed full and even in 1985 had all kinds of rodents and insects nesting and burrowing through the layers of boxes. Dad goes to auction religiously and hauls back boxes, primarily full of books.
The dodge dart was one of our favorite cars. It looks more like a bulldozer, now.
Nearly every car mom and dad have ever owned have become enshrined in this tribute to clutter.
Another outbuilding, full of crap.
No matter how many people offer to help clean up this mess, they are always rejected. Before Mom‘s car accident, January 2007, she would take advantage of the hours Dad spent at auction by sneaking newspapers to the burn bin. She had to be very careful not to enrage him by taking anything obvious, therefore it would take her a long time to pull rubble out from underneath the bottom of the piles and burn it before he returned home. Now that she has moved out, there are bees and who knows what else living in the house amid the book stacks.
2007
Mom waves bye bye to Jamie after he visited on Mother‘s Day. After a terrible car accident, she spent three months recuperating in a nursing home. Because of her shattered pelvis and broken femur (along with a broken neck) she had to learn to walk again. It was a wonderful day when she graduated to walking with only the aid of a cane. Upon release from the nursing home, mom moved back into “The Farm”with dad.
She spent a week there before having to move back out. Negotiating the piles of ‘stuff’ twisted her leg to the point that she had to abandon the use of her cane and regress to a walker. While her leg was straight when she left the nursing home, family reports that the bone was now bent . Since there is not enough room in the house to accommodate a walker, she had to leave. The doctor said she would have to use a walker for the rest of her life, so has gone to live in town at an assisted living facility and visits dad once a week on Sundays. We all worry that this one day a week is doing more damage to her bone structure. Naturally, all this could have been avoided if not for the compulsive hoarding going on here.
The front porch
The living room
Other Farm Visits: