Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Marks Of The Past

I was sitting here, struggling to find or figure out, something to write about. These days, our little farm, here in the Ozarks, is pretty slow. The cows are dry, the chickens are butchered, the rabbits are birthing (and eating) their young, and the kids have a garlic poultice on their noses to clear the sinuses. Life is good, God is good. I like it when we can slow down a bit.

I thought I'd look through some of the gazillion photos my wife has on this computer, to see if something would inspire me. I cam across some pictures of the boys we were going to adopt (read: this story for more). I can't express how much my heart ached. I have been thinking of them a lot lately.

Instead, I came across some other photos that I thought would be interesting to you. It might, also, get my mind off the boys we once had. So, without further delay, here they are. I will explain them as they are posted.




This past, early spring, we had a surprise visit from a surveyor. I think he was called in by a fella that was buying the neighboring property. He cam to find the half mile marker that he thought was on our land. As you can see by the picture, he eventually found it, but he wasn't sure if this was it. He said he had to get his GPS instrument and set it there for a couple of days to get a reading from satellite. It did turn out, in fact, to be the marker he was looking for. According to the records, this marker was placed here in the 1840's. It was kind of exciting to us to have this little bit of history here.




They came back at a later date to put in a permanent marker, which you see here, next to the old marker, which they left. The thing that gets me is how accurate they were in the old days. They probably paced these things off and used a compass or something. These, latest gentlemen used advanced GPS technology and found that the old, 1840's marker, was on the money.



This is the sign and post that accompanied the new marker. You know, this sort of thing makes a history buff, like myself, think of time long gone. It makes me wonder what this land looked like, back then. I'm sure it must have been quite wild. 1840's Missouri didn't know who the Engels or Wilders were. Questions arise like, who owned this land when it was first marked? I bet if I did some digging, I could find out.

I have always been enthralled with what life must have been like, back then. In many ways, I'm convinced, it was much simpler. Modern life seems to be too much of a rat race-always bigger and better. I believe that people back then, worked hard and never did have much, but they were happy. They were satisfied with a little chunk of land they could call their own and have a family. Material things didn't mean much to them because they knew they couldn't have them. They made due with what they had and were happy with it.

Sure, they struggled. Just read the "Little House" stories to get a glimpse of that. But they weren't unhappy either.

I guess I can say that I am glad to have a little chunk of land I can call my own and have my family along side. We don't have wealth, monetarily or materialistically. But, folks, I am here to tell you that I am a wealthy man, God has blessed me and my family, not with worldly thing, but with a good work ethic, a place to live and each other. What could be better?

2 comments:

Marci said...

That is amazing on how accurate they were back then.

I know what you mean about pictures. I finally hid deep in some file the pictures of the 6 children we almost adopted. We had bonded with them in our heart.

Scott or Pam said...

Thanks, Marci. It does a heart good to know there are others out there that share this kind of pain.
Scott