Pitcher Farm

My Mother told me that she doesn't go back. When she leaves, she leaves. My dear Grandparents Robert and Evelyn died a few years ago, my grandfather at ninety-five and my grandmother soon after at eighty-nine. None of my family has been back to their summer home, a rolling red farmhouse called the Pitcher Farm in rural Henniker, New Hampshire. When I was a kid, we spent a summer weekend or two at the Pitcher Farm. My Grandfather was the grand genial patriarch. Come fall, Thanksgiving was always at the Pitchers with a large crowd of bon vivants. In college and later on, Grandma and Granddad loved it when I brought a date by the homestead and they continued to ask about Kristen and that journalist from Michigan.

A lazy August Saturday in August rolls around. My long-long brother Rob suggests that Mom and I go with him on a drive up to Henniker to check out the old farm. What's it like now? Surprisingly, the farm is in good shape with new roof and tended fields. We poked around the old haunts, walked to the lake, checked out the lake cottage, and wandered the back pasture. We found a lot of memories. The Pitcher's neighbor, the French's told us that our Uncle Dan comes up frequently on summer weekends. He and his wife Carol take care of the place. We shall be back.

Grandparents, I miss you and your zest for life.

The side of a fiberglass cow in Boston	Every city gets these cows on tour. It's now Boston's turn.	It's the Haymarket cow. Get it? Hay + Market.	My Grandparents' former home in Henniker, NH	The front pasture where lambs would roam. Now three cows sit in the back.
The cottage by the lake where we would sometimes stay over as kids in the summer. Later the cottage became my grandmother's summer art studio.	The lake where I learned to swim thanks to my great Aunt Molly. We had our own rickety dock.	The frogs are loud at night	Another look at the brown cottage whose windows are now boarded up. There was an 8-track player inside that we found hysterical.	The path from the house to the lake by the pasture.
The Pitcher Farm	The front door where my Grandfather would great everybody with a joke.	A little barn where beer and kroquet was stored.	More barns. My Grandparents often loaned storage space to surrounding farmers.	Hay is for horses
When I was little, I climbed the scratchy hay bails.	The back pond. My brother Ray and I once carried two ducks into the pond.	Birds still come	My brother and my mother survey the grounds	The rear of the house
The sitting porch where we played backgammon or had snacks	Inspecting the barn	It's all about luck	My Grandfather's favorite game involved these grooved, colored balls	My Mother never liked to lose
Good players could send a ball flying into the street.	Lots of random farm junk in the garage	A forlorn plant	Rosebud. We never went sleding.	More of the dear ol' house. My uncle now owns and maintains the property which he frequents frequently.
A walk to the rear pond.	My Grandmother loved to garden	My Mother checks to see whether anybody is home.	The front door	The side door
35 French Pond Road	Three cows in the pasture	Where my Grandparents are laid to rest. Wilshire was my Grandmother's maiden name.	Evelyn was born to Bert and Edna Wilshire, married Irwin Goodenough who died, and then Robert Pitcher, my mother's father.