The End of the Gravel Road

The end of a gravel road – that's where we find our favorite places in the world...

Juniper, the place in central Florida where we spend time fishing with friends and the road where Maggie, Jack, Mary, Jeananne, Katie B., Claire, Danny, Casey, Katie S. and James  learned to drive;

 Arowhon Pines, in Algonquin Park where we recoup from canoe trips in Canada;

the Davis ranch in Colorado;

the cabins in Alberta where the old woman cooked on a wood stove and took Ed and the kids on a tough hike (I stayed behind);

and the tiny town of Biscotasing, where Ed and I set out for our week-long, remote cabin trip and each of the kids passed through on their long canoe trips.

So, it only made sense to situate our new house at the end of a long gravel drive. Putting in the drive was one of the first things we did at our farm. The learning curve was steep. We drove the route we wanted the drive to follow and then placed little flags in the center of our tire marks, all the way the length of the drive. We hired Allan, Stevie and Teddy to run a bulldozer; we called around to get pricing on #2 rocks and dense grade gravel, and we agreed to the need for a culvert pipe at a low spot.

And now, we have our very own gravel road. It still needs to be seeded and landscaped: a fence at the entrance and perhaps some flowering trees and then native grasses growing along both sides. But for now, it serves its purpose: getting us back to our next favorite place, our home.