I used to imagine what it was like back at the time when there was a home here and a family. This old road led to the long abandoned farm with just a cellar hole and a couple of lilacs to mark its existence.

The woods were always cool going up to Lost Valley this way. I would try to stay on the part of the bridge supported by a beam underneath. You had to be careful and pick your way across the bridges as the planks were mostly rotten. There were a couple of old plank bridges on the old road where the brook crossed under. Sometimes, I would walk up this old road between the two ridges and hike up to Lost Valley. Both were just brooks at this end вЂ“ it is no secret I love brooks and the fish that live in them, but that is a story for another time. The brook that flowed through Lost Valley and the beaver ponds flowed down through this notch and emptied into the Third Branch of the White River on its way to Chelsea along Rte. I tried not to do this too frequently as the deer deserved some places and times when they were safe and not being disturbed.ДЄt the far end of the our ridge bordering Lost Valley, there was an old road that went up through a notch between our ridge and the next ridge. I felt guilty spying on them and then my presence would quickly bring the deer to attention as I made my way back to the house. I would do this again in a minute.ДЇinally, when it was time to leave from my hiding place I would try to be very quiet and not disturb the deer in the meadow. I saw some wonderful big bucks, antlers still in velvet coming out into the old meadow with lots of does and yearlings too. I was probably about ten when I started doing this and I often did this at the end of every summer so I could get a good idea of the prospects for the coming deer season. My purpose was to watch for deer coming out at dusk and observe them until it got dark and I needed to head back to the house. When I was young, as the summer came to an end, I would walk up an old logging road over the ridge and hide in a clump of scrub brush around a big rock out in the old meadow. We called this valley, вЂњLost Valley,вЂќ and it truly was a valley that time forgot. This hidden valley was big, lots of old meadow, some old apple orchards, a brook with beaver dams and beaver ponds down in the middle of the valley, and an old cellar hole with a couple of lilacs planted a long time ago, maybe a touch suggested by a farm wife. There was a hidden valley on the other side of a long ridge. I might has well have been a bear cub or a deer, I was in my element. My dad used to tell me when we were deer hunting, вЂњWe are only going to climb this hill once today so bring your lunch and plan on being up there all day.вЂќ No problem for me, I loved eating lunch in the woods and I could rummage in the leaves for hours looking for beech nuts to eat.

And true to form, being a hill farm, there were ups and downs, big hills and small hills. The farm was about 600 acres of old fields, antique apple orchards, black berry patches, an old sugar bush, a couple of brooks, several beaver ponds, and lots of just woods. This hill farm was soon for us, вЂњthe farm,вЂќ and going to вЂњthe farmвЂќ was my greatest joy. Gas was being rationed and it took more gas to go to his camp on Joes Pond so the hill farm in Washington was a good option, at least for him, and later, for me too.

During the вЂњwarвЂќ my grandfather bought an old Vermont hill farm in Washington.

The long dark paradise meadows farm