Farmhouse

The Farmhouse

or..just

 another Goat story

~ 1975~


In place here once stood an old farm house. It has since been destroyed by fire. I was 11 yrs old moving into a new foster home with a young hippy family whose dream was to renovate a rundown 150 yr old farmhouse. Using the supporting frame they tore down the walls while we were living in it. Every evening after work my foster father who was a school teacher by day set to work on home building. Ripping out the old planks of rotting wood and replacing them with strips of fresh two by fours of white pine.The scent spread throughtout the house as inscence. The smell travelling up my nostrils opened up a sense of excitement of the future, of the magic and possibilities of creativity. The radio playing the latest pop songs , my foster father sang over them as he hammered and sawed. I stilll hear him when I inhale the faintest suggestion of any lumber construction ... "make a new plan stan, don't need to be corderouy, hop on the bus Gus, just get your self free". He was a man of a genuinely happy disposition. I enjoyed sitting close by where his good humour could rub off.

Before we moved in it was a Goat farm run by a middle aged woman and her teenage grand daughter Celeste. Celeste's front teeth were rotting and chipped. Which is no small wonder considering the daily gorge of volumes of pepsi she consumed. I doubt she ever drank plain water. On the first few visits to the farm, while my hippy foster parents were fixing the deal on the house and the 35 acres of land that accompanyed it, Celeste would lead me into the forest and show me where to find the sweetest blueberries and the tastiest apples . You couldn`t find them growing anywhere else on these lands, for this was apple country here in the Monteregie regions off the southshore of Montreal.

These excursions were not for my benefit alone, it was the Goat's walk. There were atleast 26 of them and Celeste treated them they way we treat a pet dog. Coming down from the city never having stood next to a live goat I was terrified, especially as the frisky kids gave me bucks that sent me hurtling a few feet forward. In the back of the barns that were held up precariously by rusty four inch long nails or perhaps by sheer faith that our lives contained a divine plan, there lay buried under piles of manure and hay the skeletons of Celeste's dearly beloved goats. She'd fish her hand into the dung and pull out the skull of a departed one and relate an anecdote about his or her character. At first I found the debris of spine and leg sticking out of the dung disgusting, but I soon got over any squeamishness and found myself pulling out limb or skull, eager to know who's skeletal remains I was holding. Unfortunately my foster parents cleared the animal cemetery by the time we moved in. My morbid fascination continued as I scavenged for bits of cartilage remains.

photo:MK 1985