There Once Was a Happy Little Family on a Happy Little Hill...

Much to Maud’s disappointment, we stayed married.  We had a beautiful premature baby boy who was whisked away in a helicopter moments after birth.  His lungs were not developed so he was flown to a neonatal intensive unit in a larger city.  When this incident is recapped by Maud, she tells all listening how very hard it was on her.  I laid in a hospital bed with my gut cut open and holding an invisible baby in my arms…but pooooor Maud.  After a few weeks, Booboo and I were both healed and our life as a happy little family began.

As the years went by our son Booboo became the light of Maud and Hank’s eyes.  You would never have know there was a day they wanted me to give him up.  Bill eventually earned two different degrees from college.  One in Recreation – which he decided he didn’t like after all.  His career in that field was a short lived position as a “Rec Director” at a higher end resort in a neighboring town. He hated pretending to like guests; he refused to cater to their needs, and only received one tip the length of his employment there.  (Read between the lines – he was an ass)   So with Booboo and I in tow, back to college he went and acquired his degree in education.  We had made the decision as a family that I would stay home w/ Boo while Bill worked and got his degree.  This latest certification brought us back to our home town where Bill was hired as a Middle School Teacher.  He volunteered on various Middle School athletic teams, and eventually was hired as a High School Football Coach and Fast Pitch Coach.

We lived in a cute little rental when I found out I was pregnant with Sissy.  This was the baby we had wanted for a long while.  Boo had anxiously waited for a baby sibling for a few years now.  When hearing of the new baby, Hark and Maud promptly deeded us over 5 acres of land to put a house on.  The Apple industry had taken a dive.  All the apple trees were taken out and the orchard business had recently ended. 

Hark took the dying apple industry occasion to retire. Maud was forced to work as the High School Secretary at our Alma mater.   She hated it and everyone who stepped through the office door knew it too.  She was happy about her knew grandchild though, and Hark and her were present the night Sissy finally arrived that spring.  I had been in labor for 37 hours when finally Bill came out to the waiting room pushing a hospital bassinet with a pink bundle inside.  Bill cried as he presented his daughter to his family.  He said it was one of the two happiest days of his lives.  The birth of Boo and the birth of his precious baby girl, Sissy.

Though the valley had only a few fruit trees here and there, our newly received  land perched on top of a hill, held the most amazing view.   You could see up and down the valley with Oakville river winding through.  The hill above our house was covered in wild flowers during the spring.  Families of Deer wandered the trails year round.  Coyotes sang at night.  Raccoons, eagles, you name it – all sorts of different wild life lived on our hill.  I loved that hill.  I used to climb it by myself and sit for hours on a mossy rock watching the river crawl by below.   Someplace up on that hill today….is a part of my heart. 

After looking at stick houses and talking to many construction companies, we finally decided to purchase a triple-wide manufactured home to place on our land.  I couldn’t believe what an adorable house we found!!!  Soaring ceilings, tile fireplace, huge windows, not one bit of this “Trailer” looked like a manufactured home.   We hired a company to do the land prep and “install” the house.  There were many extra boulders on our land so the head worker built me a huge rock wall along our drive way.  He also found an enormous boulder on the edge of the front hill that had a deep divot in it.  He placed it back into the hill with his enormous machinery giving me a “Bird Bath Boulder”.  I was in love with my house on the hill, even though it sat amongst the dirt and my beautiful rocks. 

Landscaping was my life.  Digging in the dirt made me happier than anything.  When I wasn’t planting, digging, or hauling rocks.  I was building trellises, bird feeders, benches and more out of white birch and selling them up and down the valley.   Bill and I worked side by side in our garden as often as we could.  I spent most days dirty, dusty, and digging while he helped after work and on the weekends.  Before we knew it, a park-like landscape had emerged on our hill from all of the hard work.  

We lived in a happy little house, on a happy little hill.  We were THE happy little family.