Have you ever come across some blossoming fruit trees or lilac bushes in a field or the woods and realized it was the remnants of an old homestead from days gone by? This is one of my favorite old homesteads along Highway 126, and I love visiting at different times of year to see what is growing there. I especially love going there in the fall when the apples are ripe! In honor of the first day of May, here is one of my favorite folk songs by Kate Wolf that she wrote about an old homestead that she happened upon in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California.
“A Lilac bush and an Apple tree
Were standing in the woods,
Out on the hill above the town,
Where once a farmhouse stood.
In the winter the leaves are bare
And no one sees the signs
Of a house that stood and a garden that grew
And life in another time.
One Spring when the buds came bursting forth
And grass grew on the land,
The Lilac spoke to the Apple tree
As only an old friend can.
Do you think, said the Lilac, this might be the year
When someone will build here once more?
Here by the cellar, still open and deep,
There’s room for new walls and a floor.
Oh, no, said the Apple, there are so few
Who come here on the mountain this way,
And when they do, they don’t often see
Why we’re growing here, so far away.
A long time ago we were planted by hands
That worked in the mines and the mills,
When the country was young and the people who came
Built their homes in the hills.
But now there are cities, the roads have come,
And no one lives here today.
And the only signs of the farms in the hills
Are the things not carried away.
Broken dishes, piles of boards,
A tin plate, an old leather shoe.
And an Apple tree still bending down,
And a Lilac where a garden once grew.”
-Kate Wolf
Happy May Day!
Lovely! I am full of spring dreams, too.
Aw lara I love this! I totally want to go out there now. How far is it from your house?
I have a feeling this is one of Jeff and I's favorite spots too!! Is it right before you get to Veneta? We harvested lots of rosehips and apples there before.
Love the words to the song you posted, would love to hear it someday.
This spot is about 10 minutes from our house just outside Veneta. The old house here was actually abandoned and then burned down a few years ago, so there is a burned out foundation left. I always like to imagine how it must have looked way back when. It might be on private property, I'm not really sure, but I've never been run off 🙂