Hey Gang,
This doesn’t happen often, but every generation is different, so we’re taking a new direction at Maple Lawn Farms. Kids will be kids, and my kids, the 6th generation at Maple Lawn Farms have spoken – it’s time for a different phase.
Our kids just aren’t into the whole, “Crazy Farmer Hugh & Mazes” stuff, so they have opted for a new path: Beef Cattle.
We’ll be tearing out the slide, the labyrinth, though the bamboo will stay in place. The pedal kart track is leaving as well, and the corn box will remain, but as a feed trough for the cattle. Grazing livestock across, what was once a proud, multi-crop farm won’t be easy, but I’ll stay with them long enough for them to make the transition, then I’m not sure I can stay to close to the farm. It’ll be too hard.
I had wondered for weeks as plaid shirts began showing up in the laundry and Tractor Supply receipts were scattered on her floor, but she was stocking up to drop a bombshell on the family. It happened this weekend over a 1/2 half-rack of ribs. For once, I was speechless.
Annie, my daughter, stated in no uncertain terms that she will have NONE of the “LIVE videos” and wants a quiet life; at home on, what will become, “the range.”
My son, Ian, is heartbroken of course because he used to profess a desire to someday be “The Mazemaster,” just like his Dad, but the farm, split between them, isn’t big enough for both agricultural ventures.
So, as we push out apple trees and put up the barbed wire fences, we bid a fond farewell to Maple Lawn Farms as I knew it growing up, a fruit farm.
It’ll be more peaceful now with the cattle lowing on the hillsides, once vibrant with the laughter of school kids on a tour, lost in the mazes.
It’s with this realization that I find myself, my mind, my soul lost as well; a drift in the memories. I wonder where I went wrong raising her, but there’s no fighting the future.
Why carry on all the hard work to build attractions and grow fruit and flowers, if your kids don’t want to carry on when you’re gone?
It’s at times like this, momentous occasions, considerable changes in life that I realize, deep down, how much I’ve loved this epic journey.
I love that you’ve been on it with me, and I thank every one of you for your support in the past and the hard weeks ahead as we tear my life’s work down.
No point in waiting. I might as well start today.
This very first day of April…
Happy April Fool’s Day! You don’t really think I’d EVER let that happen, do you?! Did I get you??!?! Let me know if you fell for it:-)
Make no mistake, this farm and family are well, committed, and completely SILLY – just the way you like it, for this season and many more to come!
See you soon at the farm, Spring’s around the corner!
Farmer Hugh
PS My kids LOVE what we do and can’t wait to get this season started! Did you know the first event is June 8th?
