Where I Grew Up........

Mom, Mary and I had the chance to stop and see the house we kids call our childhood home. Mom and Dad lived there for 27 years. We moved there in 1980, the summer I turned 10.

What a great place to grow up! 5 miles from town in a valley surrounded by forests of evergreens and orchards full of hazelnut & prune trees :) The railroad tracks ran along the backside of our property.
We spent endless hours climbing trees, running through the 60ish acres of hazelnuts and prunes rubbing dirt on our faces while playing army. The railroad tracks and trestle were also part of our extended playground. When we got thirsty we just grabbed a drink out of the garden hose!

In high school I spent alot of time down by the trestle writing poetry and working on creative essays for school.

Driving down 99 from Sherwood towards Newberg ~ We lived half way between the 2 towns. We had a Sherwood address and a Newberg phone number.

I just love all the trees!

Here's the turn off to our old house

Standing on the train tracks looking down the road we shared with 2 neighbors. Our driveway is  down on the left.

Looking towards Sherwood ~ I cried a couple tears as I stood here.......bittersweet :)

Looking towards Newberg

This is above our house ~ This is where the hazelnut & prune trees used to be. The new owners are establishing a vineyard up there. Portland & Mt. Hood are off in the distance.

The vineyards new road goes through the old orchard which is very overgrown with blackberries,etc.
That little forest of fir trees in the middle of the picture was the inspiration for one of my creative essays in high school.

This is the road that was used when we were growing up to get to the orchard owners house. He actually lived in Portland and rented out the big house.

Here's the 2 garages, main house and cabin ~ The vineyard people lived here while building their new house and now these poor buildings are very neglected. I love this place and would love to fix everything up inside and out. There's so much potential ~   it's very quiet up there except the soothing sound of the wind as it blows through the trees 

Workshop

So many wonderful elements in this picture :)

The right side of the main house

Front of the main house ~ so much potential! Window boxes, pretty front door with glass,  landscaping ( nothing to formal ), and create a more protected entry way plus something more appealing to the eye :)

Garage

The group of overgrown brush and trees on the left side of the picture sits next to the train tracks. In the summertime we would carve out rooms in there and play house using boxes, scrap wood and whatever dishes Momma would let us bring outside. It was so much fun!

Dad's Shop 

Momma & Mary looking at the backyard ~ Momma & Dad planted most of those trees over the years. The walnut tree is in the middle of the back of the picture. The tall evergreen to the right of it is the tree we used to climb.

We spent many hours playing in this culvert under the tracks ~ You could get to our carved out summer playhouse by crawling through it.

Looking down at the back of the house from the train tracks

Over the years a variety of animals shared that property with us ~ A burro named Sugar, a horse named Maggie, a goat we called Buster, our pet rooster we called Bard, Thumper our beautiful, red rabbit and a whole list of dogs and cats that filled our lives with mostly happiness. We raised chickens and rabbits to butcher ~ what a dreaded job! Smelly and getting all the pin feathers out of the chickens was such a chore!! The best part of butchering day was when we 5 kids would each chop a chickens head off and line them up at the top of the backyard. It was always fun to see whose chicken would run the furthest!

We grew up in a wonderful place :) I feel blessed to have grown up with so much land to roam!