Zimmerman

 

Wood from the barn

    Where Heinrich Road – the road that our first house was on – met Zimmerman, there was an old farm with quite a few acres, barns of different sizes, and a house that had been built early in the century. The farmer had passed away, and his widow sold the property to a local housing developer in 1965 – the year I was in sixth grade. My parents had been looking for a larger place to live that would be in their price range. Mom knew the developer since he was a client at the law office – and she and Dad talked with him about selling them the house!

      We moved in that summer – and this is the place we refer to as Zimmerman whenever we are talking about the old homestead. While I have many memories about the house on Heinrich, my brothers, being slightly younger, remember Zimmerman more as home.

      The house came with, I think, three quarters of an acre. There was one two-story barn that we used as a garage. (Dad, years later started to make an apartment out of the second floor of the garage, jokingly telling his mother-in-law it would be her living quarters someday – actually it would have been quite nice – pine-board floors and everything!) There was a smaller barn next to the garage that the boys used as a clubhouse – no electricity and only a small window at the top – so it was dark inside – but a functional clubhouse nonetheless. We also had a small white chicken coop with pine floor. Just beyond our property were the other barns from the old farm, including one gigantic barn right next to the road which everyone, understandably, thought was ours.

Mom painted the imprinted designs

      We explored all the outbuildings. There had been yard sales before the property sold, but we still found a few neat things. Sometimes we played in the different barns – without any accidents, fortunately. And as we got older and the buildings began to fall apart, we took artsy pictures of them. The developer, as fate would have it, never did anything with his property!

      The yard which belonged to us had apple trees, pear trees, a couple of cherry trees, a row of hemlocks to the left of the house, maples by the road in front, elderberry bushes out behind the clubhouse, raspberry bushes beneath the cherry trees, and a grapevine near the basement door. There was an artesian well in the back, mere feet away from the septic tank.

      One year the big cherry tree had tons of black cherries ripening – and then just before they would have been ready to pick, birds descended one morning just before dawn, and all the cherries were gone by daybreak! There was never again a crop quite like that one, but always the birds got what did appear.

      Another year the raspberries were incredibly plentiful – I was able to pick quite a few quarts of them, and I even froze some preserves. But that was the only season – after that there were pitifully few raspberries, and the birds got those too.

      The grapevine did very well, however, and for many years we picked huge deep purple grapes and made jam – and then suddenly one year, there were no blossoms, and later the vine died – we think some critter must have gotten at the roots somehow.

      We always knew when the elderberries were about ripe – the birds would poop purple on the cars.

      The apples were of different varieties and I think there were seven trees – the trees were great for climbing, but the apples were mostly buggy, and we did not know how to treat them to keep away the worms and caterpillars – besides, the birds would have gotten the results anyhow!

      The pear trees were similar with the bugs, although there was one kind of pear tree near the house which yielded huge fruit some of which could be eaten and were quite good – but if we neglected the pears, and they fell to the ground, they would ferment as they rotted and there was a hint of alcohol in the air! I remember one time a Jehovah's Witness came to the door, and as she was leaving, she asked if she could pick one of the pears! (It was not because they smelled like alcohol, I don't think) I told her sure, and she picked a nice big one with her white-gloved hand – it embarrassed me to think the pear might not have been as wonderful as she was expecting.

      As different and as much fun as the outside of our house was on Zimmerman, it was the inside that made my brothers and me into who we are today.

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