What’s next for the old farm?

The people come and go. But the land witnesses it all. It deserves our reverence and respect. It deserves to be revered, not for what we can take from it but for what it gives freely. Re-wilding the land is my way of setting it free.

“Mother, how I wish we all were back on the old farm. Don’t you wish it too?”—

Theodore Groesser

Theodore is my grandma Mildred’s older brother, speaking of our farm when living in Detroit to find work. Due to financial reasons they had to sell the farm in 1917. Somehow, in 1919, the new owners deeded it back to Jacob and Katherine giving Theodore his wish.

I grew up in the same house my great grandparents, Jacob and Katherine bought in 1891 located in a small almost forgotten community called Keswick, near Suttons Bay, MI. My grandma and grandpa (Mildred and Charlie) lived across the garden. Pigs, horses, and ponies kept our barn alive and cozy. I loved long walks in the fields and woods behind my house on “The Old Farm” always dreaming about how and where to build a fort, how to remodel our house, or where I could travel to find a pioneer adventure. All the while, I noticed and appreciated the feeling of stripping oats off a stalk, laying in a field of soft, fluffy weeds, or watching milk weed scatter.

Now, I find myself the next caretaker of this place that I have loved since I can remember. I’ve thought a lot about this place and what I can do to honor it. For me, the old farm is more than a place on the map. It has a life of its own that existed long before my family called it home. It quietly and patiently goes on, enduring change of people, culture, and climate. Just as I returned to my roots on the farm, now I want to return the land to its roots, a forest. The earth, although always expanding and evolving, is the only thing on this farm that is constant. The people come and go. But the land witnesses it all. It deserves our reverence and respect. It deserves to be revered, not for what we can take from it but for what it gives freely. Re-wilding the land is my way of setting it free.

Christa Kiessel