For a short time, around October and November of 1988, my family lived in Keizer, Oregon, in a three-bedroom house in a neighborhood of tract houses fifteen feet apart. City life proved to be a hard adjustment for us as we had been accustomed to wide open spaces surrounding our two-bedroom home on an island in the Willamette River. The island was about 5000 acres and supported about 40 families. A wide array of produce grew on Grand Island and, while Ron and I didn't farm, our neighbors gave us free reign to pick bush beans, peaches, or whatever the current crop was. Oftentimes a truck would pull up in front of the house, and Norm or Willy or Don would ask if we had a bag or a flat and then load us up with whatever didn't sell at market or whatever overage might be taking up space. They were generous friends, and our freezer and pantry were filled with wonderfully hearty fruits and vegetables.

If I were in need of potatoes or onions for dinner, I would walk (usually with Jesse and John in the Red Flyer wagon in tow) around the block to Joy and Tom's truck farm. The old county road that ran along the east side of our home bumped along for a quarter mile and met up with Middle Island Road. Another quarter mile up to the corner was Tom and Joy's trailer house/truck farm. I'd pick out my selections, and as I was digging out my change to pay, Joy would be grabbing zucchinis, carrots and other goods that "will never last anyway" and fill up the wagon beyond my needs.

The boys and I would head back home and ol' George would creep by in his beat-up Toyota pickup. He always stopped to pass the time and his conversation matched the slowness of his driving. The boys waited anxiously; they knew that, if he didn't have plump fresh strawberries to hand them, he probably would treat them to some hard candy.

Our property consisted of one-and-a-third acres, mostly lawn, but down by Skeeter Creek in the back was an orchard with about twelve apple and cherry trees. Ron also planted a couple of rows of raspberries, marionberries, and loganberries. It took solid work for the first year there to clear out the brush, weeds, and overgrowth in the lower portion of our property. Ron borrowed Don and Phyllis's small tractor to burrow through the first layer, and, piece by piece, he carved through the rest by hand.

On the west border of our property we planted a garden about 50' by 20' filled with lettuce, tomatoes, basil, beans, peas and more. Our family grazed throughout the day on the fruits of that garden. The boys would start with breakfast in the house, but as they wandered out to play, they ventured to the raspberry bushes and, 'long about noon, they would be plucking pole beans and carrots and sugar peas. Before we would set out for work in the Fall, Ron and I would visit our favorite Golden Delicious tree to pick out an apple for the trip into town. I don't think we ever found a bad apple on that tree; they were crisp and perfectly shaped, every one of them.

As many deer as the island supported, they never seemed to find our hacienda. They kept to the far east side of the island and raided the crops there. Our pests were Russian thistles, blackberries, and gophers. Along about the second year on the island, Ron drove over the hill toward Amity and picked out a wethered Nubian buck named Bajo. His charge were the thistles and blackberries, and nettles and poison oak and anything else in his swath.

Norm, however, held the power over the gophers. When he saw that the gophers were taking over our front yard, Norm showed up with a flame thrower and some sulfur pellets. He dug up one entry to the tunnels, dropped pellets down and then torched it. The smoke would be forced throughout the tunnels, and our whole yard turned into a gopher network with fumes rising out of the ground in crevices we had known nothing about. Sure enough, a dose or two of Norm's remedy and the front yard was clear of gophers for awhile. (Of course, we did notice that the neighbor's yard became tunnel-ridden soon thereafter.)

The tapestry of my life is still being woven, but the richness of those island years still warms and soothes me. The Keizer house was a short time stay. We have found a new residence which has its own coziness to it, but no place pulls at my heart as Skeeter Creek Hacienda and our young family's adventures there.