My esteemed farm manager of many years, Ben Hassett, just sent me this video which made me instantly homesick for the farm—420 acres with the old water mill Ben restored. I put it in Conservation Easements with River Fields three decades ago, to insure it will never be developed, although these easements have not yet been tried in court in Louisville and the proximity of an enormous development—Norton Commons—literally across the road, makes this land potentially enormously valuable. So everything will eventually depend on my four heirs. I think they have all absorbed enough of my values to appreciate what conserving this land in the midst of sprawl ten miles east of Louisville means.
It was never my intention to create a private estate, and it gives me great satisfaction to know that River Fields organizes seasonal wildflower walks at the farm, and that a generation of children is growing up in my three rental houses. In fact our renters almost never leave, putting up with water hauled in by truck to the cisterns and other old-fashioned issues in order to live in the natural beauty of the place. I believe these children as adults will remember it and perhaps in time become conservationists themselves.
I’ve always found my many blessings to be as unpredictable as they are sacred. It still amazes me that the land I discovered riding horseback many years ago from Glenview, a long journey through the start of all the developments, entailing riding under Highway 42 through an enormous culvert, should have led many years later to the creation of the easement and the meticulous restoration of the old mill, one of the few left in Kentucky. It’s also satisfying to read recent research proving that girls who roam the woods grow up to be independent and courageous.
If only more mothers allowed their daughters this kind of freedom. Exploring alone is not more dangerous now, but we have somehow lost confidence in our girls who lead a more and more confined indoor life.
If you are the mother or grandmother of a girl over aged twelve, please let her roam free and if necessary, encourage her! And no cell phone…
[To be notified of River Fields’ seasonal wildflower walks, subscribe to their email list.]
Our mother uncharacteristically allowed me to spend Saturdays playing with friends in huge log piles on lots cleared for new houses in the subdivision. We ate the most vile sandwiches we could invent and inhaled smoke from make-believe cigarettes of simple paper straws. I still shake my head that she permitted it!
Sallie thank you so much!
My daughter Emily got to wander thru the woods at hop scotch house with Cassandra Culin’s daughter Alice. When we would take them to Hopscotch house now long ago.
Thank you for preserving this land and thank you for your thoughts today and the video of this year’s incredible light filled weather.
Rebecca
I grew up on Chamberlain Lane and attended Worthington School when the neighborhood was still rural. My school bus wound around Wolf Pen Branch Road and the creek and the woods around Cooper’s Mill were the loveliest scenes along the road. It is so depressing to see all the development taking its toll on this beauty. Thank you for preserving the mill and the natural beauty surrounding it. I hope I have been able to play a small part by collecting photographs and history in my book Worthington and Springdale (Arcadia).
Thank you very much Sallie for this wonderful post, sharing the video, and inspiring so many women and girls along your path in life. The preservation of land and history is so vital for our world. May all of us preserve what we can and share with others.