A House on a River

One of my cousins, Kathy, recently posted a photo of having morning coffee while relaxing on the edge of a river. Her photo immediately reminded me of many years of morning coffee at my own home on a river quite a few years ago before my health took a serious nosedive. 

Thinking about this old home also reminded me of all the visitors I had coming and going... all the weekend parties... all my friends' kayaks and canoes that resided in my yard all summer... and it reminded me of all the friends who still talk about my old house on the river whenever I bump into them. We had some really great times at that house!

View from the firepit in the backyard.

Seeing Kathy's photo encouraged me to dig out some old photos of this house to share here. For the most part, these are really lousy photos but they are good enough to see some of the memorable parts of this property and to remind me of some really nice times. 

I wish I had better and more photos to share but this was a time at the very beginning of digital photography so I only had a small, 1.3mp Vivitar digital camera from the early 1990s. I guess those early digital cameras from 25 years ago could be comparable to 'average' crappy cellphone photos so most people probably won't even notice the poor quality so I probably shouldn't complain about it. I do wish, however, that I had better photography gear back then though. I often wish I had shot more photos and better photos while I lived in this house... as well as throughout my whole career. (You can never have enough photos!)

When I moved to Vermont more than 20 years ago, a couple of friends hooked me up with a few local connections to help me find a home as quickly as possible. Thankfully, within a couple of weeks, I was moved into a nice little home on a river.

The backyard was completely wooded and quite deep so the river was barely visible from the house. I moved in on April 1st... the snow was still deep in the yard... still no leaves on the trees... and I was busy settling into the house so I didn't even think about the backyard at this point. 

A couple of weeks later, a couple of old Air Force buddies visited with their families for a little housewarming barbeque. After a few drinks we decided to try to wander through the melting snow (which was still knee deep at this point) to see what the backyard looked like and what kind of view we had of the river. I wasn't too optimistic at this point and the thought of using this backyard at all hadn't even entered my mind yet. Instead, I was focused on a new job and a new home to furnish.

That first view of the backyard after making our
way through knee-deep snow.

When we reached the river, there were downed trees blocking our way and much of the view seemed rather bland. Then, I looked up-river to my right and beyond a bunch of downed trees and debris which collected when the river was higher... the view was beautiful. 

I climbed over the trees and debris and found a fairly level area about six or seven feet above the level of the river... I immediately thought it would be a very nice area for a firepit and some chairs... "hmmm... this place had some potential!"

When the last of the snow finally melted in early June, I set out with a sickle to whack down a path to the river... creating a path winding through about two hundred fifty feet of woods and ferns... through decades of fallen trees that had washed ashore... this was a much larger undertaking than I had thought! 

I had a path beaten fairly quickly... meandering through these trees... and ending up at the edge of the river in this area which would become a nice sitting area with a firepit. For now, the path was good enough and I added a firepit to the sitting area. 

That first summer quickly shed some light on some problems with my path. Some areas were sloped and as slippery as a slip-and-slide so I would need a few steps to eliminate these areas where we all slipped consistently. Also, getting down to the backyard from the house was a bit a problem too because of a steep slope from the backyard parking area. I would need to do something about that in the form of some sort of steps to safely and easily navigate the eight foot difference in elevation.

In that first year, I added wildflower gardens bordered with stones collected from the property... I built a curved timber and stone staircase down to the backyard and path to the river... I added some steps where needed on the path... I lined the path with tiki torches because it was very dark... and I started building stone retaining walls along the path and at our sitting area down at the river. 

Most of the heavy and hard work was done in that first summer. This was good timing because, within a few years, I would have suffered two line-of-duty spinal injuries which would put a sudden halt to any heavy work in the yard or in my life at all. In the years that followed my recovery from the spinal injuries, I would slowly and carefully add more features to the backyard when able.... little by little, over the course of years, I created a beautiful backyard vacation spot.

A neighbor helped me install a large patio in the part of the yard nearest to the house. I built a fireplace on one side of the patio... I ripped some fallen tree branches to supply lumber for building a fair sized tiki bar (using only wood from the yard and scrap lumber) on the far end of the patio... the same neighbor supplied me with about three hundred feet of underground wire so I could wire some permanent light fixtures along the path to the river.

I buried the wire running to select trees along the side of the path... I built light fixtures out of plastic mixing bowls... tied timbers together to hang the lights over the pathway... connected all the wiring... and we suddenly had lighting running all the way down to the river which alleviated the problem with darkness. I had hidden electrical boxes with fuses in the foliage along the way. 

In the first year, I also built horseshoe pits. I laid out a nice area near enough to the river to see the river while we threw horseshoes. I also laid it out in such a way that there was an added challenge... one pit was on slightly higher ground than the other, purposely. After I ran electricity to the river, I also added spot lights to each of the horseshoe pits. We had a lot of fun over the years throwing horseshoes!

By now, this backyard had become a very popular place with friends from the entire east coast. People visited from DC... from other bases... from all over the world, actually... for a lot of fun times! Kayakers on the river would occasionally stop by to ask directions and ask about the property. Fishermen loved fishing in my backyard in the evenings and I enjoyed them being there. 

Friends were at my house just about every weekend in the summers. The fire in the fireplace would be burning all weekend long so people could grill food whenever they were hungry. I would often leave a huge pot of chili on the fire. 

All summer long, my backyard had a little fleet of kayaks and canoes scattered around the yard... sometimes up to a dozen and a half boats... residing in various places throughout the yard. These boats were always secured against theft and fast rising water but there was always a large selection of boats ready to go if anyone wanted to get out on the river.

Quite by accident one year, Cinco de Mayo became the official start of the summer season for all my friends. That first year, a few people gathered at my house for a little impromptu celebration and we decided it was a good time and a good way to start the summer every year so it became a little tradition.

So, everyone would gather in my backyard every year on Cinco de Mayo for that first barbeque of the year. Sometimes we'd be standing out there in falling snow once the sun went down (not so unusual for early May in Vermont) but we always had a good time! Daytime was always beautiful but once that sun went down it was cold! We kept a fire going in the fireplace... a big pot of chili on the fire... a fire in a small chiminea... and I had a propane patio heater at the bar to keep everyone warm. This Cinco de Mayo annual party was a nice way to begin the summer season (although it was often still cold with some piles of snow remaining in shady areas of the yard), those were always great parties!

Here is a photo of the little tiki bar just an hour before one of the Cinco de Mayo parties... still very little growth in the yard, no foliage, things rather brown, spring had not yet arrived... but the daytime was warm and sunny!

One of the many weekend get-togethers in the summer...

There was more than one Christmas that we spent around a fire on the patio... we'd shovel the snow off the patio and keep the tiki bar clear of snow...

This next shot was a shot early on when I was building this bar area...  as I came across scrap lumber, I would build and add more... in this case, I had just built and installed these timber brace assemblies...

I built this little jetty at the shore of the river to help collect sand for a small beach area. The jetty was slightly curved so that the sand would deposit behind the jetty... and everytime the water level rose, the water would deposit sand on the down-river side of the jetty as the water flowed over the jetty. The sand and silt in this area made for a nice soft little beach area. The jetty worked just fine at doing what it was supposed to do in this situation!

Looking up toward the house...  

Before long, I realized there was a drainage issue in parts of the backyard (drainage from the road in front of the house was flooding my backyard whenever it rained) so I dug a 150 foot long drainage ditch as well as a small bridge so the path could cross over this bridge... although the ditch was functional and did its job well, the bridge was a very nice detail to add to the meandering path...

The next two photos show the horseshoe pits... I added little tables to place drinks while throwing horseshoes... and I added spot lights under these little tables to illuminate each pit. I miss these horseshoe pits but, mostly, I miss the sound of the horseshoes clanking...

This little picnic area (below) was adjacent to the patio. I had a very tall dead tree here threatening to fall on cars and the house. I cut it down before it fell on the house (and I dropped it exactly where I needed it to fall, thankfully, with just a large handsaw and an axe after scaling this massive tree and cutting off most of the branches)... and then I was left with a tree stump... it seemed like a good place for a picnic table so I made a round picnic table top and screwed it to the stump... then stuck a section of the downed tree trunk in the ground next to this table and made an identical picnic table...




Also, I dug an in-ground kiddy pool for Marley and Abby when they were very young children...

Once a year, we would set up a kayaking course in this area of the river (above and below) behind the house. We would place buoys as 'gates' and a finish line. I did this once at the lake house one year but I couldn't get anyone interested in any physical activity...

The stone and timber staircase going up to the house from the patio/picnic area...

And, the stone and timber staircase going down to the picnic/patio area...

This photo, below, was also shot just before a Cinco de Mayo party so the foliage is still quite thin this time of year... by July this area was always deep green and very lush...

This is the little sitting area at the river's edge... there is a small firepit here and I made these stone retaining walls. The fire would be burning all day long to warm up swimmers and kayakers...

We had a lot of fun times at this house and, at times, I do miss it. I don't have the health for the upkeep anymore (and, before I moved from this house, I got to the point where I had great difficulty using stairs due to my poor health... unfortunately, there was a lot of up and down stairs necessary at this house since the bathroom was on the second floor) but I miss the times when everything was ready to go for parties. 

To this day, whenever I bump into friends who've visited this backyard, they always talk about missing these weekend parties at my house and especially about missing the backyard. A lot of people had a lot of good times here.

Not long after I moved from this home, Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene had rumbled into our neck of the woods leaving behind a submerged village and extensive damage in its path. This backyard was wiped out and even the home, which was perched high above the river (high enough that I never dreamed the river would reach it), was damaged extensively in the worst flooding in about 85 years leaving the new residents homeless. 

As much as I miss this property, I'm thankful that circumstances caused me to move on from this property before disaster struck. I had already been struck with debilitating spinal injuries and an incurable illness and these proved to be more than enough to handle. I certainly did not need a devastating flood on top of that! 

I enjoyed this backyard for many years but it was definitely my time to move on to new things... always evolving and always moving forward... but I'll always have the memories and a few decent photos.