Dad was looking to buy a farm in Hunterdon County not long after I was born. By that time he must have been satisfied that there was sufficient critical mass of sons in his family (3) that would grow into the labor force necessary to keep a dairy herd.

Hell of a reason to have kids, wouldn’t you think? Call it Milk House Manifest Destiny ! It is unfair that I should even write this anyway. Dad’s no longer here to offer his side of the story. Sorry, Dad. I’ll find myself in the same predicament someday.

And how about that male chauvinist comment that I just wrote? Something about “critical mass of sons”. As though daughters can’t work the dairy ! Sorry ladies. Regarding that, I hold one truth to be self-evident. Generally speaking, boys are more brute-like than girls. Dairying is brute-like work. What’s good for the gander is not always good for the goose.

Notwithstanding such mundane details , Dad had certain qualifications in mind as he hunted for a farm. To this day, I remember him saying to me, “ I wasn’t going to buy junk.”

Turns out, he didn’t. In fact, the purchase he made augured to my favor many decades later when Judy and I purchased Dad’s purchase, minus the farm house, barns and 15 acres. When all was settled, we wound up with a farm that was nicely balanced, essentially half open, half wooded with all sorts of water flowing through it, a total of 62 acres and change.

Several springs, a few creeks merge to a single brisk flow as it exits at the farm’s western border and heads to the Delaware. The farm is a sweet balance of fields, paddocks, woods, a pond and comfy farm house.

Did I ever thank Mom and Dad enough for selecting this lovely patch of ground and enabling us to buy it? Quite probably not. Was it just a matter of being in the right place at the right time? I suppose. That and paying attention.