Christmas 2014

Christmas 2014

We went to the movie Saving Christmas last week......we were the only ones there. It was a slow movie with mostly narration but I found the message something I have thought about all week. The Christmas season can become a little crazy with all the worldly and  materialistic things that go with it but really it all comes down to how we choose to look at life.....we can chose to make Christmas crazy , materialistic, worldly and  thoughtless or we can choose to find JOY in all of it. December has been crazy for us....well all of 2014 has been a little crazy! We took a little step of faith and decided to build a little cabin type house on our "North Place". We built it with the intention to  have a place for families and friends to gather. We want to somehow in some way bless others while sharing with them the beautiful sunrise and sunsets that give that place a special sense of peacefulness. We started preparing the building site in June...dug a basement the end of July and started building in August. Our first official guests arrived the week of Thanksgiving. We have been overwhelmed by the response that we have had and all the gatherings that have been there and are booked in the next year.  Our whole family helped to make this dream a reality....the grandma's brought love and support and also a few meals as we went thru harvest and kept things going there. Our kids all stepped up and helped in many different ways...our grandkids were all an active part of the cleaning up and building . They even dug up a "hidden treasure" the day we dug the basement!

So Christmas has kinda snuck up on me... I am usually quite organized. Well I am not this year but it's ok. I love the season... I love buying gifts ... I love giving gifts.... I love gathering with family and friends. I love Christmas music and baking goodies.........I am blessed with a family that gathers.... my family will all be home for Christmas.....we number 33 and anxiously await a new baby yet this week! We will gather with Dan's family and there too most of them come....we have grown to over 40 with 2 new babies coming soon. So in the hustle and bustle of the season my wish for you this Christmas is to "gather".......put your differences aside.....choose to find joy.....live life fully, finding that JOY in living a life of faith and service to our Savior whose birth we celebrate this Christmas season.

The North Place.....Iowa Barn Tour

IOWA Barn Tour is including our barn on the North Place next week on it’s annual tour of barns across Iowa. I thought I would write a short history of the place but found out I don’t really know much history but simply just have a love for the place. I asked my Dad many questions over the years but I find myself often now thinking “ I should ask Dad that” but some of those things will just remain unknown. I often find my self telling stories to my kids and grandkids about the “old” days of what I remember…… I hope they remember those things. So from my heart….the story of the North Place.

　

　

　

The North Place

An Iowa breeze …shady trees and riding my pony round and around in the grove…..watching thunderstorms and dancing in a much needed rain are just some of my fondest memories of growing up on the North place. Of all the years I lived there it was never called home … It was always the North place but still it has always been my favorite place to live.

In 1965 my parents William J and Joyce Heynen packed up their little family and moved ¼ mile North to the farm they had just purchased from Henry and Betty Rikkers. They had lived in a small tenant house (still a structure at the Country home Motel) on the “home “ place with my Grandpa and Grandma . After the move We spent many hours outside there…..even when inside the windows were thrown open…the smell of lilacs and the chirp of crickets filled the house at night. The big barn was a favorite place to play…build forts….. Or search for a new batch of baby kittens. It seems like yesterday that my little hands gripped tight to the haymow ladder bringing me to my own playground. We still often laugh at the stories of my older sister stepping on my hands so I couldn’t get up…….the password was reciting a memory verse that she had picked out for me to learn that day! The barn had a big wooded slide out the back that ended up in a wooden hay manger…..I often helped my Dad haul bales to the little door…cut the ropes and slide the hay pieces down to feed the calves….there were times when us kids would do that with bales NOT during chores and position ourselves on the top of them and slide into the manger…. ( I look back at this now and it is kind of dangerous!). I think most of my childhood memories come from this place and I could write many pages of them. Catching baby raccoons when my dad was grinding or schelling corn from the corncrib and feeding them marshmellows……doing tricks on my pony and braiding her mane…..helping give pigs shots and feeding the calves hay in the wooden manger that still stands there today. I feel close to my grandpa and my Dad whenever I go there. It is a place where I find peace .

The History of the barn to me is quite unknown. It is said to be over 100 years old…..it is not original because I remember redoing the inside ….adding the white gates and swing doors on the front.

I lived there until I was maybe 10. Our family then moved back to the “home place” a ¼ mile south to the old house on that farm. We rented the house to many different families but still spent much time there as we still had livestock there and continued to use the corncrib….hog house and big barns as well as farm the land. When I was in my teens we built a new house on the home place directly in front of the old one. In 1981 I was married to Dan Buyert (a neighbor boy from down the road) and we began our life together in the little white house with green trim that I loved so much as a child on the North Place! The North place was again my “playground” and we lived there 7 years and had 2 of our 4 children there. In 1987 we had the opportunity to purchase the farm ½ east of here….”Sam’s Place” (which we still call it today) The house was burned by the fire department and the acreage was still used by us and we continued to have chores there. We lived on Sam’s Place for over 25 years raising our 4 kids and making many trips back and forth to both the north place and the home place where we farrow to finished hogs for many years. Just 3 years ago when my dad’s health started to fail we moved to the home place. Our daughter and her husband moved to “”Sam’s Place”. Since his death 1 year ago we purchased the North place…. We have redone most of the fences….took down the hog shed and machine shed…..saved the tin …lumber and doors. Our plans here are to rebuild the hog house with the lumber and tin we saved……we plan to save the corncrib……turn it into a garage….shed for tools and a place for feed. I have always wanted to put a house there again so we are in the process of that as well. It will be a small cabin type structure using old wood…..farm items and repurposed doors ,beams and give whoever lives there a view everyday of the beautiful sunrise and sunset that I have been able to enjoy for so many years. The future of the big barn is a tough one…..It has been let go for so long and would require a large amount of money to keep and use in some way.

Many say we should just bulldoze the whole place and plants crops……I just can’t do that…..it has to many memories…..it still always calls to me….I go there when things in my life are hard…..I love the smell of the dirt after a rain….the breeze that always blows there….. It seems like yesterday that my pigtails blew in the wind as my pony raced back around the corncrib or I read a book sitting in the haymow door…..and when I danced in the rain with my Dad. Some days I just want that feeling so I walk over there……yes it is still the North place but it still just always feels like home.


Stay tuned for a progress report on the Guest "Cabin" being built there......