{For Lent this year, I am writing each day some reflections on the word or the very idea of “room.”}

Joan and I lived the first couple of years of marriage in a townhouse apartment. With the birth of our first child, we took the leap and bought a new house, a three bedroom ranch, so new that we got to choose colors, wallpaper, and some other details. It sat on a small 1/3 acre lot in a lovely new suburban development. When our second child was born, we looked for a slightly larger home. We chose the house plan interior details, and how the home would be situated on the 1/4 acre lot and, and eagerly watched the builder construct it according to our plans.

From there, we moved to my pastorate in Vermont, living in the church’s lovely manse. Finally, we come to the acreage described in the title of this piece. My last church before retirement was near Ithaca, NY and we again had to buy a home. Compared to our previous homes, the one we chose was small, a New York State Cape, but circa 1840 it had been built on a parcel with many acres. Subdivided through the decades, when we moved in the land was down to two acres. But to us, two acres was a lot of room.

On the path through our woods: room to roam

And within that two acres was a very small front yard that was right up against a busy two-lane “scenic byway” road that carried traffic to a state park on Cayuga Lake. But the rest of the property was a spacious (to us) park of our own. We had a narrow stream running through the backyard, with a wooden bridge leading to the grassy field and then the woods. The couple who sold us the house had a large vegetable garden, several smaller flower gardens (she was a ‘master gardener’), and even a chicken house, one that hadn’t had a resident hen for years. It had become her garden shed and it was dangerous to enter because of the hornets’ nests inside. We soon had it carted away. (Watching the truck negotiate the stream was fun.)

A visitor in the grassy field

There were blackberry bushes and tall black walnut trees, and some large maples too. If you could look down on the yard from the air, you’d see paths mowed through the tall grass, a pattern that might have looked like a visual code. Not only did that make for a nice walk way through the grasses, it saved mowing time. The paths also moved through the heavily wooded area at the very back of the lot. There we found what looked like an old headstone, maybe marking the burial place of a family pet? And there were grape vines, long overlooked, but bearing dark sour grapes that never quite matured into anything edible.

In the newer metal shed on the lot were some items the previous folks had left behind, including two major things we had asked be conveyed. Our first snow-blower, and a riding mower. The former never worked right, so we shovelled. The latter was a joy. No, really. I never dreaded mowing the lawn. I put on the protective headphones, cranked up the Simplicity tractor, and mowed and mowed. The thing about mowing (and I’ve heard other pastors say this too) is that you can look back and see what you’ve accomplished. The times you can do that in church work are rare.

The snow scene there reminds me that winter would bring some cross-country skiing in the back yard. We’d make a trail with snowshoes, and then we could follow that gentle path on skis around our roomy yard to work off some calories. We missed the groomed and tracked trails of Vermont, but we made do with what we had.

Our two little acres were just right for us. Room to roam, but not too much for busy folks to care for. And the acreage next to our property was the Lauman Preserve, a relatively small wooded area with a hilly path that led down to Cayuga Lake. We took over the stewardship of that preserve while we owned the Ithaca home, walking the property now and then to be sure the trails were clear and there were no “widow-makers” hanging from trees overhead.

We loved that “yard,” and it’s all-season beauty. Our little piece of God’s creation.