Outside of Morehead, Kentucky highway 32 turns east at Raburn gap, following Christy creek up toward Hogtown (they say Elliotsville but its not, any more than the old Catlett place has changed names since Bill Harnes bought it seven or eight years ago).

The curvy two lane road echoes the meanders of the creek, swinging from side to side up the valley. This is a road I know well, 12 summer vacations worth.

Just past Robertson’s house, turn up the gravel lane, white chat on green grass, and follow it up a rise to Jim Porter’s place. Grandpa’s house sets on the southwest corner of eighty-some acres. Hills and pasture rise up away from the creek. He and his two sons cleared these ridgetops in the 30’s for corn, wheat and tobacco and to feed a family of seven. The hillsides where too steep and therefore “wheren’t no count”. Now, only the frontage, along Cristy creek is farmed, the rest is grazed by horses and brushogged twice a year to keep the sumac from taking over.

Up the narrow hollow behind the house they built two barns. The one closest to the house is the oldest, built from logs cut up the holler. They hewn the logs square, then notched and joined them to build a frame on top of flat rocks. The siding came from the water-powered sawmill over on Bear Branch. The barn ceiling is so low that if you’re riding old Doll bare back when she decides to head for the barn you’d better hug her neck or the barn will plant your butt in the biggest pile of wet horse dung on the farm.

The second barn is newer and stick built. It‘s the one Grandpa dried tobacco in. The sweet smell of Burley tobacco lingers the hard oak siding. After tobacco season the loft was used to store hay and made a great place to play tag with a couple of the neighbor’s daughters. It’s hard to get all the straw out of that long hair before going back to the house for dinner.

Dinner was always special; buttermilk fried chicken, green beans, cornbread and sausage gravy. Used to, it all came from the farm, but no longer.

Grandpa’s been dead for two years and we had to move Grandma to assisted living. None of the kids want the farm, they all have their own lives now. So our family’s farm is up for sale. Looks like a lawyer in Morehead is going to buy it. Rumor is that he intends to build a big stone house over the old farmhouse, probably bulldoze and burn the barns and then subdivide the rest to pay for his house, ten-acre tracts with a view. A view I used to love, riding down the ridge toward the barn, on old Doll.