A 10-Year old Problem revisited

It is a very cold 24° here this morning.

We are now living on a very 'citified' country road.

From October 2010

I am hoping the bright paints fade somewhat soon. It seems strange to look out and see that in front of the house.

Yesterday was errand day.

I have great plans to paint the master bathroom a sage green. I am very tired of the grayish white color that has been there for years. I will use the same green that is on the bead board paneling on the back porch. I know I like it already.
I also want to put a fresh coat on the guest bathroom floor. This bathroom has really cheap square tiles in a pinkish cast that I stuck down quickly when we moved in just to clean up what was there. I read about painting linoleum floors and did it and it worked great. This has been down for several years now and just has a chip here and there. I finished it with clear poly. I wanted to use the same color that is down, a nice brown, woody color. I found the two cans of remaining paint that showed the custom numbers, brought it down to the house and set it right by the back door to take to the store to get more paint.

We also needed to buy chicken leg quarters for the dog at W-M, buy a calf collar at the farm supply store, get more books at the library and then home.

Just as we started in Lowe's I realized I hadn't brought the paint cans with me; I walked right past them on the porch floor by the door! Blast. So we turned around and went to W-M where we picked up very few things.

At the last minute I stopped in Hobby Lobby for some fabric. I am determined to do some sewing again. Fabric is not cheap! Things have changed since I quit sewing. I did pick up some for an apron, drawstring pants and a tunic top. We will see how that goes..............

Found the one collar for the calf that was in the entire store....red. Today we will give that a try. I need to contain Willow's calf while milking her.

Did the library and came home to fix lunch....leftover chili over hot dogs on whole wheat bread, a sort of casual coney.

Phone rang:

An issue from 10 years ago was just waiting for me to pick up that phone.

There is an old family cemetery on the farm. It has never been cared for; cattle and at one time hogs were allowed access. There were a few old stones knocked about. The previous owner of our farm had lived here for 50 years. She said no one from the family had ever shown any interest in the cemetery at all.

Well, lucky us. A local lady, elderly began calling me about how she was doing her family genealogy and wanted to show some relatives the cemetery. We were running the dairy at that time and had Holstein heifers in that field. They were separated from the cemetery end with a hot wire (not wire, but a fiber on an expensive reel that was strung across the field. I agreed and when they pulled up in a huge car and expressed that they would like to drive back to the cemetery (a car load of elderly people) I told her about the heifers and the hot wire.
The end of the story is they drove right through the wire, scared the heifers into another field. We had to round them up. We didn't find that reel of polywire for several years and found it laying in the grass when brush hogging one year.

The lady began calling me regularly wanting to put a stone in the cemetery. I finally put her off by telling her we couldn't do it until we quit milking.

She called me often for two or three years. She even bought the stone after collecting money from other relatives all the while me telling her no.....she had the monument company call me at one point. I told them the story; they quit calling and finally she did too.

The issue at hand is in the state of Missouri once you allow family members to set a stone and/or fence the cemetery, you are required by law to allow access to anyone. If this land were near the road, it would be no problem but it is not! Visitors have to prearrange a visit, the time must be daylight and they have to only come when you tell them it is convenient. Problem most people wouldn't even know where it was without a guided tour......second, we are using that field for cattle, including bulls. I have no idea but I suspect if we approved the visit and left cattle in the field, knowing they were coming we would be legally liable if they were injured. Also what about old people stepping in a hole and falling....I do not intend to have to hire a lawyer to see about all this.

I don't want to me mean and appreciate them wanting to commemorate this burial site (even after 150 years!)but I don't want to complicate our lives either.

The final straw was yesterday's phone call. It was from a member of Greene Co. Historical Society. The elderly (90's) lady had called her numerous times hinting that it was her responsibility to force us to do this....history of the county, etc. She turned out to be a neighbor's 80 year old sister who does volunteer work. I told her the entire story and she said it was entirely up to us. No law forces us to do this since there is no exception on our deed about this cemetery. It is listed in the county cemeteries as a 30 x 40 foot space.
She seemed very sympathetic to the problem but offered no advice. DH want to ignore the entire issue.

I am leaning toward letting them set the stone if I don't have to have any interaction with the woman again. It will be a flat stone. My worry is if a 2000 lb bull steps on it.......it could become more history! I am hoping that once it is set, that will be the end of it....I know her two daughters aren't interested; they have never stepped foot on our farm that I know of. They could have been in that car, but I doubt it. I don't think we will be inundated with family lookers. I hate that the monument company has had that blasted thing stored for 10 years! Somehow I feel guilty. I am sure they all hate us over this. We are still considered outsiders having just lived here since 1976. If your relatives aren't buried in the local cemeteries you are "new" people.

I will try to resolve this today and hope that I don't regret my decision.

I told the woman who called that I would not maintain the cemetery nor spend any money for this at all. The society has previously laid a stone on a nearby farm in a grove of trees to mark a Revolutionary War veteran's resting place (a guessed location) and it was not fenced and was just ignored, but was there. I am hoping this will turn out to be the same.

Keep your fingers crossed for me. See, living in the country isn't always a bed of roses!