The Dockray Farm

Grandad's wagonwheel fence surrounding the house and yard and Grandad's rock wall outlining garden beds

My Granny and Grandad had a farm in the mountains outside Cloudcroft, New Mexico. Their land encompasses some of the mountain on each side of the road that winds through those hills on a longer, prettier route to Mayhill than the main road takes. There are fields down the center of the valley, along the road, where they had cattle the whole time I was growing up. Granny still keeps a small herd, even though she lives in town in the house she build after Grandad died.

My mom recounts stories of a time when they grew gladiolas in the fields and artists would come and sit along the road, painting the scene. Even without the flowers, and even in the browner days of winter, it's beautiful country. I have a lot of memories of this place. It's rich with family history, history that should be written down by someone. I'm not sure who that's going to be. Last year, through a combination of events, so many were told and retold back and forth between my mom and Granny that I *had* to write some down. They are on little scraps of yellow paper, picked up from the scrap notes pile at our church office, where I was when I realized I was going to miss out on these jewels of memory if I didn't at least start taking notes. I found them when I was packing my scrapbooking stuff to take on our trip and realized that it's been a whole year and I haven't done anything with them. I know that every family has these stories of the everyday, but these are from mine and I wish they were put together in a way that we could enjoy them. Hopefully I'll start relaying a few here!

Zack working on crossing the cattleguard