Last weekend (before my foot surgery) I took my annual photos of the “Old House” and the 100+ year-old lilac bush that both reside on my parents farmstead.

This house was built by Carl and Kajsa Swenson, the original homesteaders, and my parents and siblings lived in it from 1946 until my parents built a modern home on the farm in 1974. Then the old house was moved back into a shelter belt of trees and used for storage.

The lilac bush was planted by Kajsa and her daughter Julia on the northeast corner of the house, and featured on the cover of my book Looking Back. The driveway to the back of the farmstead was changed when the new house was built and the old house moved, but mom made sure that Kajsa’s lilac was spared.

The old house has deteriorated a lot this past winter, with the roof and top floor caving down into the first floor. One these days it will be gone so I wanted to take photos of one more lilac season.

Lots of good memories in that wooden structure for me and I hate to see it go, but termites and weather have just about finished its life cycle. At least it will be still be in my memories and in my Butter in the Well book series for my readers to know.