The Land Will Live On

Content by Lorraine Morrison, Listing Broker

In 2001, before he started his own company, Steve, my husband, was the supervisor for 24820 Creek Ranch Road, the retirement home for Roger and Linda Young.  He invited me out to see the project.  I wandered through the unfinished house, breathing in the scent of freshly cut lumber, taking in the spectacular views from the expansive windows.  It was spring, and the sound of the creek sang through the windows.  I was smitten, and so was he.  “We’re going to live out here someday,” he said. 

At the time, I couldn’t see it happening. One child already with another on the way, and he was planning to start his own business. Living in Creek Ranch seemed like an impossible dream. But when someone really wants something, they’ll figure out a way to make it happen. In 2005, we purchased lot 26, and in 2008, we broke ground on our home, on the other side of the hill from the Young’s.

We raised our three sons in Creek Ranch. My fondest memories are all of them; two little boys running down the road to the neighbor's during a rainstorm wearing black trash bags to stay dry, heads and arms shoved through scissor-cut holes, cowboy boots peeking out beneath, fishing poles in hand. They had discovered the pond at Ranta's, now the Bennett's, and slipped under the fence to try it out. Aubrey practicing his rolls in his kayak on the HQ lake, Layton learning to ride a bike, and Tanner helping them string a hay tarp up so they could race down the road, attempting to create enough lift to fly. They never did lift off, but came close to it, their back wheels inching off the ground. Creek Ranch is where good old Ajax the Horse lived out his final years with rubs and treats, Sally the Cat traveled on to her happy hunting grounds at the ripe age of 18, and Nimi the Newfie lived and died, and has her special resting place on our back forty next to the hawthorn bramble.

Now the kids have grown, and Steve and I spend our evenings hiking up the hills next to our house, silently mouthing our evening prayers in the setting sun. This spring, Tanner paddled me down Trout Creek while the waters were raging. "Do I need a lifejacket?" I asked. "Yes, and a helmet too," he answered. I remembered his instructions to hang onto the paddle as I watched it floating away after we rolled over...it was providential that we found it caught in an eddy around the next bend, because if we hadn't gotten back in to finish the trip we would have missed the sitting geese, their nest brimming with eggs on the creek bank under the willows.

When we first came to Creek Ranch, we were the young people in the neighborhood full of mostly retirees. We couldn't have asked for better neighbors; people with life experience who mentored us without realizing their influence, and who gave us opportunities we wouldn't have been able to realize on our own.

Twenty-two years later, we're the middle aged empty nesters, and changes have come to Creek Ranch. The old guard has begun to move on, and we will feel their absence sharply. We loved having Roger and Linda for neighbors, but life is ever moving forward, and now it is time to sell their beautiful home to new neighbors who will make the home their own, make new friends and create their own memories at the ranch.

And above it all, the spirit of the ranch lives on: generations of sandhill cranes have loved, nested, and hatched, and the willow and alders along the creek have grown tall. In spite of our attempts to dissuade the original pair of robins from nesting in our porch, the family has increased from siblings to cousins, to second, third, and countless generations removed. We've learned to live with them waking us before sunrise, and in fact, look forward to their return each spring.

We are here only for a season; we will love, cry, and laugh surrounded and nurtured by the natural beauty. But the land will live on.