#23
Elkton-Newark Rd
Elkton, MD
1993 - 1997
Large rented house on 5 acres with a barn
This was a very cool place. A pretty old yellow Dutch Colonial. Very out dated but lots of charm with some built-in cabinetry and those old glass doorknobs. It was on a fairly busy road about a quarter mile from the highway (Rt 95), and the driveway entrance was just before a liquor store. But the drive wound back through a woodsy area before turning and opening up to where the house was. So once you were back by the house, you couldn't see or hear the road. It was a "four square", with living room, dining room, kitchen, and large room at back door, plus a half bath on first floor. There was a beautiful screened in porch on the side with French doors from the living room. Upstairs were four bedrooms and a full bath which opened from both the hall and the master bedroom.
We loved it there.
The upstairs of the barn was off-limits bc our kooky old landlady Jane Stradley was a hoarder, and she had a lot of stuff stored up there. But the ground level was ours, and I promptly put a horse in it. I bought a pretty little bay who was I think Arabian and Standardbred. Very hot, very green. I named her Chesapeake. I never even got to ride her. I spent lots of time training her on the longe line and trying to gentle her, but then she somehow had a bacterial infection or an aneurysm or something that caused her to bleed out through her nose. It was awful, just gushing. By the time the vet got there it was too late.
I got another horse not long after. An off the track Thoroughbred I named Jasper. Also very hot and green, but had way more miles under saddle than Chessy had, so I was able to ride him from the get-go. I had not only our nearly five acre pasture to ride him through, but a lot of adjoining land that I wasn't really legally allowed to ride on, but did anyway. There was the Cecil County Airport just the other side of our property, and next to that, probably dozens if not hundreds of acres of Goretex campus. Eventually I branched out from there and would ride him down some of the local roads into other open areas, and one time even rode him over to Milburn Orchards. Nothing beats the rush of a gallop through open fields on the back of a fast horse!
I decided to leave Bryn Mawr Rehab bc the commute was just too much (about an hour), and it was pretty stressful there. I took a job in home health care and found that I really loved that environment. I loved the flexibility and autonomy. I was the only OT on staff, and saw patients in three states (PA, MD, DE).
Fred and I were trying to get pregnant, but having trouble with infertility. We were tested seven ways to Sunday, and tried different medications and temperature charts, etc, but with no luck. We were finally at a fork in the road between moving forward with more involved procedures like IVF, or giving up. We decided to just "give it a rest" for six months or so. And during that time, of course, I got pregnant. Probably one of the happiest days of my life.
Shane was born Feb 15th, 1995. I had gone into the hospital on Fred's birthday, but after a long and difficult labor, Shane was born by c-section early the next morning. I hired a sweet grandmother named Bunny as a nanny for Shane when I returned to work. It was nice bc I could stop in sometimes to see him. But after awhile, I knew I wanted to stop working full time so I could spend more time at home with him. So I took a part time job at a skilled nursing facility in their rehab dept. I didn't like it as much, but the pay was good and I got to be home more.
We were still fast friends with Billy and Jen, and they came over a lot. She had had a fourth baby, Jack. They were godparents to Shane. Four months after Shane was born, Jen gave birth to twins, Erik and Ellie, and we were godparents to Ellie. One year, we gave all the kids (theirs and Shane) a pony for Christmas. He was a sweet little black pony about 12hh we named Midnight, and he gave a lot of kids a lot of joy for many years. Such a sweet temperament and very trustworthy.
It's hard to put into words how intertwined our lives were and how meaningful that relationship was. To say we were "best friends" doesn't seem to do it justice.
Donald
Kuma
Pg with Bonnie
Stradley selling
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