My Old Haunt

A walk down the old farm road is a walk back in time for me. I lived and worked here in a past life. I occupied a small cabin at the edge of the woods and greeted guests in the farmhouse. We had monthly work parties back then and I led crews to build trails and develop gardens. They called me the Exterior Decorator. In the evening we’d use the 100 year old sauna to ease our tired muscles. The Finnish family that homesteaded here over a century ago did the hard work of clearing the forest to plant fields of grain, an orchard and a garden. They built the log sauna first and lived in it while they built the farmhouse. Both are still in use today. The Whidbey Institute is taking good care of the place.

This time of year I remember our Halloween festival bringing together all the neighbors. We had a harvest feast with roasted potatoes, steamed squash, baked apples and pumpkin pie. Half way up the road at Granny’s, a guest house, we had a pumpkin carving contest. Everyone won a prize for something. Then, as it was growing dark, the jack-o-lanterns were lit. Their glowing faces cast dim light as the pumpkins were carried down the road through the forest. As I prepared for the dinner I watched from the farmhouse window. Emerging out of the trees the scary faces of jack-o-lanterns bobbed up and down in a ghostly procession. Pumpkins were parked on the porch or on picnic tables outside. I joined the group and together we climbed the hill to a bonfire where we met the Phooka!

The Phooka is a mischievous Irish elf that can take different forms. It can look like a pony that offers a wayward traveler a ride only to throw the poor fellow into a marsh. Other times it takes flight like a bird. But our Phooka came out in human form and pranced around the group playing a fiddle. The Phooka reminded us that this was the old Celtic New Year. The last year is dying. The leaves are falling. The tall grass is bending and dropping their seeds to the earth. They will be tucked in under a blanket of leaves through the winter. In the spring when the weather warms those seeds will start a new cycle of life. For us it’s time to clean out our closets, put the garden to bed, mend our relationships and be ready to enter the New Year with a fresh start.

This time of year they say “the veil is very thin” between the worlds. As I walk the damp trails and old farm road, I feel I’m an old spirit returning from a world beyond this one. Here, now, no one notices me. I pass like a ghost unseen, save, perhaps by the old handyman, bent over, sharpening his tools in the shed. I haunt these fields, the orchard, the gardens, the cabins and trails, all familiar, but different. Silently I walk the trail from the kiosk along the edge of the wetland, between cedars, under firs, with the sounds of trickling water, chiseling woodpeckers and squawking ravens. This trail I’ve walked many times in many seasons circles a hill and comes out into a meadow where new cabins await new arrivals. I follow the high road, pass the sheds, look down on the old farmhouse and gardens, circle round the hall, and come back to where I began. Another cycle complete.

Maribeth
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To find out more about the Whidbey Institute click here.

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Directions: From Highway 525 at Ken's Korner, 2.7 miles from the Clinton Ferry, turn south on Cultus Bay Road. Drive 3/4 mile and turn right on Campbell Road. Look for the sign for the Whidbey Institute and Whidbey Waldorf School on your left. Turn on to Old Pietila Road and drive to the lower parking area. The trailhead is to the south where there is a kiosk with a map. 

By Bus: There is no bus service to this trail.

By Bike: The start of Cultus Bay Road and Campbell Road have steep hills. Be prepared.
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Mobility: The Wetland Trail is smooth and flat for the first half then gets more narrow with roots and hills as it proceeds. Or walk the farm roads.