In 1972 my husband, Tim, and I moved to a house on Bailor Road in Caroline, New York, a few miles east of Ithaca. Most of the families on this road moved here after 1970.
A half mile east of our house Bailor Road intersects Buffalo Road. Many families on this road have lived in the town for generations.
For the past year I’ve been asking our neighbors on both roads the same question: What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think about living on our hill?
This book collects the answers and includes photographs of the people and places.
Toby and His Tractor
Toby: Obligation, that’s what I feel. I have an obligation to the place, to the farm, to treat it properly, to improve it. I feel I have an obligation to my neighbors, to be a good neighbor. Obligation is my one word.
Erika and the Willow Tree
Erika: I like this picture of the willow tree because it gives a perspective and lets us know we are surrounded by larger beings and forces!
The Elm on the Bailor Farm in 2005
Anna: A favorite tree I truly miss is the elm tree on the Bailor Farm. That was a heartbreaker when the wind blew it down. Coming down the road and coming back up, it always caught my eye. It looked like poetry in form. If a poem could take physical shape, it would be that elm tree—no words needed. It never became just a background where you drive by and wouldn’t think about it.
Anna and Daisy Inside the Yurt
Anna: There’s a bunch of us who walk our dogs down the road and when I do, I get to know the trees as individual trees—the old maples on your side of the road just amaze me. They have big holes in them. They have chunks that have broken off and yet so many of them are still alive. I often think, what if they could speak, what would they tell us? What would their history be? It would be so interesting to know all that they have seen.
BJ in One of her Gardens
BJ: Many People were contacting me and saying, ‘Wait a minute, you live where?’ and didn’t want to bring their kids. I’d say, ‘Listen, it’s gonna be fine. You gotta drive through Mad Max to get to my place, but you’ll be fine. Bring your kids to Sarah’s party.’ And they did. They’d get to our house and say, ‘It looks like a little park.’
Cal Makes Cheese
Cal: Things are changing—the viability of small farms in this sort of area. It’s not going to be what it was—making a life milking 40 cows. Our dairy has kind of gone by the wayside. We’re just buying milk from a neighbor now and I’m making cheese one day a week. It’s more of a community interest and something I enjoy doing. We sell the cheese at the Brookton’s Market, Greenstar, The Farmer’s Market in Brooktondale, a couple of CSAs, and in a couple of restaurants. In the summer we sell at the Ithaca Farmer’s Market.
Beulah, Irene, and Ruby
Irene: Change—it’s changed a lot. When I was little, Buffalo Road was a dirt road and you could almost tell the time by who went by. Ah there’s Red Haines. It’s four o’clock because that’s when he comes home from work.
Becky and Charlotte
Becky: You know the movie ‘Dream Street’? Professor Gossa Tsegaye of Ithaca College came up to make that movie. It got better after he made the movie. In the movie Leone tells about how people were mean to the kids from here. The story was it’s better to be broke down on Buffalo Road because somebody would come out and help you. In another place somebody would shut the door on you.
Charlotte: Becky, Irene, and I grew up together. All three of us girls used to hang out together. And get in trouble together too. We don’t own the land, we rent it. We pay taxes and that’s renting it. Then somebody else will be here. We all feel that we don’t want to wreck the land.
Bill Holds the Eagle After the 84′ Flagpole Crashed on It
Bill: We had three or four or five different plans to put the flag up. You’re looking at plan F. When the flag fell, the eagle didn’t fare so well, but the granite memorial stone was still there. We came up with a new plan. We hated not to go buy another eagle. The eagle was majestic. It was like the period on the sentence.
Tim On the Porch
Tim: I think of sitting on the porch. Seeing the trees and the garden. The breeze comes along. Pushes the leaves of the trees and the leaves turn and show their underside. There’s this noise—this sound of the wind gently brushing the leaves. I think of that too. My little porch. My little indoor outdoor space.
Tim, Scout, and a White Ash
Tim: Forests and Peace and Quiet. My love of forestry started here. The trees are my buddies out there living in the weather and doing their thing. I try to help them out. I hold woods walks for The New York Forest Owners Association, Cornell Cooperative Extension, and Orange County Community College. Sharing ideas with other people has been really cool. We learned stuff. We showed other people things we are doing.
Brandon and Dot By the Fireplace
Dot: We don’t want to detract from the land. We want to help build it up and support it and make it better.
Brandon: Whenever any of the neighbors on the road introduced themselves to us—it didn’t matter that we were strangers—if we needed any help, they said, “Sure, we’d love to help you. Anything you need.” Everybody’s been like that. Every introduction comes with, if you ever need anything, just let us know.
Delmar and his Tractor
Delmar: I also think about the amount that its changed in the 60 years I’ve been here. What really bugs me is all these outsiders that come in and want to change the whole town. They want to make new laws, noise ordinances. Go back to the city if that’s what you want. That’s not what we want out here. I want to be able to use my land any way I see fit. I don’t want somebody telling me what I can or can’t do. I’ve paid taxes on it. My father has paid taxes on it, and then they come in and tell us, well you can’t do that because the town don’t want you to.
Ed and his Truck
Ed: Home…I mean this is my home. I was born at my grandmother’s down in Slaterville. My dad built this house by hand. When I was young, Buffalo Road was all a dirt road—single lane. In the winter, we could drive all the way to Slaterville on a sled. It was good. Everybody helped everybody.
Nate Jr. with his Old Ford and the Garage that was Moved
Nate Jr.: I’ve always liked to swap and barter with people. I’d rather have something in place of something instead of just to sell something and have me just blow the money. Now I still can drive by and still see that old truck. Me and my father, Nathan Sr., moved that garage from the area of Fall Creek School, back in 1984 or 85. I was about 17. A lady hired us to move it out of there and the old man told the lady that we’d have it out by noon. We quit about 11:30, sweeping up the concrete pad as the lady pulled in the driveway. She was real amazed that it sat in the road on our truck!
JT and Nate Jr.
JT: The woodlands, the air, the atmosphere, the neighbors, family, friends, staying busy, working in the barn, taking care of my pigs, chickens, turkeys, my kids playing in the yard. I like sitting on my porch and watching the sunset. I like the trees.
Peter Among the Trees
Peter: I was walking through this particular section of our woods one day and I came across a chestnut that I’d not seen before. The reason it was of interest was that I did not plant that tree. Nobody else, no other human, planted that tree. I’m sure that some animal planted that chestnut. There are hardly any big chestnuts around here. They aren’t making flowers and producing seeds anymore. And yet, once upon a time, there was living proof that there had to have been sufficient seed production to allow native predators to carry a few around, stick them in the ground, and have one of them survive and grow into a chestnut tree. I think that’s kind of remarkable. I discovered several American chestnut trees living near our house and one was pretty big—about 10 inches in diameter. I began paying attention to this tree because you don’t see too many living chestnut trees that size anymore.
Nolan Along the Trail
Nolan: Beauty. It’s very calming being up here. I like being up here far more than I like being in town. It’s a relaxing spot. Everybody gets that. Up here you just can let loose, relax and be in an almost Zen-like place.
Purchase the book
The book can be purchased directly from the printer or at the State of the Art Gallery in Ithaca.
See the Exhibit Online
You can see an exhibit of photographs from the book at the State of the Art Gallery.