The Central Yard Fence

Event Date: 1978–1984 Drafted: 2025-11-23

The central yard was a fenced-in square of pure childhood — the space where the goats lived, the chickens pecked, the ducks waddled, and “old grandpa goose” reigned with tyrannical authority.

The fence itself was an old patchwork of wood and wire, built more for keeping animals in than keeping kids out. Inside that boundary was everything: • the pump house • the path between the shrubs where I ran my trucks • the goats’ wooden shelters • feed bowls made from repurposed kitchenware • hay bales stacked like castle walls

Dori followed me everywhere inside that yard, always alert, always on patrol. She’d bark at grandpa goose when he got too close to me, then stand between us like a loyal knight protecting a nervous squire.

I don’t think I realized it at the time, but that fenced-in square taught me boundaries in the gentlest way — not as restriction, but as a world-within-a-world. There was safety in those limits. Mystery beyond them. And an entire childhood right there between the pump house and the pigpen.

Inside that yard: wonder. Outside it: the wider farm, the woods, the future. I lived suspended between both — and Dori stood at my side for all of it.