This is a post that is long overdue. Something new has happened on Waschke Road. Readers of vinemaple.net know that my partner and wife, Rebecca, and I decided over a year ago that we had to put the Waschke homestead on the market. The homestead had become an overwhelming burden. Rebecca and I share between us arthritis, diabetes, heart failure, and multiple back surgeries. We simply couldn’t take care of the homestead any longer and neither our son nor daughter were interested in taking over. I hated that, but life is life. I was never much of a farmer to begin with and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, diabetes, and arthritis just meant that taking care of the homestead was impossible.
Long ago, our son Paul established a deep bond with my dad while he was growing up, and he is as deeply tied to the Waschke homestead as I am. I knew when we decided to put the homestead on the real estate market that Paul would be deeply affected, but I saw no alternative. Paul has had severe health problems for a number of years. I won’t go into the details, but they made it impossible for him to seriously consider taking over the homestead.
For me, this was heart breaking. The homestead is not just a few acres of land. It is the embodiment of a relationship between a plot of land, a layer of topsoil, and a family, which is a body of love and trust. Times change and relationships change. The connection between the Waschke family and the land on Waschke Road has changed as generations change. My own relationship with the Waschke land is tenuous. My wealth, such as it is, is mainly derived from my efforts for a dead billionaire on Long Island, New York, not the land on Waschke Road, but my spiritual worth, equally such as it is, comes from the acreage that my father and grandfather built in a century of tending the land. When we decided to put the homestead on the market, that spiritual worth crumbled. I was pained, but I saw no alternative. I could not carry on. You take your knocks.
Several months ago, what I consider to be a miracle occurred. Paul started on a new medication that changed his life. Suddenly, severe limitations disappeared, and he and Lanni, Paul’s wife, could contemplate taking over the homestead.
Now, I am so proud to say that Paul and Lanni Waschke, with their son Dario, are taking over the Waschke homestead. Paul and Lanni have many plans and I am excited to watch their plans unfold. This is so much better than selling the homestead. Paul and Lanni are the fourth generation on the homestead. I have hopes that Dario will be the fifth, but I am content to wait for the future.