Visiting the Home 40

I spent Labor Day weekend at my dad's new house. New is a relative term though, the house itself is over a hundred years old. It is the house my grandfather Clyde built and my father grew up in. It sits on 40 acres in Clay County, Illinois (picture above to give you an image of where Clay County is in Illinois). The house didn't have running water until my father just remodeled it. Originally Clyde farmed over 180 acres with teams of horses and hired men (who lived in an outbuilding that you can't see, aptly named the bunkhouse). I remember visiting my grandmother, Lola, when I was a child and we had to go outside and use the outhouse. She lived there on her own until she was 90 years old.

Anyhow, my father has decided to retire to the "Home 40". The names: The 40 acres that the house sits on - it is called the Home 40. The other 48 acres are bordered by the Little Wabash river and sometimes floods, it is called The Bottoms. The Home 40 has a crick and a fresh water spring and about four oil/natural gas wells and is about 50% wooded. 50% of the Bottoms has been leased to the government for one of those non-use/re-foresting plans, the rest is a mix of weedy field and wooded riparian area.

This is a picture of my dad's new house and his dog (formerly my mother's, and sister of my mother's Saint) Maizy. The sign says Walnut Hills and has my dad's name on it.

This picture is Clay county and points out the major sites. My dad was giving me directions to the house and he said, well, you just take the blacktop road straight south from Mattoon. I asked for more details on the vague "blacktop" - he said, well go left at such and such road and you are on the blacktop road.
Turns out, the name of the road, is actually Blacktop road. :)
My dad and brother once stopped in Sailor Springs (population 200 or so) and my dad made him drink out of the "World Famous Sailor Spring" - my brother reports it was gross.
You will notice much mention of Flora. Not only is it the county populace center, it has the only Wal-Mart (it is small, but it is a supercenter, as my Dad's girlfriend, Rita, tells me), a Minwax factory, and somewhere there is a cemetery with my last name.