Posted by Joe Barnes on October 26th, 2008

My family and experienced today what can probably best be called the “Bundoran Farm Effect”.  During a glorious Fall day – perfect temperature, moderate breezes and the autumn leaves closing in on peak colors – my wife and 2 young boys (10 and 12 years old) and my Boston Terrier, Hunter, took a walk through the pastures and forests of Bundoran Farm.

 

The trip started off with 2 car door-to-car door conversations with neighbors that Fred Scott refers to as “board meetings in the country”.  The boys in the back seat with Nintendo DS’s in hand, paid no attention to our conversations or the beauty around them.  After driving into the property and along the new graciously curving roads, we parked the car, left the technology in the back seat and set off to explore the farm. 

 

It didn’t take too long for our conversation to switch from the latest conquests on the Nintendos, to Marvel Comic heroes to “Hey, look at these cool foot prints” and “What type of tree is that?”  As saw prints left behind by deer, turkey and what I guessed to be a raccoon, we left behind our footprints on the earth recently softened by the previous day’s rain.  As a Red Tail Hawk flew overhead, my boys started to take in the world around them and even get a bit philosophical as we talked about politics, God and what heaven must be like.

 

Upon returning back to where we parked the car and knocking most of the mud off shoes, we drove back to our current home just a few miles away in Charlottesville.  It was when we finally pulled into our driveway that my oldest son said “Daddy, this was a great day.  I would like to do it all over again sometime” I realized how powerful the “Bundoran Farm Effect” is. While the footprints we left at Bundoran Farm are rather small and will soon go away, the footprints left by Bundoran Farm on my sons are pretty large and will last quite a long time.

Filed under: Education and Inspiration, General