Hometown Monday - P is for Paul, Penny and Peter

Hometown Monday - P is for Paul, Penny and Peter

We are continuing this series of posts of excerpts from the novels, novellas, and short stories of "The Homeplace Saga" family story-telling, with a new twist. We have adopted a format from the: "Blogging From A to Z Challenge." Each week we will share a published except related to a person whose name begins with that letter. 

This series of posts is to provide an insight into the story lines that may not be clear from other promotional pieces about "The Homeplace Saga." These will also be coordinated with the content of the developmental Wiki, "Beyond the Books" - to expand the information available there, as well. [Links in the text, below, provide more information on that person or entity]

Today we look at names beginning with the letter P.

For P, we have (with two excerpts, below):

Paul Gates - first husband of Beverly Bevins

Penny Nixon - Part-time reporter for the Oak Springs Enterprise in 1987

Peter Bevins - Youngest of the 4 Bevins siblings

Our excerpts today are from the novel, "Christmas at the Homeplace," recently released, now available at Amazon.com… for Christmas purchases:

This excerpt is from "Christmas at the Homeplace" is from Chapter 12, Tuesday, November 19, 1996:

Paul went up to the Big Thunder Lodge Tuesday afternoon to meet with Julie Barnes and others involved in the changes they discussed earlier. He had had discussions with Karen, Christopher, Lyle, Harry and Bart and they had developed a list of questions for which he hoped to get answers before the trustee’s meeting the following week. Timing was the primary concern. They also wanted Paul to get further details on the commitment sought from the Bevins Trust.

Since this was Paul’s first visit to Big Thunder, Julie gave him the grand tour. He was very impressed with this lodge set back off the road in the woods. It was much larger than he had expected even though he had heard about it. They also walked out on the east balcony where they could look at the lake that had been created by the earthen dam that they were now proposing to remove. 

From the position on the third floor balcony where they were viewing the lake, Paul could look to the north and see, at the edge of the woods, where the stream of Oak Creek was entering the lake. It really wasn’t a very deep lake, and he wondered to himself why they had chosen to dam up the stream at all. To Julie, he said he was anxious to see the plan for flow of the stream following draining the dam. She said that was a good place to start and they went to a meeting room in the administrative area where several planning charts were on display. One of the planners was also there to interpret the charts and drawings for Paul.

Julie showed Paul the architectural drawing of how the stream would look following the planned changes. The drawing ran from the north end of the property in the woods to the south end of the property where the stream reentered the woods heading south through the National Forest toward the Mill a few miles away. The charts along side the drawing also showed how the dam fill would be redistributed to create a float stream with several curves on the property. They were planning to install an entry point near the north end and pickup and re-entry point near the southern border of the property.

The planner said the intent was to give guests the opportunity for a short float, by canoe or kayak, on the property (north to south). For more adventurous floaters, the entry would be at the south edge of the property to float south to the Mill, if all went as planned. This would include the pickup point north of the Mill as well as some improvements along the creek in between in cooperation with the National Forest Service. A proposed plan to do this had preliminary approval of the Forest Service, subject to a number of conditions, including the approval of the Bevins Trust of the work needed along the creek on their property. 

After some further discussion, Julie and the planner each agreed to attend the trustee’s meeting with Paul the following Tuesday to bring these charts and make a brief presentation.

This excerpt is from "Christmas at the Homeplace" is from Chapter 17, Saturday, November 30, 1996:

Peter and Bart had agreed to meet this afternoon for a couple of hours at Bart’s office at his house to go over their maps of the individual pieces of land currently held by the Bevins Trust. Bart had already marked the lands that were currently involved in agricultural activities. That was the easy part. Most of the wooded areas were fairly easy to identify, as well. They each would, sooner or later, go into the McDonald Conservancy. The areas with pasture land and transitional areas were a bit more difficult. 

Future use plans as well as possible improvement projects in these areas would help determine their distribution. Those were marked for further consideration, a bit later, along with a tentative priority for each.

The big ridge where the caves were located was also fairly easy to identify and assign to Conservancy land. The land surrounding Oak Creek would generally be assigned to the Conservancy, but the issue they generally faced was how far from the water’s edge to include, moving up and down the creek, on each side. A closely related area was points of possible erosion and where the channel of the stream might change over time. They marked each of these with their questions for further consideration.

They both enjoyed this review process and were a bit surprised how many questions they raised. It was quite a bit more complicated than they had realized it would be. They agreed it was good they were getting an early start so that questions could be addressed.

"May each of us have a Homeplace to hold onto, if only in our minds."

Bill  ;-)