"Our House"

"Our house is a very very fine house, with two dogs in the yard, life used to be so hard...."
Yes, I know, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young sang it with two cats, but the version I played over and over was Helen Reddy's. She became my heroine with "I Am Woman" and her LP's were the ones I bought. (And she sang it "two dogs".)
"Our House" was the name I gave to the acreage northwest of Des Moines where the kids and I lived for nine years. I cajoled (might have even paid) an artist at my workplace into sketching my favourite three pine trees onto a new white mailbox. Then I painted them and added "Our House" and proudly exchanged the new mailbox for the old one at the end of our lane.
Late one afternoon I happened to be outside when two neighbor boys drove past and indulged in mailbox bashing. I was so mad I jumped into the car and followed them the mile down to the residence of one of the boys. I confronted them, yelled at them, threatened to tell their parents and threatened to turn them into the postmaster. They apologized, begged me not to tell on them and offered to buy me a new mailbox. I finally calmed down and left.
A few weeks later, our dog, Mimi, disappeared. We searched and searched for her, but never found a trace. I always wondered if they had something to do with her disappearance; if their mailbox bashing escalated because I confronted them.
The place on Tuck Corner I labeled "Windtuck". I painted a windmill with the name on that mailbox.
There were two tall pines in the yard at the little house. That mailbox was adorned with my version of them with a bird flying over and "The Aerie" printed on the side.
I might have used "Our House" again the year we lived at Mrs. Elliot's, but no other abodes got named until we moved back to my birthplace. The area we had our mobile home placed was always called 'the orchard' by my family. In my lifetime, I only remember one apple tree there, but perhaps there had been enough fruit trees at one time to deem being called an orchard.
Bud & I tried several different names; Orchard Place, Orchard Home, Orchard Park, Orchard View......When we hit upon Orchard Prairie, we both knew it was the right moniker. I never painted anything on the mailbox, but my daughter-in-law, Shelly, painted the name on a large board which we had mounted over the garage. And one year at the state fair I ordered an "End of the Trail" sign with "Orchard Prairie" printed on it as a present for Bud.
This is how Orchard Prairie became my yahoo e-mail address if anyone has ever wondered. As yet, we haven't named our new home in Creston. Perhaps "On Golden Pond" as we overlook the pond and live out our "golden years."