Magnificent in structure and bearing all the marks of a country landscape, it is easy to see how the Rod and Kathleen Schramm home would be nominated for Yard of the Week. It is a landscape that holds bits of local history and the Schramms’ personal style, not to mention signs of the couple and their children’s respect for nature, be it plant or living creature.
Enduring white vinyl fence surrounds the property, just off the old highway that connects Payson to Spring Lake. They keep in several endearing and gentle horses, one of a number of animal species to have joined the Schramms since they moved into the home in 1988.
A brick entrance accented by fiery kniphofia uvaria, better known as “red hot pokers,” introduce passersby to the beauty waiting at the end of the path. They have begun to recede for the season. Thick vines and blossoms are still vibrant, though, and have picked up the slack for the kniphofia until the time comes for their return.
Along the passage to the home, gracious lion statues tip the hat to a proud local symbol, one that is also associated with the Schramm family’s Payson business, Lions Den Storage.
Stewards not only of land, since moving into the home the Schramms have welcomed pets and a a number of strays as brief as well as extended guests. Pheasants, raccoons, elk, deer, the occasional skunk, and most of all Petie, the wayfaring peacock, whose arrival there a number of years ago came announced through the characteristic peafowl squawk, have been among them.
“This has been a good place to raise our kids,” Rod told The Payson Chronicle as he took a break at a picnic table beneath the shade of the trees, old and new, on the home’s south side. He had been helping a tree-cutter earlier, a man who had been hired to remove a quaking aspens. They began to die off this year, a problem, Rod noted, that has been affecting others in the community.
But elsewhere the landscape remains in great form.
A fire pit, encircled by chairs for visiting guests and family, is among the couple’s favorite spots. Not far from it, a hammock is secured between two thick trees- another of Kathleen’s favorites, who grew up with one at her house on her mom’s insistence.
A newer addition to the yard is a metal bicycle that had been sent to Kathleen for Mother’s Day by the couple’s son as he served an LDS mission in California. When he told her that he would be sending a bicycle to her, she didn’t quite know what to expect. What arrived was a nice replica of the real thing, a gift now parked beneath a front room window, complementing thick vines and blossoms in a flower bed.
Stories abound in trees, objects, as well as through memories that the yard’s caretakers carry with them today. An old pioneer home once sat on the property, the Schramms explained. In dire need of repair when they purchased the property in the late 1980s, the home was demolished. But not before materials--sturdy wood door frames and adobe bricks among them--were salvaged by others wishing to make use of them in their own projects.
Pieces from this local past live, too, in the massive trees out back that the Schramms left rooted when they built their home. Another, a thriving apricot tree, is guarded by a set of horses at the front of the property. This tree had sustained the old pioneer home’s owners, Kathleen noted, recalling a story passed down to her from its matriarch. During a bad financial year, the couple had depended on the fruit from this generous tree and some potatoes to survive.
A pine tree in the backyard, the “Wedding Tree,” bears deep significance to Rod and Kathleen. It had been given to them as a gift when the couple was married. Initially planted at their former home near old 8th South Hillman Field complex in Payson, they carefully dug it up and transplanted it at their south highway home.
They brought with them, too, a sort of mindfulness of their surroundings, one that has been expressed both in the preservation of plant-life and the stories they hold. And in the process of regeneration of new life to enjoy in the present and future.
