Thursday, May 2, 2013

Walk with me

Nutwood hike2
Today I decided to get out and enjoy our property a little bit by taking a hike through the marsh. I hadn’t intended on going back into the woods, but I was having so much fun out there that I spent a while in the woods, too! A little background: we have 11 acres, part of it a marshy wetlands, which changes to woods a little farther back. Let’s get started! (Click on pictures to embiggenate.)


Nutwood hike3
It’s important to wear wear a hat when walking around out here. Lots of ticks. I didn’t have any on me, but I just saw one on the outside wood trim. It was a warm, sunny day, and I was already starting to heat up as I made my way through the marsh back to the woods.


Nutwood hike4
Because this is wetlands, there are some pretty squishy spots out here. Ken tries to keep a path mowed, and he’s put pallets and boards down to serve as a walkway in the squishiest spots. (It also helps to keep the mower from getting stuck!) I like how this leads to the woods. Looks kind of spooky, doesn’t it? Of course, I think everything looks spooky.

Once I got into the woods, I was glad I decided to do the full monty, so to speak. Later in the summer, the woods get pretty overgrown and tangled with foliage, and Ken usually has to slash through some of the stuff with a machete. [Feel free to play the Indiana Jones music in your head.] But this time of year, it’s easy to get through. The ground cover is just coming up, and you don’t have to wade through knee deep (at least for me), thick foliage. There were still lots of bare spots on the floor of the woods, and it seemed so wide open and clear. Although I looked, I didn’t see a single morel mushroom. Dammit! And it’s weird to see this huge boulder back there in the woods. It’s a reminder that this area leveled by a glacier…it’s flat, and lots of big rocks were deposited or turned up along the way. Ooo, what lies beneath…!


Of course, I had a moment where I thought how creepy it would be to see a zombie come shuffling through the woods towards me. A Walking Dead fan never rests! It is very reminiscent of the Georgia woods where they’ve shot some of the episodes. I got lost in those north Georgia woods once, and it was a little unsettling. I was just taking a walk in the woods behind our house! My friend and I finally found a road and managed to get back home.

I managed to get turned around today, too. Hey, it’s me. I’m bad with directions. I didn’t get totally lost, because it’s hard to get lost on just 11 acres, and there are things not that far from our property. But I headed west to the edge of our property and saw the stake that marks it. Someone had built some sort of wooden structure, and I thought, “That better not be something like a fallen deer blind” (No hunting at Nutwood!), but as I got closer, I saw that our neighbors had a little path on their property, and had built a wooden bench at the end of the pathway! I thought that was pretty cool. Anyway, I went to head back, and I felt like I was going south, back towards our house, but I was actually heading east, because I soon saw the buildings of the place next to ours. I had another Walking Dead moment, because I thought, “I need Daryl Dixon to get me through these woods!” Haha! But I knew where I was then, and soon saw the green of the marsh through the trees ahead of me, and got back to the path through the marsh. It really is amazing how easy it is to get turned around and disoriented in woods like this. It gets worse as the foliage gets more lush and obscures notable landmarks like large rocks or fence posts.


Speaking of notable, I was thrilled to find the old metal bed frame (kind of hard to see in these pictures...look closely). Neighbor Dave told us when we first moved in to look for it; apparently there was a cabin out in the woods in the past, and this little bed frame was still out there. A tree is growing up through it. When we moved in, it was maybe eight inches in diameter. See the tree, how big it’s grown! (Obscure Bobby Goldboro reference.)


Nutwood hike9b
Our neighbors have boxes up for…I think bluebirds? Or maybe bats? I think bat boxes are usually higher. But it’s nice to see that they have “No Hunting” signs posted, too. We feel the same way.

Nutwood hike9c 
After making a circle around the property, I came out on the other side of the yard into our back yard. (You can see what is left of the tree I worked on cleaning up earlier this week.) After a hard day of exploring in the woods (okay, it was maybe a couple of hours), it was nice to see our little oasis. Since I was feeling like a badass adventurer, I lifted some weights and punched a hole in the wall. Okay, I didn’t really do that second part.

Then I caught some rays and read Rolling Stone magazines.

The End.

1 comment:

I'm funny how, I mean funny like I'm a clown, I amuse you?