Walk in the woods
Our sweet next door neighbors, Ben & Carol, have about 40 acres that run next to us (our road curves around their property) and back behind us. Carol is part of an old, original Green Bluff (famous!) farming family of which all of our property and all the way up the road used to be a part. It’s beautiful land that was cleared ages ago for orchards. They have been working on re-foresting most of their acreage. Nothing motivates you more than seeing your older neighbors out there hand-watering 2,000 baby trees at 6:30 in the morning all summer long!
We walked their property with Carol the other day (sadly picking up a dead hen), and while walking the perimeter of their acreage we noticed some trails into the wooded area that is directly behind our property. We have never actually ventured in there. We have an old fenceline running along the back of our field for one thing; for the other, we didn’t know what was actually back there. Oh, and it’s not our property. But I asked Carol if she minded if we walked down the edge of her property along our side fenceline to access the woods behind us. Of course she said Go For It! So this morning I took advantage of her generosity and the warm weather and headed down (with no coat on!) to check out the woods.
It was great back there! Tons of paths have been carved by both vehicles and deers. I had a great hike, took a few nature pictures, and even dragged back a few fallen pine limbs back up for the goats to gnaw on. Why it took me 4 years to think about doing this, I don’t know, but I greatly prefer a 45 minute hike in the woods vs. walking on a treadmill at the YMCA. I marked a spot on our back fence for Steve to add a gate so we can hopefully access it directly from our own property in the future.
Here is the gate I used to access their side of the fenceline. This is between the goat shed and the garden.
The fence runs all the way from the street to the back of our property, and we have 4 different fenced-in areas in the back: 1) the goat paddock is its own area with a front and back gate. 2) the area with the coop, which also has a front and a back gate. 3) the area right next to the coop area, doesn’t really get used, but also has a front and back gate and a side gate that we use to drive in with Big Red. 4) the back area that spans the whole thing side-to-side. The woods are directly behind that fourth field.
This is the back corner of our property, so I kept walking to the right of the trees. You can see how much farther their property goes to the far back tree line. They have been planting baby trees in that entire space!
Now I’m down in the far corner of THEIR property, looking back up the hill to their house. This is where I cut into the woods.
Down here are some pretty wide vehicle (ATV-style) trails.
I headed back up toward our property via deer trails, and voila! There’s our property line. Steve, please add a gate right here for me!
Now some snow-free winter nature pics:
