We do this on a fairly regular basis in the spring and summer. It's both a time for us to be together without the kids, and a time of assessment and planning for this little place. We took the dog with us, and the two barn cats ended up tagging along.
So, our little parade walked, from the yard, across the short edge of the field, to the fence line. We walked east on the fence line, toward the woods. Our path was blocked about halfway there by a flooded out spot on the edge of what we call The Marsh, which is a scrubby area that's almost perpetually wet. It floods every spring and fall, and someday we will dig a pond there.
The dog went boldly splashing in as hubby and I stood on the edge of the water, contemplating our route. The cats, too, analyzed a better way to the woods, one that wouldn't involve them getting wet. It appeared the water was fairly deep, a foot to a foot-and-a-half, so we went around, skirting The Marsh and it's flooding. Along the way, we kicked up a group of assorted ducks, and startled a dozen deer who ran off with flagged tails.
We checked on some small fir trees we'd planted on the backside of The Marsh last year. They all looked like they'd survived the winter well. Continuing on, we entered the woods proper. Part of the road through the woods had water on it, but not too deep. DH commented on how he's been trying to build the road up the last few years, and might have to install a culvert in that spot.
When we bought our property in 2002, it was just vacant: 30 acres of farm field, and 10 of woods. We've been slowly building and making improvements, one of which is the 'road' through the woods. By clearing a tractor-width path around the perimeter, we are more able to utilize the woods: cutting and hauling out firewood to heat the house, for deer hunting, for picking the blackberries that grow in various small clearings, for tapping the maple trees on the north end, and picking the wild apples growing throughout.
We discussed the future location of the culvert, and where we might procure one for the best cost (best cost = free), then continued on. Shortly before the back corner of the woods, I noticed a rusty piece of metal sticking up through the leaf litter near a smallish tree. Curious, I grabbed the free end of the metal, and pulled. Since the ground was soft, it came up easily, revealing that it was an old saw blade.
"Look!" I told my husband, "Someone's saw!"
I thought it was a handsaw perhaps dropped and lost by a previous owner of our land.
The more I pulled, the more I revealed. It wasn't a handsaw at all, but most of the blade of a two-man saw. Treasure! What a cool find! It set my mind to imagining how it could have possibly been used by loggers long ago--there is evidence our land was timbered off at least a generation earlier. Possibly the saw had broken during the logging process and been set aside, left behind to be buried by season after season of leaves and woodland debris.
We decided to take it back to the house. With the mud washed off, we might hang it on the wall somewhere as a decoration.
Continuing through the woods, we noted where things were starting to green up, which small plants were growing, where the wild blackberries and roses need to be pruned back so as to not overgrow the road. The weather had turned very cold the day before, so sap was not running. The spiles in the trees we checked were completely dry for the first time since I'd tapped nearly three weeks earlier.
Having traversed a U-shaped path through the woods, we emerged into the field once more. Walking west on the northern edge of the field, then the horse pasture, we discussed where we wanted to clean the fence line some more this year, which trees in a clump to thin out, which to keep. Several trees were nearly choked with poison ivy vines and we talked about getting the ivy cut off them soon, before it sprouts for the year and is more difficult to work with.
As we walked, we checked on more little fir trees planted in 2010. Some were bent and buried under dead grasses and weeds, so we cleared around them to give them light and the opportunity to grow straight. The dog and two cats meanwhile searched in the debris of the fence line for field mice.
Getting to the end of the fir trees, we had traversed another long U-shape, which brought us to the edge of the garden. The ground is still too soft for me to start hauling in my annual addition of composted horse manure, but soon it will be ready. Meanwhile, I can clean off the strawberry and asparagus beds and begin to look for the first hop shoots in the hops beds. Hops are very invasive, so we want to be on the lookout for any shoots that are straying out of their designated area.
The sun was setting when we finished our circuit, roughly a mile by the route we'd taken. The barn cats went back to the barn, I shut the chickens into the coop for the night, and DH stoked the wood boiler before we went into the house.
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