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July 7, 2007

How I got lost in our 'front yard'

So, there were a bunch of people at the farm on the 4th of July. John had his first shooting party, I guess you might call it. We had targets set up in the back and folks were trying out their shooting abilities. It's kinda cool, because we can shoot from the back deck and not bother anyone!

Well, our son, Andy, and his girlfriend, Ashes and her younger sister, Sam, had driven up from Manhattan, Kansas to see the farm and spend the day with us. They were kinda bored, as we have no television (we are debating whether or not to get satellite tv) and no computers out there as yet.

So I thought, heck, I'll take them out one by one on the Ranger (fancy utility atv) and show them the front 40 acres - our front yard.

Now, this is not your typical farm - with lots of open acres of stuff growing. This had been a dairy farm. There is pasture and woods and a couple of fields of good brome hay. So you cannot look out from the front door and see to the end of the property.

Sam said she would like to see it, so we got on the Ranger, buckled up and I started driving. My thought was to try to drive the fence line - that way I'd know where I was. We started out doing pretty well - the grasses are very high - 3 to 4 feet, but we could see where we were going. There were depressions in the grass where deer had slept, we found a stock tank (little bitty pond for cattle to drink from) and a bleached out skull of a cow.

We had to enter the woods to explore further back, and things went well for a few minutes. And then, it seemed that we were deep in the woods, and the driving was, well, challenging. I told Sammi that I'd get us out of the woods in just a few minutes, as she is a city girl, and was getting pretty weird about bugs. And, she was getting smacked by cedar tree branches and vines as I tried to make our way to a meadow, where the bugs would not be so ubiquitous.

I discovered that we had some creek beds with very high banks - too high to get an ATV across. So I drove away from the fence line and alongside the creek to find a place suitable for fording.

I found a place to cross, only there was a fallen tree in the way - so, I spent probably 30 minutes moving the damn tree - fortunately, it was only about 10 inches in diameter, but it was about 20 feet long, and I'm not super strong, so it was a slow, slow process. I finally got it moved to the side and I drove across the creek and up into a meadow.

At this point I had not mentioned to poor little Sam that I had no idea how to get back to the house, I figured that I'd be able to see it at the high point of the meadow we had just entered. But no such luck. The beautiful meadow, with wildflowers and grasses, was surrounded by woods. I could not see past the trees. I knew I needed to head north, but it was around noon, and I had no idea which way north was. I finally stopped the Ranger, turned off the engine and listened for gunshots. (the folks plinking away at targets back at our house). That helped - I heard them shooting, and I knew which way north was.

That was good - but I still had no path or idea where a path would be to get us out of the woods.

I could catch a glimpse of our pond now and again, but there was a lot of brush and woods between us and the pond. It took a long time to get to it - lots of back tracking and getting out and moving branches and rocks. But we finally made it to the pond. Almost as soon as we got to the dam, a beautiful Great Blue Heron flew from the water up into a tree - Sam was amazied - darn those things are gigantic!!

From the pond, we were able to drive up the very rocky hill to the gate and then back to the house.

In the future, I will bring a compass, some water and a walkie talkie with me. I'm thinking I need to make some wooden signs that say : POND - THIS WAY, or WILDFLOWERS - THAT WAY, and most importantly - HOME - THIS WAY!

Posted by Beth at July 7, 2007 6:00 AM

Comments

Posted by: John of Argghhh! at July 7, 2007 9:37 AM

Posted by: Stacy at July 7, 2007 11:19 AM

Posted by: Deborah Aylward at July 8, 2007 5:50 PM

Posted by: GUYK at July 8, 2007 7:28 PM

Posted by: homebru at July 9, 2007 8:13 AM

Posted by: Boquisucio at July 9, 2007 10:08 AM