A Walk In The Woods

 

This is a post continuing the “Park” series:

Sorry, Park’s Closed

Weekend At The Park

Another Day In The Park

Sunday In The Park

My dad still lives in the house (for now) that my great grandfather bought about 1890.  Separate from that house property is a small piece of land that is wooded about a mile away.  It was fairly common back then to have a plot of woods for firewood, lumber and  hunting.

The red square is my dad’s land, and the yellow, is the pathway.  One of the downsides is that there is no direct access from the county road.  We have been using that pathway since about 1890.  Now, about five years ago, the $@#!^$@ jackasses that were leasing the land that had the pathway on it put up a gate at the county road entrance and locked it.  They also plowed up most of the pathway and were preventing access to my dad’s land.  About $5000 later in court, we had access to the pathway legally back. (Access Easement).

We used to go out to “the woods” when were kids with my dad to get firewood or dig up a tree to replant, but I hadn’t been out there for probably 25 years.  My brother on the other hand deer hunts out there every year.  Since the little piece of woods in yellow, just next to the red square, is not our property, it is not maintained by the %#@*!&@$ jackasses.  It’s not a long walk to park off the county road and walk in, but the path in through the little piece of woods was not passable.  (The court order also prohibited us from parking on the ^$$@*#^ jackass property.)

Soooooooooooooooooooo, I can stand at a firing line at the range or at my brother’s ALL-DAY-LONG, but I want to take my skills up a notch.  I wanted to set up a shooting course in the woods. (Plus it would be just dang fun!!).  Since I wanted something, I would have to do the work to get it.

This video is the “Before” shot.

I had shorts on so I did not go in too far for fear of any of about 30 plants that would result in me being very itchy.

Now, I planned on shooting the same day and brought my IView glasses and GoPro for filming, and I was planning on documenting myself working.  Well, once again I greatly overestimated my ability to do manual labor.  The work itself was not really that hard, but since it had rained the night before and the woods were so dense that no wind blew through, it was like being in a tropical rain forest.  Added to that I was wearing a hoodie with the hood up to keep the mosquito’s off.  While the mosquito’s were not a problem  I left the hoodie on just so I wouldn’t waste time swatting bugs while I was working.  After about 30 minutes, I was literally soaking wet.  I finished after about three hours of work and was in absolutely no condition to do any shooting !

The above video was the “After” shot of me driving in the next day

This is the drive from the county road to the woods:

 

I drive a small crossover and is not really made for four wheeling.  But as long as it’s dry, it should be OK to get in.  This video was the day after I cleared the path.  The video is at 2X speed to make it a little less boring.

I hauled in a weed wacker and chainsaw to do the work.

Just waiting for the next weekend to get out to the woods again !!