Nature Journal

13 December


Weather still considerably dismal, so find that you cannot wait for anything during the in-between season.  There are conveniently close hikes and walks all over the great gray bluffs.  At the parking lot of Hixon we begin to think of day's walk through woods as a mystery story and wonder who had been held captive in castle of the tree.  We moved along through the woods off of the trail; entire bluffsides littered in enormous patterns of old fallen oak, which now look to be mossy fortresses,

sometimes laid over outcroppings of driftless limestone.  Much of the timber had been cut at some time, dragged to points to create the forts and 'lookouts.'  Fungus scales and the muck of leaves gather where few footprints have fallen.  We walk along one mammoth fallen oak suspended at a rise out over the downslope until it becomes too high to comfortably look down.  We jump onto the broadside of a smaller standing tree and work our way down like a fireman's pole.  Just up a bit, toward the more known area of the new trail, we find a dangling vine the size of an old boat rope.  The dare is on to leap and see how long it will hold.  It holds for longer than expected, out over the ground several feet, then gives – the fall

fortunately onto soft ground and on balance.  Fat tire bikers pass, duck and weave in and out of tight curves.  Roots jut out from the side of sheer cut hills.  Limestones placed at curves for definition.  Old relics of times past crop up as natural clues and we assemble our mystery somewhat further until we come to the conclusion that the trails and untamed woods tell many tales of adventures past and present.