One Final Traipse

Our house is across a greenbelt from another row of homes. The rear-facing windows in the living room show only our back fence and the trees growing behind it. Living here feels rather like living in the middle of nowhere, thanks to this view. Thanks to the City (my the City), this is going to change drastically.

Every once in a while, I would take one or two of the older children on a hike through the woods behind our house. Today is the last time that will happen, at least with the woods as they knew them. I took #2 and #3 out and broke the news as easily as I could by starting from our usual stopping point: our back fence. Usually, we'll start at the street and work our way 'home' through the woods, concluding in a bravery-inducing (read: scary) jump over the fence.

Our trailhead today:



A little creek usually runs back here, except in times of severest drought. This is the reason we will be losing our woods. When a heavy rain comes, this rises about ten or twelve feet, and flow is greatly restricted because it's a jungle where there really ought to be a drainage culvert. This is what happens when you don't clean your drainage for 25 years: people get to be fond of the 50-foot tall weeds!



Sorry these pictures aren't the greatest, they were taken on the fly as we tramped through the woods.



It was right about here that I started explaining to #2 why this would be our last "exploring". At first he didn't get what I was driving at, when I asked him what happened to the trees. He said they were laying down, without understanding they were laying down because they had been felled.



The road is the end of the road. I tried to keep #2's mind on fun things by telling him that they were using a machine like the one on "Swamp Loggers" or whatever it's called on the Discovery Channel, to pull the felled timber out.



And here is a look back at what used to be our usual trailhead. It used to look almost exactly like the first three shots, solid trees with a hillside to go down to get to the passable sections of, if not regular trail, at least walkable woods.

Now look. They squished the river's course all flat with their machines in the course of clearing out the timber. I suppose the men will have to go in with a Bobcat and clear out all the clay to make a watercourse run down the middle again. I hope they will leave the trees on the sides at least, but it's a faint hope.



Oh well, it was quite nice while it lasted. I guess we'll have to plant trees on our side of the fence now to get some privacy back. Mmmm. . . maybe pecan trees, and fig trees, and peach trees! Maybe the next place we live will have some honest woods that won't be considered a hazard by the local authorities, where we can romp and camp and do whatever the heck we want.

Oh, and perhaps there will be fewer mosquitos . . . did I mention the creek is more of a swamp between the times when it's running and the times it's dry?