Hi Pepe,
I too work hard to maintain a “walk-around for peace of the soul”.
For years this was an in/out of trees perimeter me/dogs walking trail around our 15 acred treed lot.
Ha! Took days a year in the late Spring to whack back encroaching growths to maintain that trail-of-peace.
And then dogs aged-gone evolution replacing having to upgrade the four/five and eight barbwire aged out cow fences to be my own chasing out dogs proof. For their own safety. And neighbors respect.
Good for my mind peace. Good for my dogs physical and emotional exercising.
Not cheap to make obtain, maintain these place’s of peace, eh?
I’ll separately address the others space-fears in a separate post.
Some of you all really need to get a handle on your fears.
Mine/our property has coyote packs running thought it nightly. Black bear, cougar, bobcat seen and track leaving annual.
We DO keep our dogs retained fenced into the ~one acre of around the houses yards for their running around safety.
I fight with digging in coyotes chicken killing in this yard space annually. 20 ga whack them when I can. Then quarter and stake out those carcass chunks as stay-away warnings. Hey. Works.
I am a 30 years Washington State Concealed Pistol Permit Holder. Actually on my own property my state allows open carry. I am a proven very good shot 9mm/.357, .40, 10mm, .45ACP up through .44 mag. Proven killer too with all of these.
I do not walk my properties with my dogs pistol carrying. Or shotgun carrying.
No fears needs by me. And this would make fears-of-me in my neighbors unnecessarily.
An actual adjacent real neighbor out looking for a forest lost wandering dog tripped and fell with his 44 black power revolver and face-shot killed himself. Very, very sad. His family did find their dog. Lost a father and husband.
I walk with a very stout walking stick due to a 50 year old shatter left ankle; and worn out now right-side knee and hip from those 50 years of over-doing.
Last year my mouthy now grumpy old female Australian Sheppard dog surprised by a new neighbor dog antagonized that dog so much he bolted trough one of the last un-reinforced old cow fence sections and put her down to the ground by the back of the neck.
Dog fights are bad, bad.
Three hard kicks from me to his ribs did nothing to stop his chomp-biting. Damn rubber boots!
I broke that heavy ash-wood walking stick over his head and was setting up the then broken spear end to plunge sever his spine.
He got the whack attention getter, so I did not have to give him the killing point. Good. I love dogs.
My Forest Service Road manger father-in-law and myself never have seen the need for self-protection firearms out in the animal living forest.
Accompany actual children out in the forest I DO carry firearms concealed armed. I do tail along charlie at the rear Cougar busk-wack danger zone. Let a woman take point bump into bear, restrain children position. Noisy, jumping children trigger prey reactions.
Fellows Mr Pepe and I know that the real danger’s in life are one’s with two legs.
Now keeping these out of my place-of-peace has been the real pain-in-the-ass problems.
S.U.
I’m a city boy that moved into the middle of the woods.
I carried a 1911 for the first month or two living out here. I know we have bears, wolves, moose, coyotes and other predators a city boy would fear. Every time I see one, they run away. Now I have a hard time seeing them. I carry a camera instead. Also, our little 40 pound dog seems to sniff them out before I see them. She’ll bark until they’re gone. I know this because it’s quite obvious when a moose is running through the woods filled with young Poplar. I am certain she’d put herself between myself and a dangerous animal if there was a threat. She always stands guard no matter where we are or what I’m doing. If I’m putting tin on a roof, she’ll be on the ground nearby, facing out, as though she’s a guard. Now when I go outside at night, I take a flashlight, not because I’m scared but because I really want to see something. Tapping maple trees in the spring is the best time. There’s still snow on the ground where one can see the trails from the winter, yet it’s warmer and the woods are quiet. The maple trees quit running once the frogs start singing in the spring. That’s when the birch trees start running. We change all the taps over to birch trees after they get sterilized. This gives me 2.5 months in the woods everyday. It’s foraging time at the end of birch season until the mosquitoes come out in the middle of June. I have 80 acres but with everyone I know up here, I have about 700 acres of woods to roam around.
I went to the cities last weekend to attend a family Halloween party. It’s amazing on how much noise there is. I never really noticed it when I lived there.
Winter will be here soon. All the bugs are already gone. The woods get more quiet. That is until it gets to about -30F or colder. There isn’t much moving around then. What one can hear is the trees popping. It gets so cold here that the trees freeze and pop. One can see the vertical cracks on the trees from previous years. I never knew such thing happened until the first winter up here.
I like the sentiments. The noise of civilization, so called, is so pervasive, and has to be harmful. People need nature more than they realize. Reminds me of the concept of “nature deficit disorder”, apparently common in the rich parts of the world.
As for your area, it’s probably woodticks, followed by mosquitoes and deer flies, then the horseflies… and then the mosquitoes again, if there’s rain…
Bill it didn’t very long for you to figure out the songs of nature and the seasons and how to just get along with God’s creation. Your are Blessed for sure.
Bob
Hi Bob,
I’ve heard about tapping birch trees. I understand it takes
40 gallons of birch sap to make 1 gallon of syrup. Is this your
experience? Boy, I’d love to taste some, maybe next spring
I’ll give it a go.
Pepe
Pepe, it takes about 40 gallons of maple sap to make one gallon of syrup. For birch, it takes 100-150 gallons of sap. Paper birch is about 100 gallons where black and yellow birch takes more.
Ha! Ha! Couple of years ago I actually had a near-bad falling limb experience out walking.
A sun thawing high limb release. Me and the dog heard the high up in the DF tree brake-away noise echoing off the the adjacent slope first. Stopped trail walking to look around and see why, what ? ? ? (never occurred to look up) One-thousand-one; one-thousand-two . . . . then . . .
that ~150 pound limb broken end stabbed down into the trail just ahead of us. Where we would have been walking.
Bad luck?
No. Heighten full spectrum senses awareness.
IF IPOD ear-buds in; or thumbs flying texting oblivious, we would most likely been hurt bad. Tech-numbed. Tech-arrogance narrow focused made.
Soul walking put us there.
The enhancing experience is what proved to us a falling in the woods does make a mighty noise.
Humbling.
And fellows humbling is really what soul-walking brings about.
Steve unruh
Its all pretty scarry at times, friged temps, 7 different kinds of poison snakes too not step on, And 110 f temps aint nothing too sneeze at. Or has hasards too be aware of. Still are long winters are less desireable, than a little farther south than michigan.
