Day 114

 Designing a trail isn't necessarily easy. There are many factors to consider.  Will it be safe? Is it navigable?  Is it trail ready? If you answer no to any of these, do you have the equipment to get it ready to say yes?

I have the energy. I have the enthusiasm. I don't quite have the equipment and I definitely don't always have the time.

But as I tried to answer these questions, I needed to figure out ways to turn any potential no’s into a yes.

In terms of safety, while some times of the year are too wet to easily hike, there isn’t too much stopping trail creation in the way of danger. This excess moisture also impacted the ability to utilize all the land. With some very wet spots and a few agricultural ditches blocking access to portions of the land, there were some obstacles in the way of making a trail that went to all corners of our property. We had a few potential solutions including creating bridges and avoiding some of the wetter areas. In terms of being trail ready, besides a few fallen trees and low branches in the way and plenty of grass needing to be mowed, it was time to get the trails started. The actual bridge building would have to wait, but we wanted to at least get a path prepared.

In terms of equipment, I wasn't all that prepared to do this on my own. Let me rephrase that. I wasn't ready at all. But I didn’t want to wait any longer so I did the best I could with what I had.  With a few treatments already applied to the land, we had started getting rid of the tall, thick reed canary grass that had previously dominated the landscape. These treatments made it much easier to make a path.  This was great as I didn't have the most powerful mower and I wanted to save its life for the actual lawn. Instead, I opted to use my push mower out and back to make the trail a bit wider. This was a nice short term goal, but probably not feasible for the long haul.