Day 154

One of the other things we were excited to enjoy was hiking our trail. Before the flakes flew, our farmer friend came by with a brush hogger and created a path which would serve as the baseline for the future trail. Besides walking it for leisure and exercise, we also had plans to use it as a way to access the land for projects. We could restore prairie, plant trees, add birdboxes, add trail cameras, and of course, search for golf balls. 

Once the trail was created in fall, we knew we had limited time to enjoy it in its current state before winter took over, making the path different. Not worse, just different. When winter did arrive, it quickly became a path for snowshoeing and in some cases, ice skating as the wetter areas endured the freeze, thaw, and refreeze again.

However, the itch to hike needed to be scratched one spring day and I decided to venture out with my older daughter. We decided to venture off trial and explore what we hoped would be future trail. Our goal was to flag the potential new path, extending our current path into the adjoining nature preserve. I have already discussed this concept with the managers of the nature reserve and we are excited at the possibility of collaborating on projects. We grabbed our pink flagging tape and headed out.

We wore our high boots as we expected to find some moisture along the way. We didn’t get moisture. We got a monsoon.

Within a few steps off our trail, we already encountered water that exceeded our boots and gave our feet an unexpected washing. We trekked on a bit further before it became clearly evident that the plan to plot out a path was sure to be  unsuccessful until the land dries much more thoroughly.

While the trail planning didn’t end up as we had intended, we were still very excited that we even had the opportunity and I know we will trek out there again some time soon and begin the process of adding a trail that will allow us to explore even more of the beautiful land right in our own backyard.