Day 302
Speaking of adding twists and turns, I am always thinking about the best way to utilize our trail. Currently, our trail goes around the land in a somewhat organized way. I had thought of doing a permanent trail around the permanent but overgrown woods, dead ash trees, and agricultural ditches made that idea more of a long-term goal. Still, I wanted to access the land in a way that offered as much diversity as possible. My current attempt does just that. In the future, once the restoration is further along, it will be even greater. While the trail is loosely around the perimeter of our big backyard, it does have a couple offshoots that take travelers to our nature play area, to the woods where we search for golf balls, and through the wooded area that connects to a local nature preserve. If all goes well, our trail will connect to a new trail that takes you through the entire nature preserve.
While I do have aspirations of maintaining the current trail, I do expect it to grow in the future as well. I am hoping to add a few bridges that can improve access to some currently hard to reach areas. We have birdhouses ready to go for next spring, so those will be placed close to the trail for observation purposes but far enough away to keep birds interested. We also hope to create some seating areas throughout the trail. Whether Leopold benches or tree stump seating, there will be places visitors can rest and relax while soaking in the spectacular scenery nature has to offer.
But the potential addition of the nature preserve trail has me ridiculously excited. Because it goes through a more wooded area, it adds so much diversity in what we can see and what we can do. It would be absolutely amazing to have access to a nature preserve for our family and the community. Selfishly, I’d love to be able to have this access for my own children’s nature appreciation. I see it being a regular place we use for recreation, exercise, and exploration. Plus, it offers even more opportunities for citizen science and service learning projects.
