A part of me knew the ticks would be out in the woods today (and they were). But it was damp and rainy and felt cold to me. So Fate and Zinnia and I walked over the Gulley Bridge (the water has receded so I didn’t even get my boots wet) over the tumbled rocks in the stone wall and into the woods.
First we walked along the stream but something caught my eye in the old pile of garbage left by the people who lived on the farm before us.
There are piles of rocks in the woods, put there by the farmers who cleared the trees for grazing sheep and built the stone walls. High piles of small rocks they couldn’t use, or never got to. There are piles of scat, markings left by coyote and bobcats. There are piles of branches from fallen trees. And piles of empty hickory and hazel nut shells left by squirrels and chipmunks on broken stumps, rocks, and in holes in trees.
The garbage pile is mostly metal and glass.
And near that pile of human garbage, I found a pile of animal garbage in an old Woodpeckers hole in a tree. The empty hickory nut shells looked like little clay bowls to me.
I hate to see woods used as a garbage dump but have to admit, it makes for some interesting photos and stories – especially that shoe!
I don’t like it either Barbara. But most of the garbage is metal since it’s old garbage. Too much work to clean it up, so I make the best of it.