Valley Sight

Seeing the barn in the valley

I had never been up here. It's the westward view of the Smiley farm. Squint and you can see our cement barn in the valley. The white bark sycamores hint at water, but mostly the New Haven River, which parallels the barn's eastward side, is obscured.

We came up here for a reason! A good portion of the farm's forest stands across the New Haven River. There's a cornfield across the river too, which receives yearly visits from wild turkeys feasting on leftover corn kernels. Several years back, some logging was done in the woods that edge the cornfield. Decks of hardwood logs were left to be hauled across the river later, but my mother has worried that the logs have deteriorated beyond the point of use. My mother, Amy and I went to check in on the quality of the logs today.

I love how snow makes movement more legible, from the deer, bear and rabbit tracks to the tire impressions of last summer's tractor work still imprinted onto the field.

Bear tracks?

But those decks of logs were not so decked. Rather, pairs of trees with root balls attached had been pulled to the side of the logging road and these pairs followed most of the length of the zig zagging road. But nothing as condensed and organized as a log deck, which dissapointed my mother but answered the question of whether we would be pulling firewood from across the river. Not worth it.

Mostly today was about having a lovely walk in the woods, woods that long ago were pastures. That barbed wire doesn't lie.

I particularly enjoy how this tree pooched and grew with the barbed wire. You see a lot of this fencing on the farm. Usually the tree just swallows the wire, but here it looks like the tree wanted to travel where the fence was going.

Fabulous tree bling.

Bits of color in the dead of winter.

It's so easy for me to stay wrapped up on the computer or between the pages of some book rather than getting outside. Amy calls me an indoor kitty. What got me outside today on this walk with Amy and my mother was the idea of getting this alternative viewpoint on the farm. I wanted to see what the farmhouse looked like from across the river when I've spent so many breakfasts and dinners staring across the river to the cornfield and woods.