Deer stand

With the help of friends who use the wood for heating,Tom has been clearing dead trees in the thirty-acre woods behind and alongside the house. This has involved making some paths so they can get the wood out, and Tom has been extending the paths along the ridge to make a walking trail. I am enjoying strolling back there, increasing my step totals for the day and soothed by walking on the living earth and not on paved roads. 

He has been hard at it and I am not always up to date on where he has been working. I tend to just wander back down that way and follow the cleared spaces, expecting them to take me along the ridge at some point and back to the house.

Recently I had just gone into the woods a bit, taken the first left turn and gone only a few yards when I was startled to see this:

For those who might not know, that is a deer stand, a place for hunters to stand and get a good view while deer hunting. That particular one may not look very high, but it is located on the edge of a ridge and looks down on quite an area. Tom permits a friend to hunt on the property during deer season, but in the past the guy has put the stand up and taken it down every year when he was done. This past season Tom told him he could leave it in place. It only took me a second or two to realize what it was, but at first I thought I had wandered off our property. Our neighbor's son, who lives on the other side of our property, loves to build forts and such things and I momentarily thought I had turned myself around and wandered into Jake's territory.

As you can see, trees are just beginning to leaf out and the place is still bare. It will be beautiful once everything is green, but by then the mosquitoes will also think it is beautiful and make walking less enjoyable. I am taking advantage of the absence of pests for now. But I do have to check for ticks after every walk. Lyme disease is always a possibility. One of the realities of living in the country. Tom had to be treated for a bite from one of these ticks a couple of years back, but fortunately he did not develop the disease. Other people I know have not been so lucky.

And no, that is not a tick I found on myself but a photo I found online.