The Trail in the Woods

What I had offered to help with at Hope Haven (see yesterday's post) was to extend their trail in the woods so it could be a longer trail.  I had walked through the existing trail with the staff and then returned in late September to flag a possible extension, almost to the back of the farm.  In the meantime, they have done a lot of work!

The trail starts down an old farm lane leading off from the buildings to the west.  I always like to find tree-lined laneways like this on farms around here.

There were a lot of stone fences too, this one lining the lane - just wait til you see them all.  This was a low but very straight pile of stones, now increasingly overgrown with Virginia Creeper vines and shrubs.

Once I got into the woods, I followed the old tractor trail.  In low spots the tractor had left recent tread marks, marked by a bit of ice from recent puddles after the rain.

And the little bits of ice had some neat frozen bubbles in them that I thought made a nice pattern.

There was one small pond in the woods, right beside the trail, and  I was told it is quite deep.  Is this picture enough reason to join 'Weekend Reflections'?

And there were lots of bulrushes around the edge.  I liked this group, almost in a straight line.

The woods in December can be pretty dull, if it isn't already white, so I was determined to look for little bits of colour, like this bright green moss.

And this bright green woodfern, Spinulose Woodfern to be specific.

The trail we're talking about is a wide, smooth tractor trail.  When walking disabled riders, one person normally leads the horse, while two other volunteers walk on either side of the horse and rider.  This is not just your average canter through the woods!  So we're looking for a good wide, and preferably fairly level trail.

This is the point at which I had started flagging a trail through the dense saplings, leaving bright orange flagging tape behind me, like that on the left.  I tried to pick a route that avoided cutting any large trees, and was relatively smooth.  When I last saw this, trees and all the young saplings were still in green leaves, and I had to push my way through.  They have had both staff and a volunteer work party clearing the trail since, and it's about 2/3rds done.  They've done a great job!

Of course this isn't the time of year to see the trail at its best, but it is the time of year to work on trails like this, when you can easily see through the woods.  They're lucky there isn't much snow yet, which would stop work on the trail.   More on the rest of what I saw tomorrow.

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Walking time with the dog = 45 minutes.

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