My Little Slice of Heaven

Here's some photos of our place down home. We hope to retire there someday. Though we'll build up on one of the hillsides by the county road....to get to the main part of the farm where these photos are taken, you need at least a sturdy pickup or 4 wheeler. The road is shall we say, unimproved, and you have to ford the creek three times.

It's fairly inaccessible otherwise, which is just the way I like it.

This is one of the bigger 'washouts' on the farm....I was poking around this one once when I was a kid when I heard a bobcat snarling at me. I hightailed it out of there back to where my dad was checking on the cattle you betcha. A few days later, my mom killed it...she said it was stalking her while she was squirrel hunting. I'm sure the fox caller that sounded like an injured rabbit that she happened to have in her pocket at the time had nothing to do with it. ; ) 

Another hay field, this one's at the lower end of the property. The bluff with the cave entrance is back to the right. I made many additions to my swearing vocabulary here when my dad's hay mower would invariably hit a rock & break one of the cutting blades. 

This is looking down the creek from one of the upper fields. The old house place is behind that grove of trees on the left. There's several paw-paw trees to the right of where Mike was standing when he took this picture. I used to eat 'em by the bucketfuls, though I never understood why anyone would want to 'put 'em in your pocket and save 'em for a rainy day' like the song says...rather like putting a ripe papaya in your pocket. Squishy. 

One of the upper fields. We used to raise oats there in the level part. Baling those was dirty, exhausting work, believe me. 

The creek at the upper end of the property. This used to be my dad's favorite swimming hole when he was a kid. The water's so clear you can't really tell, but it's about 10-12 ft. deep there in that left bend. 

The old home place. There's a spring to the right of the photo, and the hillside on the right used to be a big orchard. There's a smokehouse and dogtrot attached behind the house of course, as well as a big garden spot. 

My all-time favorite wildflower--Sweet William. This is located in a little glade by the creek, where, when spring conditions are right, the ground is carpeted by thousands of these. My favorite place in whole wide world.  

A woodpecker hi-rise. 

Hidden at the base of this bluff is the entrance to a fairly extensive cave...a major headache because of all the vandalising trespassers it draws. But it's beautiful inside.