For Whom the Bell Tolls

In 1976 my family moved from town to the country.  Dad had bought a 5 acre piece of land that was chockablock full of pine trees.  We quickly began thinning some out and building big fires to burn off the cleared timber and pine knots that we had piled up.  To a ten year old, 5 acres seemed like a section of land.  I felt like one of the members of Lewis & Clark's team as I explored, in my young eyes, never seen before land.  Squirrels jumped from limb to limb high above my head.  It seemed like I had forever to roam before I came across a fence that marked the property line.

Timber companies owned the surrounding land.  They grew these pine trees as crops and every so many years some would be cleared for pulp wood.  Boise Cascade had a plant in a neighboring town that manufactured plywood and OSB.  Another neighboring town to the north and west made paper from the trees harvested.  But until the land was clear cut, it was as if the Amazon rain forest was at my disposal.  

We made forts and dug holes that served as bunkers in WWII war games.  We found shelters in those holes as the Germans sent mortars that exploded around us in the Battle of the Bulge.  About that time my parents bought us a Honda Z-50 mini bike.  We cut trails through the thick woods and built ramps and raced that mini bike through the forest, pretending to be racers or spies.  We had a zip line (we called it a shoot to shoot) where we would launch off a platform and glide 50 feet across the woods.  We discovered sassafras trees and would dig the roots, smelling the "root beer" fragrance.  After washing them good, we'd put the roots in pans of water and make sassafras tea.  It was red and fragrant and delicious.  My grandfather taught me to hang the leaves of the sassafras tree until they were fully dry.  Then we'd grind the leaves into a powder, making gumbo file'.  Gumbo file' is added to gumbo to thicken it and add a rich 'earthy' flavor to chicken & sausage gumbo.  I still use it today.

We'd hunt in the woods, dropping fox squirrels from the pine tree tops with a bolt action 410 shotgun.  The 'tree rats' would make a dull thud when they would hit the ground.  Farther back behind the property line some old unused irrigation canals held water and wood ducks adopted that habitat as their home.  I killed my first wood duck back there.  We found a swampy area that had mayhaw trees in it and would collect the berries for making jelly.  From time to time we ran across old trash dumps where, in years long past, people threw their trash.  We'd 'excavate' the old refuse piles, finding old bottles, specifically Purex bleach that was in brown glass jugs, old extract bottles and others that didn't have screw on lids, but had corks.  I still have some of those bottles stored away in a box in the attic probably at Mom & Dad's house.  We had to be careful because the land was full of black widow spiders.  Amazing that we never got bit!

There was so much adventure and excitement in the woods.  I couldn't wait to get home to see what kind of discovery we'd make back in the woods.  Of course there were no cell phones back then.  Mom and Dad knew that their explorers were on important expeditions and would be 'out of pocket' for quite a while.  What happened if they needed us?  How do you contact a couple of guys that are out on an important and dangerous expedition far, far away from civilization?  Smoke signals?  

They crafted an ingenious form of communication.  They erected a cast iron bell atop a 4x4 post.  When they needed Hernando Cortez or Ponce De Leon, they could ring that bell.  The bell called us home for supper or for school or to baseball games or trips to the library.  The bell rung loudly and we could hear that cast iron bell calling us home.  Had that thing not rung, we might have finally discovered the fountain of youth or that chest of gold that we sought in those woods.

Sometimes I wish that we could throw away these cell phones that tether us much too close to civilization and that we could return to simplicity of the tolling of the cast iron bell.  It may be my imagination, but there are days where, if I sit very still, I can hear the bell calling me home.

In The Woods Out Back

There is a little patch of woods directly to the south of our 5 acre property.  A family of seven siblings owns the land as best as we can figure.  They are never, ever around.  The woods is overgrown in privet, willow, chinaberry and tallow trees, but there are some nice live oak trees towering above the lower canopy.  The woods is a haven for possums, rats, birds and other critters.

When the kids were younger, they did what we did as kids - build forts in the woods.  This overgrown jungle is low-lying and fills with water after a decent-sized rain.  I walk back in the woods from time to time.  I use a machete to keep a 10 foot swath cleaned up between our fence line and the woods.  The privet tries admirably to reclaim the cleared pasture.  One day I'll be too old to chop it back and the privet will win the war, but not today.

About twenty yards into the woods is an old rice field irrigation well.  You can see the pulley has notches for 8 rubber belts that drove the pump.

The pump itself was built in nearby Welsh, Louisiana, by the Lo-lift Pump Company, established in 1895.  It is still in operation today.  The gentleman that owned it used to have quite a model train set that he would set up and run during Christmas time.  It was a nice thing to bring the kids to.

As you can tell, it has been years and years since this pump was in operation.  All the area around us was rice fields in the past.  A lot of the land has been replaced with homes and large trees now inhabit what were formerly rice fields.

This concrete basin sits at the front of the well.  You can see where a steel pipe came out of the well and directed water into the canal.  I can imagine this was a great place for farm kids to cool off on a hot summer day.  The cold, clear water is enough to take your breath away, even on the hottest of days.  I can remember swimming in the cold water in a pit just like this 30 or so miles north of this.  I can almost hear the deafening straight exhaust pipe of the V-8 engine, the smell of diesel and taste the metallic taste of the cold water as I look at the photo below.

So many years later, I can still spot one of the belts that drove the pulley on the well, converting the horsepower of the engine into energy that spun the well and delivered ground water to acres of rice fields.

On the other side, you can see large creosote posts that were the anchor point for a large engine that sat on top.  From the timber lying about, there was almost certainly a shed of some sort that covered the engine.

Although it's been years since the pump has produced water, I wonder several things when looking at it:  How many feet down does the well go before it hits water?  Jennings sits at an elevation of 16 ft.  You don't have to dig very far to hit water, but rice field irrigation wells are drilled deep.  I also wonder if you could still get water from this well or did the well sand up and stop producing?

It's kind of neat to walk back twenty yards in the woods and find relics of the past right there.

What Lies Beyond the Back Fence

Just beyond the south perimeter fence of our property lies a patch of wilderness.  It only encompasses an acre, but its unruly, unkempt wildness makes it seem bigger.  We've talked about it before.  It is home to invasive species of trees like privet, Chinese Tallow, and Chinaberry.  These trees are constantly encroaching on our property, threatening to reclaim the land.  So far we've won the battle.

The woods are also home to predators.  Six foot long chicken snakes slither out of the tall grass and into the hen house to eat eggs and baby chicks.  Possums invade nightly and we are in a fight for our chickens' lives against these predators and others.  Raccoons, hawks, and owls patrol as well, picking out supper from time to time.

The hen where most of the chickens roost for the night is supposed to provide some level of safety for the hens as it is completely closed off by tin with a chicken wire bottom enclosure for ventilation, but alas...  Our nosy goats rub themselves on the chicken wire to scratch.  After months of rubbing, they broke a hole in the chicken wire and gained entry to the hen house.  They have gotten into a habit of climbing into the hen house through the hole in the wire and they "roost" with the hens at night.  Crazy goats!

While the hole in the wire gives them access, it also gives predators access as well.  I had to bury a fat Rhode Island Red hen just yesterday.  This has to stop!  This afternoon, I assembled wire, lumber, a crowbar, hammer, nails, wire cutters and a heavy duty stapler.  I was determined to evict the goats from the hen house and fix the hole in the wall.  I drug the goats out.  The were reluctant, but knew that they didn't belong.  They immediately ran behind the hen house to gain access through the hole, but I had fixed it.  I smiled in victory!  No more goats in the hen house and no more predators.

I will leave things on a good note.  While I mentioned all the bad things about the bordering woods, I need to mention the good things, too.  The woods provides a sense of wildness that is much more appealing to me than manicured lawns and development.  The acre of wooded area provides us with fat, sweet dewberries to eat.  I also have made a friend that lives in the woods.  The friend comes hopping by every weekend morning when I milk the cows.  Tricia has seen him/her too.

Ol' Peter Cottontail hoppin' down the bunny trail.  Hippity Hoppity...

A Discovery Just Past the Fence

Just over our fence to the south is a piece of property that is undeveloped, unruly, and unkempt.  You know what?  We like it that way.  It is a wild little patch of woods.  The owners are absentee and never mow.  The only problem with this is the critters.  The woods are full of rats, possums, snakes and other varmints.  Those spill over to our land and we have to deal with them.

One very positive part of that wild little patch of woods is the overgrowth of bushes.  As it turns out goats love to eat this "browse."  I mean, they tear it up.  As it threatens to encroach our perimeter fence, I chop it down with a machete and throw it over to the goats to munch on.  Lately, we've taken a tie-down for a dog and clipped one of the goats to it and put them over the fence and allowed them to eat on the browse.

Agnes eating in the woods

We stood there and watched her eat non-stop.  She drifted into the woods and the undergrowth almost engulfed her.

I glanced just to the west of where she was eating and something caught my eye.  It was a plant with different leaves than we're accustomed to seeing in the woods.  I immediately recognized what it was by its leaves - A Mulberry Tree!  Where did it come from?

About four years ago, IN THIS POST I talked about a friend who gave me some mulberries to plant.  In that post, I talk about scattering out the mulberries in the woods behind the house.  Well, lo and behold, we have success!  I can remember as a kid I would eat mulberries right off the tree at my grandmother's house.  The berries were sweet and they would stain your hands purple!  We loved them.  The birds loved them.

The problem that this small mulberry tree will encounter is competition.  It is growing beneath the canopy of privet, Chinese Tallow, and China berry tree - all invasive imports from China.  Sound familiar?

The Canopy

I have to chop down some of that canopy to allow some sunshine to reach the tree.  This will allow it to grow.  It will reach upward and outward and its limbs will bear fruit that we'll enjoy.  For that to happen, I have to get my machete and start chopping.  The goats in the pasture will enjoy eating it.

In no time, I had cleared away a lot of the overgrowth and the mulberry tree was free from some of the competition.

The mulberry tree was actually getting some sunshine on its leaves.  I will keep it cleaned up around the tree and will also spread some chicken litter around the base to give it some 'food' to boost its growth.

I'm so excited that we have had success in our own "Johnny Appleseed" project.  We will report when we have our first mulberry harvest.

You Never Miss the Water Till the Well Runs Dry

The little patch of woods behind the barn is not our land.  The owners are absentee owners.  We never see them.  They don't mow the grass and the grass and privet gets tall.  It becomes a breeding ground for mosquitoes, possums, snakes, rats, and other critters.  Oftentimes, I'll open the gate and just go walking back there in the woods.

There are a few nice live oak trees in the woods, but it is primarily old willow trees, Chinese tallow trees, Chinaberry trees, and privet.  Not too many years ago (30 or 40, perhaps?), things probably looked a lot different back there.

As I walk through, I come across a large block of bricks with 1 inch diameter rebar sticking out of it.  I'm not sure what this structure was.  It looks like something uncovered in the Amazon rainforest.  Moss and fern is reclaiming it, and the bricks are crumbling.

Then I come across this.  Once being a rice farmer, I know exactly what this is.  This is an old rice irrigation well.  There was once an engine that turned eight belts that wrapped around the pulley atop the gearhead and turned a shaft that pulled water up from beneath the ground.  The water flowed up from the pipe and into a pipe (now missing) that moved the groundwater into the concrete flume you see in the foreground. 

Crystal clear, cool water flowed through the man-made canal and into surrounding rice fields, flooding them to grow acres and acres of rice.  Those fields which once produced rice are no longer flooded by irrigation wells, but now are covered in houses populated by families.  Trees have now grown up in some of those fields and crumbling remains of irrigation wells that are now just rusting hulks of iron litter the landscape.

It is amazing to me how fast the landscape changes in just a few years.  Entire cycles have come and gone as evidenced by the willow tree in the center of the photograph below which has grown to maturity, died, and now has oyster mushrooms feeding on it.  In a short time this tree will fall and succumb to beetles, worms, and other forces of nature that will turn this tree into forest soil.

Not to get all philosophical, but life is short.

 James 4:14 King James Version (KJV)14 Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. 

Like the Second Law of Thermodynamics says, things are moving from order to disorder, deteriorating.  I walked back from the woods thinking about this.  Kind of depressing as you think about it. 

I did, however, spot something to lift my spirits.  Check out all the white blooms decorating the vines running along the ground on the south side of the hen house.

Those are the blooms of dewberries.  They'll be ripening and we'll be back here scouring the ground for those big sweet berries that will appear.

I've marked the spot where the dewberries are and will check back each weekend until it's time to harvest.

I Went Into the Woods

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms...” 

- Henry David Thoreau

I love that quote.  I went to the woods behind the hen house on our property for that reason, but also went there to catch a predator.  We had some hens that were killed by a predator and I was looking for a trail to place a cage trap on.  (Editor's note: I placed the trap on the trail, baited it with cat food and caught a big, fat possum.  The hens rejoice!)

Back to the woods.  The morning was gorgeous.  The morning sun was softly filtering through the foliage of the trees and the beauty of the forest drew me in.  The forest floor was carpeted with beautiful greenery.  Small birds hopped among the branches of low hanging tree limbs as I walked along.

The greenery covered every square inch of the damp ground in every direction.  The air was cool, crisp, and clean.

If you look closely at the leaves, do they remind you of something?  They look like the leaves of strawberries.  I call these "wild strawberries," but I'm not sure what they are.  A closer inspection shows yellow flowers hiding in the leaves. 

The woods are a place of wonderment, peace, and beauty, but is also a place of violence.  This is evidenced by the feathers of one of the small birds I mentioned before.  Earlier this morning or perhaps just last night, a hawk or owl feasted on an unsuspecting bird, satisfying his appetite and littering the wild strawberry leaves with tiny feathers.

Some type of mushroom covers a branch, accelerating its decomposition.

There is also some sort of moss growing on the base of the trees - just like carpet.

Soon the bark will surrender to a velvety covering of moss encroaching every square inch just as the wild strawberries do.

Over toward the east, something catches my eye.  Overnight a crawfish climbed out of her burrow and built a 'crawfish chimney.'  The mud was still soft and moist.  If I had a shovel with me, I could dig her up.  She's got lots of little crawfish with her.  I'll let her be.

There are wild ferns poking up from the soil, through the decomposing leaves and rotting wood.

Looking a little further, I locate the primary reason (other than the leaves) that I call them wild strawberries...

Against my better judgment, I popped the so-called wild strawberry into my mouth and chewed.  I quickly spit it out.  Not sweet.  Not good.  At least the walk through the woods was nice and enjoyable.  Sometimes just slowing down and deliberately observing the simple things all around you is the best thing you can do on a Saturday morning.

Building Forts in the Woods

Last weekend when Russ and I went into the woods behind the house to try to propagate chanterelle mushroom spores, we walked the trails near the fort that the boys built back in the woods.  Many Air Soft wars were waged on those trails, behind fortified barriers and up in trees.  Did you build forts as a youngster?

Here is the checkpoint at the fort.  There is a fortified wall of sticks that one can hide behind as people are identified as friend or foe.  Everything is camouflaged and if you didn't know it was there, you'd walk right by it.  The trees and undergrowth of the woods shield a lot of the sunlight and block out much of civilization, allowing boys to be boys and vast adventures to be lived without intrusion from reality.

Checkpoint Charlie

Most of the adventures are military in nature and require foxholes to be dug.  The problem with foxholes in South Louisiana is that they fill up with water and become havens for mosquitoes and other critters.  Back in the woods, it is easy to imagine that you are far away from civilization and your imagination can run wild, enabling young boys to have adventures.  Occupants of the foxhole must have a bail out bucket to drain the foxholes to fend off malaria and/or jungle rot.

The woods are in a low lying area, thick with chicken trees (Chinese tallow), Chinaberry, willow and live oak trees.  The ground is soft and easy to dig.  In fact, quite a few booby traps have been dug in the woods, consisting of holes with a skeleton of small sticks covered with leaves that you might fall in if you are not careful.  Don't worry, punji sticks were not allowed.

The Muddy Foxhole

When we built the barn, we had some leftover lumber and tin that was appropriated by the boys to build the main fort.  The fort has fallen into disrepair over the years, but its greatness is still evident.  Troops could fan out throughout the woods and if the adversary was too strong and the fighting became too intense, the soldiers could fall back to the safety of the main fort and defend their position from all sides. 

Fort Sonnier

From as young as I can remember, we always had forts.  Throughout my entire childhood, I don't think a week went by that we didn't have some sort of a fort.  It started out indoors with a structure built with bedsheets and sofa cushions.  You learned quickly that bedsheets work better than blankets because they are lighter and blankets require heavier weights to anchor the ends on top of tables, recliners or coffee tables. One could retreat into the bed sheet fort in your pajamas and the den wasn't a den anymore - it was the last outpost on the frontier.

As we got older, our forts became more elaborate.  We had a fort that we called the Hole Camp.  It was appropriately named because it was a four foot deep hole we dug in the ground that was about eight feet in diameter.  (A lot of work went into building these forts!)  It had a working fireplace with a mud chimney. The most awesome amenity of this fort was a cave that we dug into the walls.  This was in the piney woods and the soil was heavy red clay.  That enabled us to dig an eight foot cave into the side of the hole camp that we could completely crawl into.  All the dirt from the hole camp and its cave was used to make a big levee around the camp for a barrier or wall of protection that made the hole seem even deeper than it actually was.

Although it was dark in the cave, we determined that we could light the pine sap that appeared on the roots from the pine trees that we encountered while digging and those acted as torches that emitted light and lots of black smoke.  If I close my eyes right now (and it has been at least 35 years ago), I can still feel the coolness of the red clay and smell the mustiness of the cave coupled with the smell of the burning pine sap and I'm 10 years old again living an adventure.  Wow. What good memories of a great childhood! 

Why did we do it?  Why build forts?  It was a lot of work and took a lot of time.  As I see it, it was about adventure and fun and just enjoying being outdoors.  We used our imagination to construct elaborate plots in which we were soldiers in the European theatre or the Civil or Revolutionary War, we were pirates, frontiersmen, survivalists, cowboys, gold miners, or cavalrymen.  We had many wars in which we shot at each other with make believe bullets or threw pine cones that hadn't opened up yet at each other.  Man, those hurt when they hit you!

In addition to allowing us to exercise our active imaginations, building forts also taught us planning as we had to carry our building materials into the woods and determine how we were going to build the fort.  It taught us safety as we learned to be careful and that you could easily get hurt out in the wilderness.  We learned some of that through experience.  We learned to have a good work ethic as building forts is serious business and hard work.  It taught us to delegate authority as each one of us had a job to do in working to complete the task, although parenthetically, my brother would often disappear after going to 'get water' and not return for hours.  We learned through trial and error, construction techniques.  Some things require bracing, more nails, heavier logs, etc.

But most of all building forts allowed us to have fun, entertaining ourselves and building memories that I still carry with me today.  Anyone wanna go build a fort?