A WALK IN THE WOODS

I didn’t plan this post, but when we came upon this cliff face on our walk on the property this morning, I just had to share it.

Me at a cliff face along our main creek.

I’ve lived out in the woods for the last 20 years. One of the things I learned early on was that an acre of woodlands seems a lot bigger than an acre of open land. I first learned this lesson when my younger son and I were walking through the woods on our old dairy farm in upstate New York. It was cold like it usually is up there, so when we came upon a big depression, we ducked in to get out of the wind. It was a really cool spot. The only thing is, I never found it again.

Here in Kentucky, I have a bigger piece of land, with more creeks and hills, so it’s not unusual that we find some fascinating new places as we explore. For example, just in the last year and a half, we’ve discovered two more seasonal waterfalls, two sets of cliffs, and a half dozen old logging trails.

But today was especially rewarding. We cut through the woods to get to the main creek splitting our property and turned to head north versus the southern path we’d taken a couple of times before. We came upon this cliff face on the creek that was just stunning (FYI, there’s a set of rapids just beyond the picture). We’ve explored on the other side of the creek in this area but never got close enough to the water to see these cliffs, as the woods are too dense to get close. We also discovered an old logging trail nearby, that with a little bit of work, will enable us to get to this spot easily in the future. By the way, the trail system is important not just for easier access but also for animal trails and fire breaks.

One other thing to note. Most of the year, the creek pictured below is like it is now – very calm and pretty. But, every spring, when our heavy rains come, it floods. To get an idea of how high, look closely at the cliff on the left. The creek has carved out that overhang when it floods. Another way of imagining how high the water gets is that we routinely spot flood debris at our chest level as we walk through the woods some 10 feet above the average creek level. It’s so cool.