Not far from my house, down past the chicken coop and the big pine tree, deep along beside the fields, is a natural spring. I like to check it out when I start my walks. It is just amazing how water comes from underground and forms into a stream. And that stream joins other streams from distant places and they make a little river.
And even cooler than that, there are what I call underground caves here. The caves are not really caves, as to me real caves are made out of rock, and my caves are formed in hollow areas of dirt and mud, but not rock. But it's still amazing to see caves underground, where the ground wells up and there's space underground. This cave goes under the roots of a tree. I climbed under the roots to see how deep it went. There are other caves, too, but I only photographed this one. I have always wanted to discover a cave, so I guess this is one thing on my bucket-list that I can check off. I felt like a groundhog when I was investigating the caves.
Funny thing was that I saw cat footprints in the mud outside the caves. I don't know what cat comes down here, evidently one of the stray cats. There were also coon prints and of course deer hoof prints in the mud.
After the caves I checked out the little white house, which is an empty historic house on the property. A huge flock of black vultures circled overhead, keeping an eye on me. They must have a nest nearby, probably in the brown house. There's another historic house not too far from the white house. I call it the brown house, and it has no glass in the windows. I bet the vultures chose the upstairs of the brown house for a nest this year.
The little white house has an outhouse, which I walked by. It's all falling apart, but is still interesting to see.
I walked down past the little white house in the woods and started up a group of deer. They bounded away snorting. The song birds were scratching in the leaves for bugs, making a lot of noise in the dried leaves. I found the remains of a raccoon. I don't know what killed it. I found it's tail and some fur. The vultures probably cleaned up the rest of it. Near the raccoon I found some old red bricks. I wondered about the people who made those bricks, and how they ended up in my woods. Was there once a house there?
I continued to climb through trees and vines in the deep woods. I followed deer paths. A hawk screamed overhead, and a pack of crows called to each other. Eventually I came upon part of an old hunting stand. It's all falling down now.
I even found an old broken shell from a box turtle.
The walk in the woods was very peaceful, but I have chores to do before the day is over. Thanks for coming along. Springtime and warmer temps will be here soon and I always do more hikes in the summertime. Next time I'll check out the brown house and will look for the vulture nest...
