The Old Brown House and the Little Bridge in the Deep Woods

This weekend we went for a visit to "The Old Brown House."  The Old Brown House is a historic abandoned house deep in the woods on our property.  I believe it was built in the early 1800s.  The weather was nice so we thought we'd see how it was doing.  I also was looking for a black vulture nest.  The vultures have been flying around this area quite a bit. 

I think it's kind of large for such an old house.  It has 4 large rooms, 2 upstairs and 2 downstairs.  No bathroom, no kitchen, just rooms.  There are 2 fireplaces so all the rooms had heat back when people used to live in it.  I really like this old house.

Here's The Old Brown House from the side view.  It's skinny, isn't it?

The poor old house is falling apart.  When I look at it I imagine the hands that built it.  Someone put all those boards in place with care.  I imagine the woods were all fields back then, and this was a working farm house.

In the corner of one of the rooms is a pile of old doors and windows.

Wait - look there!  What's that behind the door?  

It's a black vulture nest!

Black vultures are weird birds.  They don't make any kind of nest, they just lay their eggs on the ground.  The vultures were flying around overheard as we walked around inside the old house.  They were not happy with our visit.

I'll keep an eye on the vulture babies as they hatch and grow up.  I love vultures - they are good birds.

We walked outside The Old Brown House looking for the outhouse.  

I know there was once an outhouse, but have not been able to find it.  We figure it must have been destroyed.  It would be neat to find remnants of it.  

While we were walking around we found a turkey feather...

...And a big bunny rabbit.   

The rabbit wasn't afraid of us at all.  She just sat there.  We didn't disturb her, but walked around her carefully.  Maybe she had babies under her, who knows.

We also saw an old teapot.  I don't think this was that old - it certainly doesn't look like it's 200 years old.  There's a lot of trash in the woods where people dumped back in the 1980's.  We're always cleaning up trash.

As we left The Old Brown House we went by The Little Bridge in the Deep Woods.  

It's so cool - it's a little bridge in the middle of the woods.

Again it makes me think of the people who built it.  The bridge is old and falling apart now.  It sits on a dirt road and covers a tiny creek.  Maybe the creek was a larger stream at one time.

Well, that's it for this trip into the woods.  I'll keep an eye on the vulture eggs.  I can't wait to see the babies!

Hike in the woods

Spring has finally arrived at Razzberry Corner!  The weather was very nice, and so today I took a hike by myself in the woods.  Come along, it was just a short walk, but still interesting...

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...

Weathervane/Lightening Rod

Follow the arrow...it's points us in the right direction...

Just thought I'd show one of the weather vanes/lightening rods on our roof....

The Guinea and the Hawks, the Appletree and the Weed

Today I went out to check the wild asparagus.  I decided to document what I saw along the way.

I have to walk out to the asparagus patch, past the old historic fence that still stands,

Past the wild apple tree.

And past these bizarre large-leafed plants that have taken over the area where my garden used to grow.  There are dozens of them growing wild.  Something, I think the woodchucks, have been eating their leaves.  Any idea what they are?

As I walked, a pair of hawks circled above.  They screamed at me as I photographed them, and then they were gone.

It's an overcast day, but the sky is beautiful to me.

I found a single guinea out by himself in my backyard.  He was deep in guinea thoughts.

It is a peaceful day here at Razzberry Corner.  Can you feel the solitude and quietness in these photos?  It's nice to slow down and be quiet sometimes.

I had a surprise when I got to the asparagus patch, and of course I took photos!

I'll post those photos tomorrow!

I like to keep up the anticipation!

Wild Asparagus

It's springtime, so yesterday I decided I'd better check the wild asparagus.  If you have asparagus, you know it grows super-fast and needs to be picked before the stalks get too large.

And so, I put on some shorts.

Our asparagus patch is way out back, in the middle of a field.  The field is high with grass, and I wanted to be able to see and remove any ticks that may get on me.  Every day I see deer out in that field; I know they carry deer ticks.  Luckily, I got no ticks on me.  I love my guineas (who eat ticks)!!!

Here I am - almost!  Hi everyone!

Ok, here we go, out into the backyard.  We have to go through that gate and off to the right.  See all the high grass?  We'll walk out of this photo range to the right.

Aww, thanks, Randy.  He's mowed a path through the high grass for us to get to the asparagus patch.  The sun was shining bright, but there are these odd white shadows in this photo below.  I guess it's just the light.  Many people say my historic house and property are haunted...  Could these be ghosts???

Here's the asparagus patch.  Yes, it's just part of the field, covered with grass.  We didn't choose this area, this asparagus has been growing here for many a decade before we came here.  We just found it growing wild.  We also planted some new asparagus in the same area, but it wont be ready to be eaten for many years.

 

Let's look closely.  Right in the center of this photo is an asparagus sprout.

Here's another.

And another.

All in all, there was quite a few asparagus sprouting, but none were ready yet.  A few more good sunny days and they'll be ready for picking.  They grow fast.  I couldn't even find the baby asparagus we planted last year.  The stalks are fine and look like grass.

While I was out in the back fields I couldn't help but notice the iris blooming.  My mother gave us some old dead iris roots.  Well, she thought they were dead.  We planted them all around the fields.  We didn't know if moles or squirrels or woodchucks would eat the roots, but figured we'd try.  Many flowers here are eaten by animals before they have a chance to grow.  But the iris are doing fine - the roots must be too bitter for the wild animal palates.

Out by the asparagus there's a huge active woodchuck hole.

Here's our old horse barn.  We're not using it.  It has a dirt floor, old wooden walls, and a roof that's barely hanging on.  We keep the door open in case any wild animals want to use it for shelter.  Sometimes Jerry, the outside cat, goes in, and once last winter some deer found shelter from the cold here.  Many birds live inside in the roof beams.

The vines just take over every year.  These vines are covering a fence and are moving to a nearby tree.  They need to be cut back again.  When time permits...

And now we're coming back to the house.  Here's the weather vane on the back side of the house.

Happy Easter!

I'll bring you along when I check the asparagus later in the week!

A Walk Thru Nature and History

The week of Thanksgiving I took a walk around a portion of the property.  I haven't been able to post these pictures due to family being in town and not having the time to spend on the computer.  Then I was out of town visiting family, but now I'm back home and blogging again.

Randy and I went out on foot in the afternoon.  I like to sightsee and take pictures as I go.  We were looking for signs of trespassers, as deer shotgun season was soon starting.  We've put up "No Trespassing/No Hunting/Private Property" signs all over the property, but that doesn't stop people from putting their deer stands on our property or hunting on foot.  The poaching issue is another blog post - we actually did catch a poacher on another day!  But this post is dedicated to the sights of nature and history that I saw that day on my walk.

It is so very quiet and peaceful in the woods.  All you can hear are the birds. 

There is a small abandoned house on our property that is vacant.  It's in pretty bad shape.  It has no power or water run to it.  It is aptly named The Little White House.  It was used by farmers a long, long time ago.  The Little White House is complete with it's own outhouse, which hasn't been used in many years.  Surprisingly, recently Randy spoke to a man who's grandfather used to live in the Little White House. 

The Little White House

Outhouse for The Little White House

We found many deer skulls during this walk.  We usually find bones, including skulls or single dropped deer antlers on our walks.  We've been collecting the antlers.  We saw a few deer on this walk, too.  They aren't really that scared of us; they usually run a few yards away to a safe place and then watch as we go on our way.  But sometimes the deer scream when they see us and run away.  Randy tells me that although it sounds like a scream, it's a type of snort.  But I personally think they scream when we startle them, just like I'd scream if some stranger came up on me suddenly when I was sleeping.  I've heard many does scream and think they are so sweet.  I've never heard a buck scream, though.  Boys just don't scream, they snort and run away.



Doe skull

 I was fascinated by the vines which wrapped around trees, turning the tree trunks into pretty designs.  There's a lot of vines in this area: grapevines, poison ivy, you name it, and they all grow like weeds.

Vines wrapped around trees

We found a historic hay cutter/mower abandoned out in the woods.  We had never seen it before, despite all the times we walked in this area of the woods.  It was exciting to find!  Horses were used to pull it to cut hay, while a man sat on the seat and steered.  It doesn't look too comfortable!  We also have a historic hay rake on the property, now we have it's matching hay mower.

Historic Hay Cutter

This concludes this walking tour.

Come back again for another walk and more history!