Day 6 Up at the Cabin- How You Gonna Keep Em Down on the Farm...

Today I can barely move...Yesterday, after I cleaned out half the gunk in the back creek in an attempt to make it look like a creek and not a dumping zone for abandoned tree limbs, Maggie and I climbed to the top of the mountain.

In fact, I think we may have climbed more than one mountain because "we" got a little turned around...For 3 hours. We went uphill and down, following soil roads and trying to retrace our steps. It was a journey let me tell you.

And as usual, we saw more strange things nailed to trees. In addition to the teapot, there was this-



Yeah, a deer stand, I know. But it was painted in Camo and covered in Gilley net. As it was almost at the top of where I thought I was going, I climbed halfway up to take pictures of the view (and figure out where exactly I was) but by then my legs were too tired and the rungs too far apart to keep going.

Did I mention I'm afraid of heights?

About 2 hours into the ordeal I looked out and saw Joe's house way far off in the distance, across a deep valley or two, so I knew we were in for a long hike home.



This was especially disheartening as I hadn't even intended to walk all the way to the top of the mountain but wound up going anyway because it seemed as if the summit was only just up ahead.

Did you ever notice how many trees there are on mountains and how, after awhile, they all start looking alike? It's the same thing with the top of the mountain. Sometimes the crest is just the crest and not the top- but with all those trees in the way, who can really tell?


Did I mention I forgot to put in my contacts and was wearing big old rubber rain boots?

So, the dog and I kept on going because, well by this point, we had to if we ever wanted to see home again.

I kept telling Maggie not to worry because moss grows on the north side of a tree. She seemed comforted by this, but then, she is a dog.

I found it comforting that we were, by now, most definitely headed Down. And since Down is where the cabin is I was beginning to feel encouraged.

Then someone let the dogs out.

Did I mention our part of the mountain backs up onto a hunting club?

I had just said to Maggie, "I sure am glad it's not hunting season because we might be on their property!" when the dogs that had been in the distance suddenly seemed a whole lot louder. In fact, it sounded like they were closing in fast.

So we take off running downhill (which is damned hard to do in rain boots) and that's when I heard a whole bunch of fake-sounding bird calls, like a bunch of fellers trying out their bad turkey impressions.

For some reason this flew all over me.

I mean, I'm obviously LOST. What other kind of crazy fool, soccer mom would go out walking in rain boots in the middle of a hunting preserve with a fussy schnauzer on a sissy leash?

And yet, here these yahoos were- tracking me with coon hounds or beagles or something obviously vicious and snarly AND taunting me with fake bird calls!

Well buddy, I snapped.

"Hey, knock it off!" I yelled. "You don't even sound like real turkeys anyhow!" (I know, witty repartee, but did I not mention I was exhausted?) Anyway, it was like a freaking miracle- the dogs went away and the fake birds must've gone right along with them because it was totally quiet.

A minute later an entire family of turkeys came flapping, flying and running right out of the woods and across the path in front of us.

I think this was purely coincidental.

Did I mention Joe stopped by later and told me that yesterday was the first day of Turkey season?

"Man," he said. "Something could've really happened to you! You should've taken your cell phone. "

Yeah. If I'd known I was going to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in galoshes with a cranky dog I'd have taken the cell phone for sure. That way I could've called when I realized I was lost and said- what- "I'm lost come get me. I'm at the corner of Deer Stand and the Fifty-Fifth Green Boulder I've seen today?"



"Your cell has GPS, you know," he said.

Oh. Well. Yeah. There is that.

Did I tell you he was laughing his head off the whole time I was telling him about our near-death experience?

Anyway, we survived and have moved on to another adventure I'm too whooped to describe.

It involves maybe a half a ton of white quartz rocks and a bunch of black plastic.

When Joe drove by on his way to town and saw what I was doing he just shook his head and grinned. Then, because he's such a nice guy, he listened with a serious expression on his face while I described my idea,. He was nodding the whole time like today I was finally making sense or something.

Which we all know I wasn't.

Hey- and I wrote 8 more pages!

And I found this in the tree closest to the teapot...Looks like a homemade hose reel to me. But again, why put one in a tree nowhere near a spigot?