July 18, 2011

What I've been missing out on

The kids asked Jerry if they could go for a walk in the woods across the street from our house, and on a whim, I decided to go too. Normally, I am NOT a fan of walking through the woods because of mosquitos, spiders, poison ivy, and other not-so-fun things. I've never been an outdoorsy person. Our house is across the street from state land, and this is what it looks like from my house:
An old pic from when it snowed in April (to the left is the woods)
Nothing special, right? We've lived here for almost 8 years now, and I've never ventured into the woods. However, since I made it a goal to have a more "active" life, rather than just planned, intentional exercise, I decided to go with Jerry and the boys for a walk in the woods.

I was AMAZED at what was located just about 1/2 mile away from my house! It was awesome! First, we walked along the dike to where there was a good path going into the woods.
Jerry had the camera, and THIS was the picture he took... lol
Eli and Noah on the dike
At this point, I was still not impressed. We saw dead fish and a couple of dead baby birds that had fallen from a tree :(  But once we got into the woods, I was blown away....
We walked along this path, and there were tons of clearings
Like THIS

I never would've guessed that THIS was just a 5 minute stroll away

Noah did pretty good taking a pic of Jerry and me
The boys were finding all kinds of used shotgun shells
My shadow :)

Isn't it so pretty?

I'm seriously in awe that I never knew this path existed!

Although I did see an unwelcome critter ;)
I spent the first 6 years we lived here being too fat and lazy to go exploring just minutes from my house, and then the last 2 years losing the weight. I'm so glad I went along on the walk with the boys! I'm definitely going to be going walking on that trail more often. The whole route is only 1.3 miles out and back. Perfect for a family walk. We'll have to be careful during hunting season, however ;)

7 comments:

  1. It's so beautiful! Glad you got to explore it. :)

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  2. That looks like an awesome place for a walk, although I am not a fan of crawly critters either. I have to know...was it worth it??

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  3. lovely pictures...makes me want to walk the trail near my house

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  4. Linda KuilJuly 18, 2011

    I live right near a wildlife preserve myself and have only been in it once my entire (almost) 40 years. There's even a 5K route marked off in there. Like your reserve, there is hunting allowed so we need to wear our safety orange if we do plan to visit!

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  5. AnonymousJuly 19, 2011

    So great that you found a cool place close to home! Have you ever thought about geocaching? Your boys (all of them LOL) are at a great age for that. You can take walks in the woods, parks, nature trails, etc and have the dual purpose of being on a mission to find geocaches (sort of like treasure hunting.

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  6. Wow--how beautiful is that scenery? Esp. the butt shot. (JK!) You are lucky to have that so close to where you live, and NOW you can take advantage of it. But do be careful--shotguns are scary!!

    I have a cornfield next door, well, this year it's soybeans. No paths to walk through it, but lots of deer. I might see some shotgun shells out there if I ever ventured through the field. I think a coyote who probably lives that direction took my little Maltese two years ago, I really hate coyotes almost as much as I hate bugs and other creepy crawly things. Last night I went out into the garage after dark, and about stepped on a big old toad. They're not awful, but kinda gross looking, I sure don't want to touch or hold one!

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  7. Beautiful family. Lovely day for a family hike.

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