Woods are lovely, dark, and deep....

Tell me the poet who wrote these lines, and I'll give you a backrub....

We took Callum out on a long walk back in the Springpond woods this past Sunday....showing him our favorite places out back of Lynne and George's house. Lynne and George live on WINGS MILLS Road....so, at one time, there was in fact a WINGS MILL--George can tell you the history on this better than I can for sure. Anyway, the mill was a grist mill, and it operated deep in the woods off a tote road (Maine speak for 'logging' road). Long unused, the remnants of the mill are still there.....it is kind of spooky actually, to walk back into the forest, and then have everything sort of "open up" into this old site of a working mill....very X-Filesish....

Lynne and George's neighbor "Walter," this 116 year old native, still does some logging back there, and this is one of the makeshift bridges he made for his skidders, diggers, backhoes, etc to negotiate the tote roads. In Maine, we call bridges such as this (logging roads, snowmobile trails, etc) "Jerry Bridges." I dont know why. So, below, Callum and I check out the bridge over Belgrade stream....looks pretty safe, huh?

Why am I wearing orange vest? Hyunting season, dudes!

Below you can see part of the mill--the foundation of where the water wheel once stood, etc....if you blow up the picture, you can see pieces of steel, etc. I thought Amanda got the millstone, grinder, etc, but I guess not. These items have just been sort of haphazardly laid in the stream....
Mumma and our handsome boy--sporting tie dye AND knit sweater--by the bridge. Amanda has lots of memories from this site of the woods. Ask her about them.....
Some perspective for youse: the bridge with the stream in the background. Maybe Callum will get his senior high school pictures done here....a beautiful spot for sure....one of my favorites! This is actually the first time I have been back here NOT in the snow; usually it is one of my favorite snowshoe trips in winter. See the "tower" thing in the upper right corner of the picture? One time I remember I was out snowshoeing with Daisy, Amanda's old chocolate lab/springer spaniel mix....and, flighty as she was, somehow got across the stream and climbed up that rock facade. It was heck trying to get her down!!!
Low and behold, in a clearing deep in the woods, was a logging backhoe and digger....this made Callum's day, obviously! Again....kind of creepy to see these things way back in the woods all alone....
And the budding naturalist (no pun intended!). Callum learned about Red Oak trees, and, more importantly, wintergreen, which loves to grow in shady places underneath beech and oak trees--back off the snowmobile trails we took to get to the old mill, I pointed some out to him. DADDY!!! THIS IS JUST LIKE GUM!!!! I wish I could always be so excited about such simple things. Thank you Callum.....
(Maira was back at the house napping with MeeMee and Grampy....)