While The Sky Falls
We got up at 3:30 this morning to watch stars fall. Watch the patch of sky framed by woods and home, held hands, and gave over to celestial wonder.
When The Frogs Are Away
Female painted bunting stopping for a drink.
Huitl Wood - Geography
The western border of the Huitl Wood is locked in by the back yards of that section of our neighborhood, and all but two of those homes have either privacy or chain link fences, creating a fairly contiguous physical barrier along that edge of the property.
The north is wide open to the smaller sibling of our arboreal oasis, and the only barrier between the two lots is an imaginary, if legally effective, line on a map. This northern lot is about ten acres compared to the Huitl Wood's thirteen, and contains a pond covering most of an acre.
The southern edge of the woods presses to the curb of a wide residential street which itself dead ends against the ballpark/airport complex about a block east. This edge is mostly a hedgerow of privets densely woven with green briar and trumpet vines.
We live along the eastern edge of the woods which, similar to the western border, is largely hemmed by backyard fences. The exceptions are two street stubs, meant to provide access to the future housing expansion envisioned when the area was originally developed some 50 years ago, but which simply dead end at the property line, and an easement between two homes where a small stream leaves the property, runs under the street, and disappears to the east.
The woods contain a three part stream system consisting of two storm drain exhausts redirecting rain water from different parts of the west side neighborhood, and an overflow stream for the pond in the adjoining property to the north. All three branches eventually join together before exiting to the east.
There is a small meadow on the western edge defined by the course of the two storm fed branches of the stream, and where the pond stream joins the other two branches they form a small complex of peninsulas, beaches, and a sometimes-island. The property is otherwise flat and thickly populated with pines, oaks, and elms.
Rise of the Reptiles
The herps have been coming out this week in force. Red eared sliders and the pictured snapping turtle down in the stream, a box turtle taking a morning stroll across the back yard, and tonight a king snake and banded water snake warily slithering about the back porch pond.
As a child this would’ve seemed like heaven. The perspective from adulthood remains pretty much the same.
Huitl Wood - Prelude
We have been in our home for almost a quarter of a century at this point. It's at the back corner of neighborhood on the edge of town, a short walk from the cities official baseball fields and the small municipal airport. Tucked into our section of the neighborhood is 25 acres of dense woodlands which haven't been disturbed in at least 30 to 50 years.
The eastern and western edges of the woods are locked in by backyards, almost all protected by wooden privacy or chain link fences. The northern edge is defined by a church and its property, and the southern edge by a neighborhood street where a curved break in the curb indicates an long ago intent to put a street through the middle of the woods and build a host more homes.
For most of our time here, the woods have simply been a scenic stand of trees behind our back privacy fence which gave habitat to the birds we enjoyed feeding, and a selection of furred and scaled visitors who might find a way under or through the fence. It also meant one less neighbor to deal with.
At the end of last year the southern 13 acres of the woods, including the section directly behind our home, came up for sale, and after a bit of thinking and planning, we bought it. I have since removed the back section of the privacy fence, significantly multiplying the size of our back yard.
I'm hoping to write about our experiences and adventures with the property, and wanted to get a basic introduction to the situation in place before I start spinning tales about the Huitl Wood.
