Snow Hiking with the Boys

Here is our situation. The property next to ours is almost fifty acres and is very beautiful. We have often fantasized about what it would be like to own that amount of property, or at least own some of it. We have discovered along the way that the owners of the property live out west. There have been many discussions as to how to contact them. A phone call or perhaps a letter of inquiry. Often, individuals in Maine will sit on a piece of property for a number of years and then sell it to logging companies for profit. Sometimes, it’s possible to get in touch with property owners and make a purchase before the logging companies ever get involved. Logging would be an awful outcome in this situation, because this particular piece covers a good amount of area alongside our road. For it to be cut would indeed ruin the local wooded beauty and would leave the birds and wildlife without homes. If you have ever seen a logged piece of land, you know it looks like there was an apocalypse. We have a pretty substantial amount of property ourselves, but can you ever have too much land? Especially in a beautiful state like Maine.

We got to talking about this piece of property with friends of ours and our conversations sparked their interest in it as well. Among the group, there have been all sorts of wishful methods for acquiring this piece of property. First, we would have to find out what the owner’s intentions are regarding its sale and how much this whole thing would cost. Before all of that, we would have to take a look at what we were dealing with. This is where our exploration of the property comes into play.

It was a beautiful and sunny Sunday afternoon when our friends came over for a day of exploration of the property in the snow. As we broke trail, I got to thinking about how I was the only female in the group. I also thought about how being the only female during these types of events has been a common occurrence throughout my life. I’ll tell you a bit about that now.

When I was younger, I used to spend a lot of time with my best pal, Lauriana from grade school. In school and during recess, we spent most of our time with the boys. The girls would jump rope and play with each other’s hair. My friend and I enjoyed G.I. Joe and the A-Team, which were favorites of the boys. To this day, I have yet to learn how to french braid hair. Perhaps, I would have picked up such skills if I had spent recess with the other girls every once in a while. During the summer, when my mother was working, Lauriana’s older sisters would watch my siblings and me. This made the summers quite enjoyable. Not only did we see each other at school, but we also got to spend our break together too. This all ended when she moved away to Florida. We kept in touch and we are still in touch to this day, but her move sure changed things. There were no worries though, because I still had my brother and little sister. Before my sister was born, it was just my brother and me. My brother and I always got along and spent a lot of time together. We are only fourteen months apart and we would wrestle and horse around quite frequently. There was one time during one of our wrestling sessions that my brother’s two front deciduous teeth somehow ended up stuck in my head. Now, there is something you don’t see every day or in fact, experience at all – ever. He was too young and it was much too early for him to lose these teeth. With my mother’s quick thinking, she was able to get his teeth back into his mouth with ice. With some pressure, the teeth stayed where they were supposed to. You would think that we would have learned our lesson from this experience, but alas, our horse playing continued into our adult years.

Back in the day, before play dates, social media and the cell phones of today, people’s parents made plans to get together in person or on the phone. Sometimes people simply decided to spend time with each other. A lot of my parents’ friends had sons. When all of us got together, I would often be the only girl in the group of children. I didn’t mind it though, because we lived in an apartment and didn’t have our own property. Playing with the boys, I got to spend time hanging around in tree houses, riding bikes, running around in the woods, swimming and passing through other people’s yards.

When I was older and we moved to the suburbs, there was only one other girl for me to spend time with on our road. We sometimes played basketball and often saw each other at school. We both have last names that start with a “G” so we saw each other in homeroom for six years. Other than that, the neighborhood consisted of only boys. I didn’t mind this at all though because we “ran” the neighborhood and got into all kinds of innocent trouble. I recently got back in touch with one of my old neighbors, Mike, on Facebook. To make sure it was really me and before we became “friends,” he wanted to know if I was Laura, A.J.’s sister. This used to happen quite often as I was growing up. I was always referred to as A.J.’s sister and the amusing part is, I’m the older one! I have always been treated like the younger sibling. I suppose I will never rid myself of this title.

Anyway, back to the hike of today. As the guys walked ahead of me doing their thing, I was able to take many photographs during our time exploring the property next door. The land doesn’t have any posted signs, so according to the law in Maine, we weren’t trespassing and were able to proceed as far as we wanted to. We made quite a few discoveries along the way and we finally got to see how beautiful this piece of land truly is.

The beginning of our walk.

Snow-filled trees.

The sun coming through the trees.

A snow-covered landscape.

Before we moved on to the property next door, I had the boys pose for a group photograph.

Breaking the trail.

A bright winter afternoon.

A thick snow trail.

Here is the brook that runs parallel with our road. We often spend a lot of time on the brook on our own property.

A snowy brook.

Moving right along through the woods.

Looking to the west.

Taking a break to play.

Playing on a snow-covered downed tree.

Another group shot in the snow.

A frozen section of the brook.

The ice melting on the brook.

The shore of the brook.

Walking on the frozen section of the brook.

The end of our hike and back home.

After our great hike through the snow, we got back to the house and enjoyed some hot tea to warm up. During one of our trips to Reny’s after Christmas, I had picked up a box of Stash’s Christmas in Paris herbal tea. It was on clearance and I thought it was worth a try. The tea is a blend of chocolate, lavender and peppermint. I am not a big fan of chocolate and minty combinations of anything, but this tea was actually quite nice. Maybe it had something to do with the introduction of lavender. The tea was a big hit all around. I think the lavender balanced things out and the tea was a nice substitute for the more traditional hot chocolate that usually comes after a big hike in the snow.

At the end of the day, I think we had quite an enjoyable time. There were a couple of tumbles in the terrain and one mishap with a foot getting wet in the brook, but all in all, it was yet another good day with the boys. Inquiring about the property would have to wait for another day, but you never know what will happen in the future!