Quite a hike - at least for me!

Yesterday, Ellen went with Eliza and Robin, and their families, on a hawk watch on Putney Mountain. I could have gone too, but it is a bit of a hike, so I stayed home. It was a beautiful day, and I wanted to enjoy the outdoors in some way, so I did a little hike right at the house which proved to be a good challenge for me. It involved going off our driveway down through the woods on our own land, following an old wood road that goes to the northern boundary of our property, which is below our house (which faces north) and going on to the property of our neighbor, Francis ("Jake") Jaquith - a road that leads past a big shed near his house and then comes back up and rejoins our driveway. In the old days, this is a road I could take my old GMC 4-wheel-drive, 3/4 ton pickup truck onto and get wood. I could drive as close as possible to a tree that had fallen down, cut it up, load it into the truck and bring it up to the house. I haven't done that since the truck "died" about a decade ago. And I hadn't even walked this road for several years. I was curious to see how it has fared, and I was also curious about my neighbor, Jake's, place, because things are happening there. Jake himself is in a nursing home, and is doing poorly both physically and cognitively. He has had Parkinson's for years, and now has dementia as well. He has three daughters, and is separated from his wife. The family has decided to clear everything out - he will not be coming home. This is quite an order, because Jake was a scavenger par excellence. He has collected piles and piles of what I guess you could call "junk" over the decades, and it is stored in big sheds and along this road  in the woods that I described above. I was curious to see it again after many years. It's still there. I think they are still busy clearing out the house and the three-bay shed by the house (plus a few other small sheds and a sugar house). That leaves a six-bay shed untouched as yet and a lot of stuff out in the open. What a job! This is hard to see, because Jake was as active and hard-working as anyone I have ever known. He was a good neighbor too - when my truck got stuck in the snow or mud - and that was often - Jake was there to pull me out.

The beginning of the "road" - obscured by the fact that in recent years, little saplings have grown up. That's what happens when you don't use the road!

A rotted log "mushroom farm" along the road

Another very different "mushroom farm" on another rotted and mossy log

What beauties!

The old wood road has also been obscured by big trees that have fallen down over it - like this one! In former years, I would have come down with the truck and cut this tree up and it would have helped heat the house.

Here is a section of the road that is pretty much as it was - for some reason, the seedlings haven't grown into little saplings here - maybe the soil conditions are different here or the overstory isn't letting quite as much sunlight through.

This is the beginning of Jake's "collection" - old farm machinery that has been rusting for decades.

This is just one little section of what is sitting down here!

This is a six-bay shed Jake built to house his "stuff" and every bay is full.

This is sort of a sad feature of this collection - in one bay is this collection of trophies Jake has received. At first I thought they were athletic trophies, but closer inspection shows they are from antique car shows - as is clear below:

Antique Car Show trophies

I feel for those who have to clear all this out. This makes my "stuff" look pretty paltry!

Now I've come up from the shed and am back on the road that leads to our house - Prospect View Drive. It's about a third of a mile walk from here to the house. A good hike altogether and very interesting to me, for sure.