Small Thoughts

I was a senior in High School when my parents bought the small farm they’d always wanted. 60 acres in the rolling hills of Piedmont NC. Previously it had been a dairy farm. All the cows were gone, the milking machinery removed, the fences sagging, the pastures overgrown; it was beautiful. And it was just in time because the following month we won a horse as a door prize. My sister, B, convinced my dad that I wanted to go to the Central Piedmont Arabian Horse Association show for my birthday. For the first, and only time, my father bought us all tickets and took us to the horse show. The tickets gave us all a chance to win a door prize, a five year old Arabian gelding named Nabor’s Gem. We only stayed at the show for an hour or two so we missed the drawing when my father’s name was pulled out of the pool of tickets. It was after dinner that our dad got a call from a man who worked at the Post Office. An Arabian enthusiast with a small, family-run horse farm, the man took the deer prize ...

This brook slides down to Shelley Lake over broad steps of gneiss (or maybe schist) The Shortcut Approx .5 mile walk (.7 km) Easy Paved from Sertoma Art Center Lake Park Trail is dirt Narrow, not great for bikes or strollers because of roots and rocks Highly scenic Rocks: graphite schist and wake county gneiss maybe? Birds: pileated woodpecker, blue birds, raptor, red cockade woodpecker Mammals: squirrels (lots) The Long Way Around For the last six months or so my husband, Chuck and I have been exploring the trails, greenways, nature preserves and parks around the Triangle area. Our latest expedition took us down a little trail near Shelley Lake along the Lake Park Greenway. This is a side trail, just a dirt path that branches off the main trail from Sertoma Art Center that sits on the ridge above Shelley Lake. It rained a few days ago, and without the leaves on the trees the footing was still a bit damp; but not slick or messy. The trail is a bit rooty and rocky in places; but soft an...