Getting Ready

We are having some friends over for a Fall Trail Ride Camp Out and Barbecue this weekend. We have been checking out our trails and doing clean up of limbs, briars, fallen trees etc… We rode across the road on the Swaney Place today. There is a wet weather type of creek that goes through this property of aprox 400 acres called Cedar Run. I doubt many know the name my Grandpa and I use to ride over there years ago and he told me all about it. Cedar Run is a shallow creek and it is about 20 feet wide with a very rocky bottom and shallow banks. But the coolest thing about this area is all the rock dams that were built in the 1800’s by the family that owned this property back then and trust me worked very hard . Within a stretch of one mile there are at least 13 dams and these folk did a very good job! For the most part they are still there with very little washed out areas and no maintenance! The reason they built the dams was to help control flooding and catch all that good soil that washed down the creek. In the winter when the leaves are off the trees you can see how this dam system leveled and made some decent bottom land. PLUS this has to be some of the rockiest land in the whole county and this industrious family had to do something with all that rock! Our step to our tack room came from this property, I found it in the woods and thought that will make the perfect step and it did!
So we cleaned and cut and marked the trails to get ready for this weekend. Abilene, Montanna and Dallas were our helpers. What fun they had playing running and just being in the woods with us.
We talked to John Wayne over at the Swaney Airport and he said to be on the look out for a local black bear!!!!!!!!!!! How about that? He said it had been there recently eating water mellon!!! I have not seen it but I have heard it, and I saw the foot prints. This is way too exciting!!!
Les and I did the loop through Fern Valley and down by Bettie’s Love Rock and back to the house. We still have much to do on the trails to be ready for this weekend!
Tomorrow : Bettie’s Love Rock