Wintry Return To The Amish Forest - Part 1

It was a cold but sunny and windless day, so I decided to take the dogs back to what I called the Amish Forest (because the access road is across the road from an Amish farm). I could find no place to park along the gravel road but discovered that I could park in the lane through the woods. I let the dogs out and they exploded with joy:

I received permission to use this land but was asked not to use it during big game season. Figuring that was over now, it seemed like a good day for a walk with the pooches:

And they sure were happy:

There were lots of interesting smells along the way:

The beeches were the only deciduous trees which still held their leaves:

Mostly, this was a pine forest. A hundred years ago, this land grew potatoes. When the land was depleted, the owner planted pines:

And now it's lovely land for walking with the dogs, for hunting and for its owner's cabin:

The dogs were pretty good about not running too far ahead. Maybe they could sense that I was cold and potentially crabby:

It was a pleasant but short walk:


The owner sold much of the pine timber for use as telephone poles and it was cut this past summer. That left skid roads for us to explore along the way:

The logging also opened up the view a bit, exposing spectacular beauty. But we weren't done yet, and I'll post Part 2 tomorrow: