On the Farm

Mimi on the tractor

Our recent vacation ended with a visit to Fran & Dave Hughes' property in central Indiana, the Black Oak Farm. We hadn't been there in a couple of years, and the changes were impressive. A fun visit, start to finish--how could anything that finishes with Emily driving a tractor not be fun?


Mimi and Fran the evening we got in

That first night we slept in our tent, since the "cabin" only sleeps two:

our lodging
The next night, we stayed in a hotel. Showers are nice, especially after a day spent walking through the woods.

And that's just how we spent our Saturday:

among the tall trees

Now, since we hadn't visited in a while, we thought a tour of the 80+ acre property would be fun; so Emily, Fran, and I set out that morning.

Fran makes her way through the property; as you can see, it's a bit overgrown at points, and there aren't many trails . . .


Mimi


Meadow number two, I believe

and it was fun . . . but the property lines aren't exactly marked . . .

in a field of young trees; where are we? One thing we knew for certain: we were no longer on Fran and Dave's property . . .

And then, after about an hour "off the map" we spotted some power lines, which would surely take us somewhere we (by which I mean Fran) would recognize. Unfortunately, the power lines passed over a small, um, swamp.

Mimi, knee deep in cattails

and then

wait a minute . . .


we came out on state road (?) 54, about a mile south-east of the property . . . there's a map on the Black Oak Farm website: if you zoom in two times, you can see the property and 54; that pond is what we were looking for, though we never did find it. . . . If you switch to the 'hybrid' view (sorry if this is more than anyone wants to know), you can see how the trees go down to 54: I'm pretty sure that we came out just to the right (east) of where the trees end (directly down (south) from the edge of the Black Oak logo).


Mimi after our walk; those are some muddy jeans . . .

We did make it back in time (well, about an hour late, plus the hour spent waiting for Dave to come back from his search for us) for a late lunch with Fran, Dave, and Grandpa Hughes, who also visited for the weekend.

on the deck

After lunch, we helped (?) Dave clear a spot for the barn.
Please enjoy this video of Mimi driving the tractor and pulling down a tree:


Yancy disposes of what's left of the tree:

Good times.