This afternoon, while spending our last weekend at our rustic retreat for the season, we went for a walk. We’d spent the better part of the day, and most of the previous day, working on our websites, Rustic-Lodge-Lifestyle.com and Smart-Heart-Living.com, so we were feeling in desperate need of fresh air and exercise. The previous day had been extremely windy and cold. It was just plain nasty out… so we stayed inside!
We thought we’d just go for about a 45 minute walk today. And we decided to explore some roads and trails we’d never been on. It turned out to be about an hour and 45 minutes! Why? We got lost!
Pause for self-timer photo while on country hike
Jed the boxador checking out the scents.
Not totally lost… we knew approximately where we were and what direction we need to get, but we followed some beautiful winding trails through the woods and eventually realized we didn’t know exactly how to get back! Not that we were in the least bit concerned… we were in farm country, so the worst that could happen is we would come to a farm and ask for directions. Or we could backtrack if we were really stuck.
But like I said, we always knew the general direction we needed to get to… it was just challenging at times to do it given the terrain and obstacles we faced along the way.
There had been a light snowfall a few days earlier. In places the snow was still evident.
Our black boxador, Jed, and our granddog, Haidyn, had a wonderful time running ahead and back, sniffing the air and the ground, chasing each other, and just loving being outdoors.
The trail ended and the field began.
The trail through the woods eventually ended at a farm field, so we continued our walk through this field. We knew we needed to get to the field beyond the trees on the right, but this wooded area was impassable… far too dense and down a steep gully. So we simply followed the tree line knowing it would have to end eventually!
Hiking through countryside on a crisp autumn afternoon.
Huge round straw bales dotted the field. I propped the camera on top of one, aimed without being able to see through the viewfinder, and took another self-timer shot. Those bales are much taller than me! You can see in these photos that it is a gray day and a gray time of year. The shot above gives a sense of the rolling hills and great views!
We came upon a huge stockpile of straw bales. Hundreds of them!
Hundreds of straw bales.
Straw bale close-up.
We eventually came to the end of the trees and headed toward the road. We had to cut through a farmer’s yard, but no one asked us what we were doing there… we just carried on to the road and completed our walk… much further than anticipated, but a wonderful outing. Beautiful scenery and a huge variety of terrain with different forest types including pine, birch, poplar (the biggest poplar trees I’ve ever seen), and spruce.
And to top it off, we got lots of fresh air and some good “heart healthy” exercise!
