Friday, May 11, 2012

Ahem....

Hello?  Is anyone out there?  For those who have checked this blah-g daily, desperately clinging to the hope that I would post something to amaze and astound you...the wait is finally over!

Truthfully, I don't have all that much to share - but I will say that posting here again has been on my mind for a week or so.  And here I am.  In all my "where the hell have you been for a year" glory to share with you a short little outdoor-related story. 

Tonight I was graciously invited to meet Sir Hucklebuckle of West Seneca at his palatial woodland mansion of Treestump.  According to Huck, Treestump is 70 or so acres that his Grandparents bought for a cool $7,000.  We are talking World War II era dollars, but still...these days a chunk of land as superb as Treestump could probably easily fetch a quarter of a mil without breaking a sweat. 

Anyway, it had been a difficult week.  You see, between the stressors of work and life, I attended a wake for a member of our WNY geocaching family.  Zoggy20, the son of Howie and Jan passed away at the far too young age of 30.  In fact, he was only two days older than Adam - my younger brother.  The amount of sadness in all that is far too much express, as I am only 7 or so months removed from losing my younger Cousin Tom.  Far too much sadness all crammed into the last week - and it took it's toll on me. 

So...Huck's invite came at an opportune moment as I was sitting at home alone not exactly crapping our rainbows.  Neat trick though.  I'll show you sometime.

I had to accept the invitation, as I have been to Treestump a few times but have not done too much exploration.  Off I went - and shortly after arriving Huck was giving me the low down to this exceptional track of land.  Crammed into these 70 acres are two rather large ponds, and tons and tons of tall hardwoods including maple, ash and cherry.  There are also several groves of pine that line the long drive back to Chateau H-to-the-Bizzle.  Pretty radical stuff.  So we wandered around, did some cache maintenance on the aptly named Treestump cache.  In the midst of all this good time exploration, we ended up along Schmuck Beach.  Here I discovered a very large and impressive beaver dam.  It's amazing to me what nature can create - such a complex and unique structure - and here it is in the middle of no where.  That's an amazing feat to me...but then again, I'm a pretty simple fella.  It was then Huck pointed out a beaver swimming towards us - a good 70-80 feet away.  He swam in circles, at moments checking out these odd looking creatures along the banks the pond.  Huck and I stood there in silence marveling at this impressive animal. At some point I went to swat away a few pesky bugs, and this motion was enough to cause him to slap his tail on the water (a signal to his nearby beaver folk that danger is afoot!).  The splash was huge - as was our unbridled giddiness.

Dusk began to settle down upon this beautiful little pond - so I had to capture this special moment, and I thought I'd share it with you:


Don't act like you aren't impressed.  Haha.  Pretty friggen' awesome right?

I could probably have set up shop here, had a little camp fire, and spent the entire evening gawking at this awesome sight.  Of course, that wasn't in the cards, and eventually we hiked back up the hill to our cars.  During subsequent conversations, the idea of getting peanut butter pie at the Eagle Inn was floated out and met with raucous approval.  Now that's how you put an exclamation point on a kick ass night kiddies.  :-)

Much thanks to Huck for showing me around, and inviting me out for a Friday night walk that was certainly needed. 

Side note to Cayuga: Dude, this fella is hella out of hiking shape.  It's time to slowly ramp-up my sissified hiking chops.

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