Forgive Our Trespass

Kept seeing glimmers between the trees below a road I walk for exercise year-round. Figured it was an illusion. Checking it out would mean trespassing. About a year ago I realized it was a real pond. Today I finally trespassed. Didn't plan it. Nobody was around. I thought, do it now, in spring, before the briars make it impossible. You're wearing dull colors; no one will see. So, down a ravine. The geography is much as it is on my own property. Found a partial path but it was muddy, with only deer tracks. No warning signs anywhere. Wondered if an owner might see and shoot me; I had no phone, weapon, or ID. Found a stream, and upstream a small man-made pond with a solar-powered pond-water pump, and a rowboat, and a picnic table. Proof that the glittering pond belongs to somebody. I thought, I'd better get out of here.

A sure way to get out of somewhere is to walk downstream. Found three small pretty waterfalls along the way. I felt rewarded. I imagined the excuses I would make if caught, although a woman alone in the woods is not usually looking for trouble; she's looking for transcendence. Those seeking beauty, and only seeking beauty, I thought, have God's protection. I hope.

• I'm lost. (False.) Show me the way out, please, and I'll go. (True; all the following excuses are true.)
• I am sorry, won't do it again, didn't mean any harm.
  
• I didn't see any warning signs.
• If I'd known you owned the land I would have asked permission.
  
• I live around here. You're welcome to come see my property sometime.
  
• I'm a member of a Missouri Stream Team (was wearing the jacket with the Stream Team patch).

Finally saw a paved road ahead and climbed up onto it. Highway F, not far from my place. Glad I done it although it was wrong.

Monitoring "my" land is part of my tenant's agreement. It's also got "No Trespassing" signs, which I maintain. But if I saw an unarmed stranger, on foot, without a dog (free-running dogs here endanger themselves, drivers, animals, and residents) I would put myself in his or her place, knowing how it was probably beauty that led them into temptation, and say, keeping a polite distance, Nice property, isn't it, and kindly point out the signs and say there's public land nearby.

Deer Season

The grimmest story ever told on this 100 acres:

One Christmas Day I decided to walk in the snowy oak-and-hickory woods for an hour and think good things. The silence was the big winter kind that felt like deafness. Animal tracks led me along a known game trail. Barely out of sight of the road, a dead deer lay split open, red exploded all over the white snow. Without looking too closely, I saw it was the young buck from the family I'd watched strolling down the road every dusk for more than a year.

Clearly the coyotes had got it. I was rattled enough that I didn't go walking anymore that day.

Next day the landlord's handyman, who was new then, came by to work on Shelley's house. Then he knocked on my door and said, "Need anything?" - which he never did unless I called him. He's a busy man.

I told him about the dead deer in the woods. He said he'd taken a walk, seen it, and got a good look, and its antlers had been roped to a tree. He figured a trespasser wounded and left it, maybe thinking to return and finish it off. But the hunter never came back and the coyotes got the deer. Alive.

"Oh, how horrible!" I said.

Deer firearms season had been closed for a month. He said, "That was poaching. Why didn't you report it?"

It came out that, for God's sake -- he suspected that maybe I'd done it!

No hunting is ever allowed on this acreage. Just to make sure everybody knows, a month before this deer firearms season opened (Nov. 15-25), I sprayed purple paint -- signifying "no hunting" -- on tree trunks all around the property's edge. When I see a deer I deliberately shoo it toward the center of the woods, where supposedly nobody can hunt. And if they do they'd better be humane enough to kill.

Beautiful and Rare

Highways here in Ozark foothills used to be lined with native coneflowers, the flowers in the photo. Then somebody decided they were a commodity called echinacea, and lowlifes went around ripping up every single one by the roots, even on County Highway F where the road is perched on a steep and treacherous ridge. They even stole them from patrolled, private land -- coming up the river by boat and sneaking onto the property. Rip, rip. To them, Missouri is worth $6 a pound.

The word from the naturalists is that the bee population, nationwide, is way down. To my own eyes it's obvious only that the coneflower population is way down, so I planted my own, and they attract plenty of beautiful bees.