iseecerulean

Susan and I are going to fill the drawers of the Halloween boxes we're making for each other with cabinet of curiousity type items.  With that in mind I accompanied my husband to his brother's house in the country last weekend, to see what kind of curiousities I could find.  I ended up wandering around lost in the woods for two or three hours.  A forest management company thinned the thick forest around eight years ago or so, so the topography was much different than I remembered.  Even my husband, who grew up there, commented on how disorienting it is now.

I wasn't too worried about being lost, as I knew if I didn't return eventually my husband would come looking for me...and I knew that although the forest is quite large it is bordered by four roads I'm familiar with, and I was bound to stumble on one of them eventually.  Though I second guessed that second thought when I realized I had come upon a clearing with a distinctive tree for the third time.  I deduced that the reason I was walking in circles was because I was avoiding the large patches of thorny raspberries that had sprung up wherever sunlight made contact with the forest floor.  To not walk in another circle I pushed my way through a dense fifty foot wide patch of raspberries as tall as I am, using a thick stick to push the vines down in front of me so that I could step over them.  I was wearing capri pants and a t-shirt, so my lower legs and arms got all scratched up.  I rested for a while when I got to the other side, cursing myself for taking a walk on an extremely hot and humid day with only a specimen bag and a bug kill jar, without a bottle of water...and being thankful that sharks are in the ocean, not the forest, because I was pretty bloody.

I set off in what I thought was the right direction, and eventually heard someone else walking in the woods.  Assuming it was my husband looking for me I started in that direction.  It wasn't my husband, it was a bear.  Fortunately the bear was more frightened of me than I was of it so ran away from me. I decided turning around and walking in the other direction would be a good idea.  It was, because it wasn't much longer before the skyline indicated a clearing was ahead, and that clearing turned out to be the field behind my brother-in-law's house.

By the time I made it back to the house my face was so red that I frightened my husband.  After a few glasses of water and a brief rest I was fine.

I did gather some curiosities :)