(the posts in this picture are the supports for the axe wall.)I live catty-corner to the local fire hall. Convenient if I ever need them. On the far corner of their property, way back at the edge of the meadow, stands a tall stand of logs, built as if someone put up one wall for a log cabin and then abandoned the project. It's left over from when the area was known for their lumberjack games (this area being known for both logging and lumber-jacking.) Specifically, the wall was used for axe throws.
I took Cass over there before the snow came and he was wide-eyed and transported, quickly sucked back to a time when men proved what they could do by simple physical acts, before insurance coverages and dwindling fair crowds doomed the games. There are still hatchet marks in the greying wood, plenty left to satisfy him that this was another dangerous and exciting thing that he'd missed by being born too late.
And behind the wall? A rock. A giant rock, sitting like a giants dropped toy in the piney woods. The woods and fields around here are littered with these huge stones, remnants of glacial activity in the area many, many years ago.
He was torn. Which should he want to climb first?
Then, a little deeper into the forest - another boulder! And this time, a fallen pine made a perfect ladder.
(The bonus child? C's friend B.)All this, and the river not fifty feet away.
Nova Scotia is magical, and a good place to raise a child who dreams are of yesteryear.
At least it was beautiful before all this snow came. Harrumph!
7 comments:
I can almost feel the magic for Cass & his friend. What a wonderful place to be & see!
I am always torn when I read lovely posts like this. My kids are growing up in a city and I know they are missing out on the kind of childhood I had, running around in the country. Mind you, they will thank me when they are teenagers and all the stuff teens love is on their doorstep rather than a bus and train ride away!
oh wow. The photos were enought to transprt me with their mystery but hte story carried me to a frosty morning when men were men and threw axes. very cool. I would LOVE to see a photo of the face of that wall, with all of its marks.....
Oh I wish we had that so close to our house. Suburban Ontario just doesn't cut it sometimes :(
My brother and I had a tree by my grandparents' house when were little that we called our "bongo-bongo tree." I'm not sure why we named it that but it stuck straight out from a gentle hill. We rode on it like a pirate ship. it had a roomy crotch at the end and we stored great heaps of winter wheat and whatever berries we could find in it. We had all sorts of adventures in that tree.
Cass' log makes me wonder if it's still there.
Nova Scotia is on my travel wish-list.
Nova Scotia IS magical and beautiful, but for all of that, I think the people are the best thing about it. I <3 Nova Scotia.
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