the picture in the previous entry doesn't tell the whole story

In that aerial picture of our property we appear to have a wonderful forest at the back of our place.  Anyone for a walk in the woods?

Well, here's the deal:  If you see trees there, it's because the slopes are so steep that you can barely navigate them without hanging onto vines.  There are caverns in which you could set our two-story house, and you'd still look down on it.  Our house sets on a river bluff of wind-blown soil, and slopes clear down to river-bottom level back at the railroad tracks.

In other words, that land is pretty much useless.  Hence, the trees.

I can't even say very many positive things about the trees, because the previous owner sold the big ones to a logging company; the only old trees left on the place are defective ones that wouldn't have made good lumber.

Am I complaining?  Nope.  Every morning when Cliff and I take our walk back there, I thank the Lord for such a place.  It isn't really mine, you know.  Nobody owns land, in my opinion.  It will be here when we're dead and gone, with someone else holding the deed.  I look out over the river bottom from the highest point on our property, and feel I own the hundreds of acres of bottom-land stretching out before me, just as surely as I own our 43 rugged acres.

I originally said that shot was taken in 1980, but after looking it over, Cliff and I realized it had to have been taken much later than that; my mom's mobile home shows up, for instance.  It was put there in 1987.

Another note of interest:  The back of our place, at the railroad tracks, is 750 feet above sea level; the front of the place, where the house sits, is 873 feet above sea level.  Few people are willing to scale that hill in back!