Lions and Bigfoots and Bears..... Oh My

No, this isn't some kind of strange Wizard of Oz.

Today my husband, son and I decided to go tramping in the woods. They wanted to go hunting and I brought along the metal detector because there are several cellar holes in the woods around my father in laws house.

Okay, when I first moved to New Hampshire when I was 11 we lived on 12 acres of woods. I was in heaven. I spent more time playing out in the woods than anything else, until I got my horse). I wasn't afraid of anything out there and never saw anything out there that would make me worry about my safety. I loooooved the woods.

I don't know when it happened. Maybe it was right around the time I saw the mountain lion trotting across the road. I started getting a bit nervous about what lurked in the woods. Then of course I hear about the stories of black bears in the yard, coyotes, fisher cats, bobcats and of course.... the dreaded mountain lion.

It didn't help that last night I watched a show on bigfoot.

So, there we are, walking in the woods. The guys have their guns.... full of bird shot, which would do no more than annoy an attacking animal. I considered the metal detector as a weapon, or maybe the little forked thingie that I was carrying to dig in the dirt. Would that be a good weapon? Yeah... riiiiight.

And then, as we left the road we were on (4-wheeler path is more like it), I started thinking of the Blair Witch Project. Oh man!! Would I ever enjoy a walk in the woods again??????

Then we found a cellar hole, right out there in the middle of the woods. Got the metal detector going, started digging, finding broken china, the metal lid to something, a latch for somethingoruther, nails and bunches of broken bricks. Thoughts of bear, lions, bigfoot and witches went right out the window. I started remembering how my friends and I had done this when we were young and found about 100 clay marbles (which I sold for about 75.00) and how I used to want to be an archaeologist growing up. I thought about the people who used to live there, when there was a house where now there was just an overgrown pile of rocks, bricks, rusted cans and broken china. What had happened to the house? Why did they leave the china behind? Where did they go after leaving that home. What kind of people were they?

We walked on, found a spot, a cave of sorts, that the town, long ago, used to store dead bodies before burial. Pretty freaky. And we found another cellar hole on the walk home.

I remembered how much I loved walking out in the woods, looking for things to discover. We talked about coming back out, starting early in the morning, spending more time investigating and looking for more goodies.

And next time we'll at least carry something with a little more power than birdshot.