A Walk up Pine Hill

 

    Pine Hill, you see, is just one of many hills in the backwater town of Walton, NY. The hill is on the edge town off a high road called High Street. My backyard is off White Rock Road which joins High Street and as you may suspect its even higher than high street. Although not considered a real road by the town White Rock Road is maintained to access the water tower, nestled in the side of Pine Hill. People say Walton water is the best tasting water in New York State and that could be, but I’ve never seen a scientific survey to collect this data. HOWEVER it must be good since much of the water that runs off the hill eventually makes it to NY City via the Delaware River. Anyhow this story is not about the run off from clay soaked soil; it’s about a walk up Pine Hill from my backyard. 

        On a rainy day the snails hang out on the stone porch, and it’s still a mystery how they get there. Do you think this means they dislike rain? I hope you’re not like that. I hope you enjoy the feel of water dripping from a canopy of randomly waving maple leaves or the occasional barrage of drops precisely targeted from pine needles on some lofty branch. Now it’s OK with me if you like to stay dry, but you may have to wait for a day without rain in Walton, the rain capital of the world so let’s choose a sunny day in May for all you wimps out there before we trek up the side of Pine Hill. 

        An old, mostly dead sycamore tree, with a few live shoots stands guard at the edge of the driveway. It’s here that the first logging trail starts. By the end of the summer the end of the driveway is hidden under a thick growth of spider bamboo plants or as the neighbors call them shit house weeds. Since it’s May we won’t have to worry about the shit house weeds or the creatures that hide within them. A large stone slab marks the first incline of the logging trail. It presses against the roots of a birch tree sapling. At the top of the first path you’ll have your choice of the high trail or the horizontal trail. The end of the high trail is littered with a haphazard assortment of fallen trees, fierce limbs and lots of nasty weeds with thorns that say go away.

        The lower horizontal path is a bit friendlier so you might listen to the thorn like weeds and carefully back down the hill to give the horizontal trail a try. It’s not much of a challenge, but it does offer the opportunity to relax and see a patch of Pines at the end of the trail. They were planted by local High School students in May 1969 during our country’s first Earth Day celebration.  Since pine trees grow about a foot a year most of them are over 50’ tall and are overdue for harvesting. They stand like rows of tall proud giants. Unfortunately their roots don’t reach deep into the stones and clay so many of the old pines eventually loose a grip on the earth that supports them and fall between their fellow giants to enrich the soil.

    The sent of real pine in a real forest is more intoxicating than the distillation of any synthetic perfume that I aware of. Perhaps it’s more than the stimulation of the olfactory neurons, and perhaps it’s more than the pine tree shadows that never seem to reach the ground or perhaps it’s the way people sounds are far away muffled by a Hoot Owl calling for a mate. 

    Perhaps I am alone in my feelings but there are some things we can never share.. The light green fiddleheads are pushing through the dark brown pine needles to say hello. Soon they will unfold and become dark green and be to bitter to eat, but I won’t eat them even though I have a frying pan and lots of butter. They are my friends. I would never eat my friends.  Instead I’ll bushwhack through the pine forest to the very top of the hill and see the remains of an abandoned slate mine or slide back down the hill, sit on the porch and watch crows hop across the lawn.

The Little House on Pine Hill is available during the month of August.. make a reservation while it's still available.