Hail mary, Pray for us.. NOW!

While the kids and I have tromped around and explored every bit of the 17 acres of fields on the farm, we have not ventured more than a few dozen feet into the 20+ acres of woods. When we bought the property a few years ago I hiked along the property line with the previous owner and wished to refresh the spray paint blazes. Then on Friday Tim took a walk and reported back 90 minutes later that he had been around the entire perimeter. “If he can do it then I can too,” I thought to myself, but was prohibited by the rain for the next several days. So on Sunday afternoon, with a tropical storm heading our way and Tim off at Lowes with the little ones, I decided to take the two older children and see if we could accomplish my long put-off goal, start some sort of path around the property and refresh the blazes marking the property line.

We started off well, finding four or five orange streaks on tree trunks before we got hopelessly lost. In our efforts to find the clearest path through the scrubby fir and dead limbs we ended up going in a huge circle and I began to go through my list of favorite prayers that I use outside of prayer time when the children have nightmares or while crossing high bridges. After 2 hours had passed I wondered how long it would take Tim to realize that we were missing and call the police to organize a search party. While we were taking a thinking break we heard a car from a nearby 2 lane road, “Let’s go east out to the road and follow it back home,” Will suggested.

It took another 30 minutes of following old logging roads, walking single-file along the narrow median, and cutting across a neighbor’s hay field to get back to our own road. When we finally trudged up the driveway, we were all soaked to the skin and Mary was completely worn out.
Perhaps the moral of the story is that you shouldn’t go into the woods without a compass, a cell phone, and a very good sense of direction because sometimes you can get lost in your own backyard.