Keep On Trucking

While I've been busy getting the fencing up and cleaning and landscaping various parts of the yard, I've also been taking the bowsaw and loppers into the woods on almost every walk with the dogs and methodically hacking my way into the wilderness. It hasn't been easy since the woods are quite overgrown in some places. I am fortunate in some respects because although the trees have taken over, someone, many years ago, clearly had the same idea I have and cut paths into the woods. They weren't immediately apparent so in my hacking and slashing I have created paths almost right next to paths that are probably 20 or 30 years old. A couple days ago I discovered a path that simply needed the pine trees trimmed and it curves around right at the property line so obviously whoever cut it knew where to stop and loop it back. I see now it's going to be relatively easy to fence through that part of the woods which is very nice for me! In all that hacking and slashing I have made a few interesting discoveries.

I didn't realize when I bought the house that I purchased two trucks as well. I discovered them on a walk shortly after I moved in. I have no idea how they ended up in my woods but there they will stay for as long as they take to decay. There are trees grown up around them that are probably 30 or 40 years old, there is no way to remove them without taking down some trees and frankly, I'm not interested in that kind of work just to remove two trucks. I will need to clean up around one of them because there are at least 4 bicycle frames surrounding it, but otherwise I think it can be left as a kind of 'art piece' in the woods.


I don't know what year it's from but I think it has probably been sitting in these woods since before television was invented. It's rear wheel well is about 20 feet away behind it and other than the wheel well, this is all that's left. I remember from walking out behind the town of Pictou, before I moved, finding a truck bed in the woods - a tree had grown in the middle of the bed and was at least 40 or 50 years old. What is is with people leaving trucks in the woods?

The other truck is on its roof. At first I was unable to identify its model but after mentally flipping it back on it's 'wheels' I think it's a Suburban. It's definitely a truck with 4 doors, very long and quite heavily built. I can only think of the Suburban as a truck like that. It hasn't been in the woods as long as the other truck but it's certainly fared no better. It has bullet holes in the side - target practice I imagine - no doors, no windows, no tires, and the interior has been stripped. I will have to fence around this truck because it has a lot more sharp edges and the dogs are more likely to want to get inside it since if I was a forest creature I'd try to live in there and the dogs will want to investigate. It's not a very good photo but if you're interested this is what the bottom of a Suburban looks like after it's been in the woods for a couple decades.

So now I know what to do with my Explorer when it's given up the ghost. I'm kidding, I'll probably donate it to some cause or another. I owe that truck a lot more than being left to rot in the woods alone and overgrown. It's never let me down and when it does finally go it will be a sad day for me and the dogs. Lots of adventures in that truck! I suppose the two trucks in the woods have had a lot of adventures too, in a way I'm glad to have found them so they can now become part of backdrop of the story of the dogs and my life.