Mapping out important spots in world around you
As a child, I loved to map out places around my house that were special to me.
With its many pathways and trails, Limekiln Lake was the starting and ending point of many of my adventures.
Some of my favorite spots were manmade like the pump house and ice shanty, and a pole barn that once housed horses.
Others were a mystery of nature, like the Quartz outcrop with its shiny white and pink jagged edges, and the old brown stumps that simply fell apart when touched.
There was a cluster of large rocks that seemed out of place, a small creek that barely trickled-and a larger one that churned along.
I identified some good climbing trees and an out-cropping of rocks that I called the castle.
I mapped out each of these destinations by counting the number of steps it took to reach from one to the other.
I gave each place a special name. I figured if anything should happen to me, others would benefit from my hard work.
One early June morning I set out to map out some new places.
I brought along a stub of a pencil, my jack knife, and a tiny notebook which fit perfectly into my back pocket.
I began my count from the back porch. It was 18 paces to the jungle gym and two more to the leanto. I pulled out the note book and labeled the distance to each of them.
The bugs were harassing me a bit.
When I squished one that landed on my notebook its blood smeared across the number of steps I recorded to reach Dog Creek.
I had to scratch in a new number on the edge of the paper.
Once I had paced out the things around our yard I ventured into the woods that surrounded our house.
I made my way to the fungus tree, which according to the amount of scratches on it I had visited 28 times before.
I may have known it was my 29th visit to that tree, but unfortunately I lost track of how many paces it took me to get there.
I retraced my steps back to where I started and promptly recorded it.
It was important to be accurate in my count. After all, from time to time I liked to make return visits.
Mitch Lee, Adirondack native & storyteller, lives at Big Moose Lake.ltmitch3rdny@aol.com
