For this chapter, you might want to see a satellite view of our Brimson property. Go to Google Maps and enter
Little Creek Rd, Brimson, MN
You'll see a little red balloon and a big white balloon for Giving Ground Farm, a herbal products company run by a friend of ours.
Before you go any further, make sure you have a satellite view by clicking on the button in the upper right hand corner of the map.
Zoom in towards the red balloon until you can see the roads. Giving Ground Farm's balloon is just east of a bend in the road. If you move west to where the road heads directly west again, that is just past the east boundary of our property. The middle of the road is our northern boundary; the next intersection is our northwest corner. The clearcut to the South is Forest Service land and is our approximate southern boundary.
In the upper middle there are three clearings. The northernmost is where we built our cabin; the easternmost is where the old house and well were, and the westernmost is what we call "Jan's field".
The little line going southwest is what we call our Park Path; the line going SSE we call our Raspberry Path; and the line wiggling between them just north of the clear cut is our Path of Least Resistance. The first two existed before we bought the place and I'll write about them another day.
To the east is a very dark area; this is a stand of black spruce which is only partly on our property. I don't know much about the dark line running through it other than it once was wide enough to drive through, but that would have been decades ago.
The darker area to the west of the cabin are mostly balsam fir; the less dark areas to the south are mostly aspen with some birch, willow, and way too much alder. The lighter area to the east of the cabin once had lots of aspen but they were blown down in the mid 90s.
I had cut loops to the east and the west of the main loop, but I haven't kept them open for three years or more.
For some ground views of our place in the woods, see my Brimson pictures on Flickr.
Next time I'll get back to the history of our place.
For Chapter 1, see
http://magree.blogspot.com/2009/09/people-come-and-go-woods-endures.html
