Views from High Acres and Beyond
by Roger Russell
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The Woods

As we get older and our bodies run slower, time appears to run faster. Yet, in our younger days, as we hurried by, there seemed to be no time to stop and appreciate all that surrounds us. There were other interests that were more important. Now that time seems to slip by faster we may realize that we have missed something essential. Now, if we can take the time to stop and experience our surroundings, it is almost like appreciating things for the first time as if we never saw them before. I had not anticipated writing about my encounters but the happy memories are so strong I decided to set them down as best as I can. Words and pictures are not enough to convey the total sense of what it would be like if you were actually there but perhaps they will be adequate to convey some meaning with them. These are only a few of the hundreds of color, black & white and stereo pictures I took over the years. I have provided a map of the woods at the end of this story so that you can refer to the numbered ( ) locations that I mention in the text. However, the story continues beyond the area covered by the map.

Discovery

I came across the woods one noontime, a few days after the speaker lab was relocated in front of the main plant. Before then, I was used to spending noon times behind Plant 5 in Hillcrest where no one went and then way across the field to the Chenango River. I needed a new place to escape to at noon. I could cross Conklin Avenue and the railroad tracks to the Susquehanna River but it wasn't very private and a train was sometimes stopped, blocking the way. The area on the other side of the tracks was used as a dump. A little further on was Sandy Beach where people sometimes parked at noon.

An alternate was to walk uphill on Felters Road. It went uphill for over a mile. It was too much to walk to the top of the hill. There were no sidewalks after a ways and there were often cars that went speeding by, so part way up I turned off at a place where I could enter some woods without walking across anyone's yard. I became isolated in a different world hidden by trees. There was a creek and a ravine. It was the same creek that ran past plant 4, where I worked, and then down to the Susquehanna River.

The hill in the woods rose steeply from the creek. There was an uphill path from the creek to what I later called the lower path (19). This path ran the entire length of the woods. The first time I went into the woods, I could only make it to the lower path. I was not used to so much hill climbing but I really did love to climb hills. So as the days and weeks went by, I gradually grew stronger and explored further into the woods, learning many secrets that it contained.

Who would have thought that soon after discovering these woods, I would find it was for sale and was able to actually buy this property for only $4500 and pay only $32 in yearly taxes. After examining a tax map, I learned that this woods was part of an area called High Acres. It appeared that back in the thirties, the property had been part of a proposed development, but nothing had been done with it. It had apparently been purchased on speculation by a builder in the hope that it would someday develop like the area on the other side of Felters road. All 11.6 acres were completely covered with trees. Some were quite young and others, like the oaks and hemlocks, may have been there for 100 years.

I realized the land was not really mine. Oh, I had title to it. I owned it by law recognized by some, but it wasn't really mine. I couldn’t keep anyone or anything in or out. It was too big and was really a waste of time to even try. What would be the point? I used posted signs around the perimeter more for the legal aspect than to keep people out. The birds, animals and insects and weather knew no boundaries.

I took this picture from a chartered plane when we were flying to New Jersey to visit United Speaker Systems. McIntosh is in the lower right corner. The white line in the picture encloses the property. Felters Road continues horizontally across the picture. The bottom part of the woods can't be seen from this angle because the development at the left is on the near side of Felters Road and is very high.

On the left side of the property the trees are cut away. That is where the power line runs up a very steep hill and then turns slightly to the left. This is the southern border. The upper property line runs from the power lines through the trees to the right side. That's the northern end at the corner of Harding Road and Overland Drive (23).

Then follow the line straight down to the left house in the group of five houses on the far side of Felters Road. The creek flows to the right and goes through a large pipe under Felters Road at that corner (22). Then, follow the bottom line to the left back to the power lines. That's where the property line is defined by the creek for about 2100 feet. The creek is about 300 feet from Felters road at the power lines.

I could see the hill each morning when I parked my car next to plant 4 at McIntosh. My woods covered the left portion of the hill right up to the top. In the winter, when it was dark at 5:00 PM and when I was about to leave in the car, I could look up and see if the street light was on at the corner of Harding and Overland (23), near the corner of the property.

Other mornings, when there was snow blowing in the air, I could hardly see the hill at all. On a day like this, it was a good time to go for a walk in the woods. I went there almost every noontime, summer or winter, rain, snow or sunshine.

I walked uphill on Felters road to the woods, just past where the five houses were. This picture is the area where I usually entered the woods. It was at the bottom of St. Clair Road where it met Felters Road (22). There was a pump station and a fence that may have been associated with the development higher up on the hill. The creek went under Felters Road at the further side about where my car is parked and emerged down the road on this side off to the right.

I could go around the end of the fence and above the large round pipe where the creek flowed under the road. The concrete pipe was about four feet in diameter. That is the dark area at the center of the picture. After descending to the creek, I could look back and see the pump house and fence. From this area, I could go up to the creek path (25) and then a short path that led to the lower path (19). I completely disappeared into the magic of the trees. Then, all of a sudden, I realized that no one could see me from the street and no one could find me. This was my great escape for the day. I was in another world totally different from work. It was away from everything, including phones and people. A few times, if I was not feeling as strong or if time was short, I drove up and left the car by the fence. I almost always took a camera. There was always something new to photograph, perhaps because of different light or a new way of seeing things.

I often wondered exactly where the woods were when looking up from where I parked at the lab. I had even thought of somehow raising some kind of marker or flag so I would have a reference point. It turned out that nature provided the means. One morning, when I arrived at work, I noticed there was only one remaining tree with yellow leaves on the entire hill. I was certain this must be something that I could find. All the other leaves had fallen. In the picture above, the lower yellow building is the addition on the side of the main plant. Above this are the Saratoga Apartments and above that are the woods.

 

At noon time, I went up to find the tree. By then, the clouds had cleared off and given way to a deep blue sky. I was able to find it (5). There it was, near the top and close to the unworn steep path (27) that I used to get to the top of the hill. The dogwoods were not far from it. I could lie on my back in the leaves with my trusty Nikon camera and take pictures of it. Then, I knew for certain where the property was with respect to the view from where I parked.

The Fall

It was most enjoyable in the sunny, fall afternoons after some of the leaves had fallen and turned brown. It was cool then but the sun warmed me and I had a ski hat to keep my head warm. The sun stayed low in the hazy sky and cast long shadows on the ground. It was like the whole day was one long afternoon. In these pleasant afternoons, the light was tinted slightly yellow, which I called “golden afternoons.” It was so quiet and peaceful. There was usually no wind. I could see much further through the trees when the leaves were gone. The only sound I heard was from my own footsteps on the dry leaves or sometimes from a squirrel burying something in the ground and covering it with leaves. The smell of the woods was different in the fall—maybe of acorns or some such thing. I always carried a walking stick or two. I kept them at the entrance to the woods so I could find them easily. The only color of green that was left was in the hemlocks and the hundreds of ferns that seemed to be greener than ever before.

Who took the picture? Actually, there was no one. I bought a clamp that would fit on a small tree. It had a threaded piece that fit into the camera base and I could tilt the camera to be level. By using the self-timer on the camera, I had ten seconds to make it back to where I should be for the picture. I wore hiking shoes with a deep tread. I think this may have helped avoid any slips in climbing or descending the hill.

The lower path (19), looking south, may have been an old logging road. It ran the length of the property. It was fairly narrow in some places and not too good for a motor vehicle. However, at the time when there used to be a house at the north end (21), it may have been used by horses and a cart. There was also a small dump on the left side of the path that was hidden in the brush. It contained only a few pieces of old glass and rusted cans. The lower path became covered with leaves in the fall. Even the ferns were initially covered.

The view is looking to the north. The path at the left I have called the lower path and leads up to the further corner marker (3) of the woods and Harding Avenue. The path at the right leads down to the creek (25). After reading this, Ken, my friend and high school classmate suggested the following poem that he had memorized to recited in English class.

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

 

This view is looking north along the upper path (24) that eventually merged with the lower path near the large Beech tree (14). It wasn’t really a path but was just sort of a flat area. There was an old rusted mattress spring lying along here. I dragged it out of the woods and put it near the end of Harding Avenue (23) with some other trash someone had put there. I called this area the camp site because it looked like someone might have used it at one time.

The changing light and different locations provided an almost endless number of interesting pictures. Here, it is like a strong light is shining only from directly above and nowhere else. Each day I found something new to photograph. A rule in photography is to keep a camera with you whenever possible and take pictures right away when you see them. If you wait or come back later the unique conditions of lighting can change and the impact of what you saw is lost and may never be the same again.

 

Sometimes, under the right conditions of temperature and humidity, mist can appear rising seemingly from nowhere out of the ground. It slowly rises and changes shape perhaps from slight air currents. It brings back memories of the movie Fantasia where the spirits rise from the graves to be tormented. It is accompanied by Mussorgsky’s A Night on Bald Mountain. Although there are no leaves on the trees, some green areas can be seen, probably from ferns that remain green for a while.

While I have seen such mist on my High Acres hill, this is a better picture from the woods behind my house in Conklin. One day I noticed that the top of High Acres was enveloped in fog. Here was yet another experience this time to find out what it would be like to be up there in a fog-covered hill. When there, it was like any foggy day but there was no fog below me and that was unusual. I had not only escaped into the woods but was hidden by fog as well.

Have you ever tried walking in the woods in the dark, where you can only see the faintly lit sky between the trees? In the summer, the leaves block most of the sky so at night you can’t see your hand in front of your face. You have to step carefully to avoid tripping on branches, stones and even getting into spider webs. You could at least feel your way around by using a cane or stick like a blind person does.

But that is not the hard part. It is the imagination that can run wild. Knowing you are alone, too far to call for help, can be a concern but it is the knowledge that bears or other beasts that can see or smell better than you could be lurking or following you. Looking around is obviously no help in the dark and listening for any clues like faint sounds can be a primary concern. Then, what if there is a faint sound or worse, a loud sound?

I tried this, not in these woods because I was only there during the daytime but in another woods behind my house in Conklin. I cheated and carried a flashlight to get way out in the woods and then turned it off. There was no path to follow there. Some of the things that I mentioned earlier happened. So after a few minutes, I turned the flashlight back on.

On cold, cloudy days like this, when the temperature was near freezing, I knew that winter was near and a cold rain or even snow could come at any time. It was like I was on borrowed time and that soon all that I could see would be covered with snow. This was such a day when one thinks of being inside out of the damp, bone-chilling cold and away from the dark gray sky--but that was for later. This was the time to experience yet another quality of my private woods. I felt warm enough with a well-insulated jacket, ski hat and gloves. This sort of weather was not too cold for me. It was more invigorating.

Sometimes I saw a deer in the distance and stood still to see if it would go on about whatever it was doing. My presence was not a secret. The deer may have already seen me or gotten my scent and the dry leaves had made noise that it could hear. Often, the deer would just snort and trot off. Sometimes I wore an orange ski hat so that I would be seen in case there was a hunter around.

The Snow

I used two walking sticks when there was snow. It was better exercise and took some of the burden from my legs. When it was very cold, only 10 or 15 degrees, my fingers got cold and I put them inside my coat for a while to warm them. Later, I bought a pair of mittens where all the fingers were together and this kept them much warmer. I always wore long underwear on cold days like this. A few times, the snow was higher than my boots and got inside even though I tucked my pants inside them. I usually followed my footsteps from the previous day to the top as it was easier walking. Coming downhill was usually a lot faster as I could come down a different way each time using the older crusted snow as a brake.

There were sometimes animal tracks in the snow. One time I found the wing imprints of a large bird in the snow, but there were no footprints around them. I guessed that an owl had caught a mouse in its talons and then taken off again from the same spot leaving just the wing impressions. Another time I found what might have been fox footprints and an occasional spot of blood in the snow. At first I thought it had been injured, but then I thought perhaps it had been carrying a mouse or something that it had pounced on and killed. It may have been the mouse that was bleeding.

One cold day I was following some human footprints that were not mine, just to see where they went. I followed them up to the lower path and there at the bottom of one of the prints was a rolled up five-dollar bill. So I looked around the area for more but that was it. I speculated that the person must have taken something out of their pocket and had forgotten they had a five dollar bill in it. Later, it blew into the hollow of the footprint.

On the side of the hill, the sunlight looked even lower in the sky and again cast much longer shadows, even at noontime. Here could be seen the brown leaves retained by the young beech trees (4) along the lower path (19).

Here is the path that leads from the creek path (25) to the lower path (19). When snow fell, distant sounds were muffled and the air was very still. I liked to walk through the woods when it was actually snowing. The whole area was transformed into an alien world that I rarely got to see. The sky was a dark gray and the woods took on a completely different cast. The trees were wet and dark and the snow on the trunks and branches had an almost unreal gray color. I couldn’t see as far when the snow piled up on the branches and I got this very closed-in feeling. Many were bent over from the unusual weight. The snowflakes could be heard hitting my hood that I pulled over the ski hat. I kept the camera inside my jacket to keep it dry.

This reminds me of the Robert Frost poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

In the early winter snowstorms, the snow piled up on the surrounding rocks, branches and sand. The snowstorms were very quiet except for the water at a mini fall. The above black & white picture shows how the creek can be transformed to give an entirely different appearance. The water seems to be very dark and the contrasting snow that covers the stones gives no hint for what might lie beneath.

The Spring

In early spring, it was not quite warm enough to be without a jacket and the ground was still cold. I stayed in the sun to feel warm. It was probably wishful thinking that warm weather was finally here but after long months of snow and cold, I was anxious to feel warm in the woods once again.

Ferns grew throughout the woods. They were mostly New York and ladder ferns. They lined the lower path (19) and spread out under the trees. By springtime, they had quickly responded with new fronds. The new tree leaves had that fresh light green color.

Further along the lower path (19), after passing the beginning of the steep path (27), which I usually took to go further uphill, the ground went down to a lower area (20) that stayed wet for some time after it rained or when the snow melted. Along the way, there was another old but smaller foundation (8) made of flat slate-like stones. It might have been for an ice storage house many years ago. At the end of the lower path (18), was a nice area that could be used for camping. I spent some time sitting there enjoying the surroundings. One day, while I was sitting there, a cat came along the path. I sat still but eventually it saw me and sat down to decide what to do. I still didn’t move but the cat decided to go back down the path.

One other time a dog followed me into the woods. It was sort of like a small hound dog. He seemed to enjoy walking with me and went with me to the top of the hill and back. When I left to return to the lab, I said “go home” and he went off—amazing. I never saw him again.

At the north end of the woods (1) some unusual plants came up. I had seen this plant for the first time in my explorations at plant 5 and had easily identified it in the wildflower book. They were called Mayapples or Mandrakes. The ground in this small area was covered with their shiny green double leaves. At the center, where the two leaves joined, a single white waxy many-petaled flower about 1" in diameter bloomed. Later in the year, a single fruit grew and was about 1-1/2" to 2" in diameter. For this picture, I had to use a polarizing filter to take away some of the shine and make a nicer exposure.

For many who pass by a woods, the details go unobserved. I think very few are interested to take the time to see what is really there. It is either taken for granted or of no interest. I prefer to view all of what I experienced here as something that might be seen for the very last time and didn’t want to miss anything.

In the spring many flowers appeared. A May flower, also known as Trailing Arbutus, is a rare find. These were at the top of the hill just beyond the property. They are hard to see as they are often hidden under the leaves. I had to move some leaves for this picture. They are also, an endangered species. The smell is very attractive. Many years ago when my parents and I we were visiting my mother's parents in New Hampshire, my mother and I used to pick them and bring them home. The Triliums are named to account for the tri-group of petals and green leaves. Although some had white petals, all of the ones I found were red.

At the top of the hill, I found an unusual flower that took a little while to find in a wildflower book. These are called gaywings and only bloom in the spring.

Some years, the tent caterpillars became widespread to the point that they strip the leaves on any tree. The caterpillars could hide in the tent at times to avoid predators. I was lucky to have only a little damage to my woods but other areas were not so fortunate. In looking at the hill tops around Binghamton, the trees were brown and were stripped of all their leaves. It has been said that when a tree is attacked like this, the tree releases a chemical that is harmful to the caterpillars and can even cause them to die. Because there were so many caterpillars, I could hear the constant sound of their droppings hitting the leaves below. Later, they turned into gypsy moths.

Other pests were the deer flies. They were the same size as a house fly but with more distinct markings on the eyes, body and wings. There was usually only one and it liked to buzz around my head and get on the back of my neck and bite. I would find a short twig with many little branches and swish it around my head for a while. Eventually, I would hit it and knock it down or drive it away.

Then there were the gnats that tried to get onto my eyes. There would be a cloud of them around me. I found that if I put my ski hat on a stick 2 or 3 feet long and held it above my head, they would all go up to my hat and leave me alone.

The North-West End

This path is on the border of the woods on the north side (26). This is a view looking downhill. The path leads uphill from Harding Road and the lower path. The upper end of this path fades into just trees before it gets to the top of the hill. It was almost like a road and may have also been used as a logging road many years ago by the owners of the Little Acres farm that was mentioned in an old deed.

There was only an old stone foundation remaining at the bottom of the path (21). This may have been where the house had been. I found a jack-in-the-pulpit growing inside the foundation. Close to here and just inside my property is an another old dump (2). It appeared to have been covered with weeds and leaves for several years but a few pieces of trash could still be seen. After digging around, I found several brown bottles and rusted items. There were also many pieces of broken glass.

Right next to the old foundation on Harding Avenue was the upper entrance to the woods. Although the tax map shows the road extending to the property, in fact, it was never completed and was only dirt and weeds. However, there was evidence that people had been driving in there. After purchasing the property, I decided to have a chain link fence put up to keep people from driving in and having beer parties, etc. I also had a load of bank run gravel dumped in front of the fence. I put a posted sign on the power pole.

I did not have the land surveyed for the purchase as it would be very expensive and was not really necessary. Several years later, in April, 1984, I found only one survey marker and that was near the end of the fence, about 20 feet behind the power pole in the entrance picture (3). A closer picture shows the orange ribbon tied to a small tree. The actual marking stake in the ground is at the bottom right of the picture and has a small red ribbon tied to it. Knowing this point, I used a compass and paced to about where the other corners should be. Of course, the creek, being one boundary, made it much easier. One small corner of the property was in the City of Binghamton and the rest was in the Town of Binghamton. I paid taxes only to the Town.

Not far to the west of the old foundation was what looked like an old quarry. The rock had all been removed. Of course, it could have been excavated for someone to build a house but there were young trees growing in it instead, indicating that it must have been several years ago.

Overland Drive (23) was a short but extremely steep road and not well maintained, with deep eroded ditches on either side. In the winter, water seeped out of the ground and ice covered the road to about a foot thick at times. The city would then put up barriers to close the road. Only one person lived on this road and that was near the top. That was “Angel One,” a person who was on CB radio fairly often. I never met him but heard him on the radio. The house was a shack with rusted junk all around in the weeds. He used to work in Halstead, PA for an electronics company called Magnetic Windings.

In the summer of 1986, while parking my car at the lab, I heard a chain saw running near the woods. I went up to investigate. There was a man cutting down all the trees on the South side of Overland Drive, across the street from Angel One. The man told me the property had been sold and two apartment buildings were going to be constructed. Each one was to be made on a bulldozed terrace. So that was why there was a new survey marker ribbon at the corner of my property.

I was concerned because it meant that people would be wandering into the woods, especially  kids. I was concerned about vandalism and even fire. By October, the framework of only one building was up. It was closed in the next year and then work stopped. Later, a “for sale” sign was posted and I checked the listing. The owner lived across Conklin Road and was asking $175,000. The unfinished building was still sitting there at the end of 1992, when I moved to Florida. I visited the area in the fall of 2000 and the building was still sitting there in disrepair and some boards over the windows had fallen or were taken off. It was a sad sight. It did not seem practical to me for anyone to live on such a steep hill where the road was closed much of the winter. A more recent view on the internet in 2009 showed that the building was still deserted and the second building below it that was planned had never been started.

On the left side of the upper path (6), just beyond the property, there was an abandoned well. At that time it was about 8 feet deep. The inside of the well was lined with flat pieces of stone that were common in the area. There were no signs or fences around the well. It may have been used by people that lived in Little Acres.

The Rain

In the summer the rain was noisy. It was normally very quiet in the woods but even the first few drops could be easily heard on the leaves. When it rained harder, the sound became very loud. There was a delay between the time the rain started and when the water dripped to the ground under the trees. It could be as much as 5 minutes or more-- time enough to avoid getting wet and get back to the beginning of the woods. If I was in the woods longer with an umbrella or entered the woods after it had rained, I used my walking stick to tap nearby branches and leaves to shake off the water before passing by. If a thunderstorm arrived while I was in the woods, I left as fast as I could.

Why would anyone want to walk in the rain? People say it is not a nice day if it rains but how many have actually stayed out in the rain to the experience the enhanced smell of the woods and listen to the varied sound of drops on the leaves. The woods had a different appearance when it was wet. The tree trunks got darker. The ferns and other plants had a shiny coat. Tiny rivers flowed in tiny ravines previously unnoticed and followed paths they had traveled many times before to continue on down the slopes to the creek.

The Wind

I always liked the windy days that often came in the spring. There was the sound of it through the trees and the promise of fresh air. There were no pine trees in my woods and I missed the sound of the wind through the needles. It is an ineffable sigh both tantalizing but lifeless and unlike any other sound in nature,

Windy days can also mean danger when in the midst of the trees. Broken branches still not fallen from the weight of the winters ice and snow can be poised to be dislodged by the force of the wind. Even whole trees can occasionally fall, having been rotted inside or weakened by a lightning strike..

The Trees

The tree types were pretty much randomly scattered throughout but now and then there were groups of the same kind of tree growing. There was a large beech tree in one area (14). Around this mother tree were many smaller beech trees. I gradually got to know many of the trees that were along the paths that I had chosen. There were hemlocks in some areas. They had small cones about half an inch to an inch long. The needles stayed green all through the winter. Young striped maples with disproportionately large leaves grew all over. There were a few dogwoods near the top. Oak and maple also grew there. Sometimes, after a windstorm, I would find a new-fallen tree. The cause was usually a rotten area making a weak point where it had broken.

I had one special path to the top that was not worn into a trail. I followed the lower path (19) to where it met the upper path and then proceeded straight up. Halfway to the top of the hill, there was a level spot in some hemlocks, where I could sit and look downhill (7). It was so nice to enjoy the silence in the trees. Sometimes I just sat here and looked and listened.

I found that the longer I remained in one place, the more things I began to notice, reinforcing my earlier observations about passing by too quickly. I was interested in identifying the various trees. In the foreground are young striped maples that get their name from the light stripes on the trunks of older ones. The leaves are inordinately large for such small trees. On the ground are the small cones and needles from the nearby hemlocks on either side of the picture. The trees were very tall here and only a minor splash of sunlight filtered through.

In winter, this favorite spot (7) looking downhill was also changed. I liked some of my pictures in black & white because most of the scenes in winter had no color to speak of anyway. However, the hemlocks in the foreground that I knew so well retained their green needles throughout the winter. I had taken this picture with my newly-acquired Hasselblad camera this winter and was anxious to try it out along with a spot meter and the zone system of exposure.

Going uphill to get here was tougher in the snow and I usually did not get as far during my lunch time as I could during the rest of the year. From this point, even without leaves on the trees, as far as I could see in any direction was all part of my woods. A little ways to the south about this high above the lower path, there was a tree with wooden boards nailed to it forming a ladder (13). The boards were partly rotted and the nails wee rusted so they must have been there for a long time. A little further on, there was a shallow dug-out area (15) that reminded me like it could be used by kids as a fort. It also offered a good view of the hillside below but looked like it had not been used in a long time. A ground hog lived near the top of the woods. His hole was right by the path. I never saw him but in the summer I often saw fresh dirt near his hole.

 

Another tree I did not find in my woods is the Witch Hazel tree. I did find some in a swampy area below my Conklin house. I had no idea what this was when I first saw it. It was blooming in November, which is unusual in itself. Even more surprising is to find that the branches are used as divining rods to supposedly locate underground water. The aromatic extract of leaves, bark and branches is used to relieve minor skin irritations.

Birds

I never waited to see what bird owned these eggs. It was probably a robin but I was hoping it was a wood thrush. I could hear that beautiful song that they often sang late in the day. I knew it so well because when I was little, a family of them always nested near our house.

There were many other birds in the area such as the woods peewee, great crested flycatcher, rufous-sided towhee, blue jay, crow, purple finch, chickadee, junco, titmouse and others. I didn’t see them very often but could hear them.

One day, as I was walking along the lower path (19), I felt like I was being watched. I looked up in a tree and there were a couple of young owls looking at me. A few times, if I was looking in the right direction, I could see a large owl flying silently away from me. They are a surprisingly large bird.

A few times, I found a fresh hole in a large healthy tree. Large splinters were torn out and were piled up on the ground beneath the tree. This certainly looked like some kind of vandalism. I finally located the cause one day. It was a large pileated woodpecker. This struck me as being the industrial grade version of the smaller downy woodpecker that I often saw.

 

 

The Creek

Some days I followed only the creek. In the summer the trees shaded the creek. There was normally only a quiet trickle of cool clear water. The flat gray slate-like rocks were clean and easy to walk or sit on. There were occasional pools that had to be walked around. If the sides of the creek were steep, I had to climb up on level ground to get around the pool (10). There were also small water cascades. The creek defined one boundary of the woods and ran way up the hill.

In the summer, cool humid air traveled down the ravine where the creek was. It had the wonderful smell of woods. Again, I felt the magic of the soft-lighted afternoons. Perhaps it was a lingering memory of those hazy days when I was a boy and there were no worries or things that must be done. Perhaps it was the excitement and energy of past youth where the whole world seemed new and undiscovered. I was free to observe and learn, with what seemed like all the time in the world. I thought if I had only one wish it would be for time—all the time to do all there is to do and learn all there is to learn.

In my senior years, I can accept that I would never be able to do or learn everything but am happy to have experienced at least some things and remain in reasonably good health. It reminds me of sayings that there can be no good unless there is also bad or there can be no light unless there is also dark. Maybe comparisons are our way of thinking—Yin and Yang. For me this is tempered to be not just one or the other but all degrees in between.

Getting back to the creek, this is a view further upstream and looking down. It was like a conquest, walking up the creek and being able to negotiate obstacles as they appeared along the way. Here, is the steepest part of the ravine. It was too steep to climb easily and the leaves were slippery plus there were few trees to hold onto for support. The lower path was very high above the creek at the upper left part of the picture.

I often wondered how long it takes for a stone to travel down the creek. The stones are almost always in the same place all summer and winter and don’t just creep a little at a time. It seems that changes take place with catastrophes like other events in nature. In the spring, if there was a big snowmelt and rain, the creek became a raging torrent. It could be so strong that I would not dare to walk across. Large stones could be heard and seen tumbling and shifting in the brown muddy water. After the water subsided drastic changes could be found. Stones, branches and sand were shifted downstream. Old dams of sticks, leaves and stones were gone and new dams were formed in new places. New fossils and interesting stones were exposed. Sometimes a dirt bank had collapsed and had been partly washed away.

After setting down these thoughts, I later found in my complete book of poems by Robert Frost that he had put a similar experience into an excellent verse.

 

There were many unusually shaped rocks in the creek. One day I found this interesting stone measuring about 8” by 10” and 3” thick. In the center was a rounded red stone about 6" across embedded in the gray slate-like stone. The front face of the red stone is exposed, just as I found it. The back was all gray indicating that the red stone was very thin. I had coated this with shellac to make the color more visible To this day I don't know how it was formed. Of course, a rare find like this could not be left there. After carrying it for about 1000 feet down the length of the creek bed, I was very curious to find out how much it weighed. It became very heavy and my arms were sore the next day. It was 17 lbs. on the bathroom scale, a reminder about not being overweight.

A geologist at Cortland suggested the red stone may have been formed by an air pocket that later filled with red sediment. That's probably more believable than thinking someone or something threw it there in the prehistoric mud. Of course, it may have just fallen in the ancient sediment and then covered by more sediment later on.

In the fall, many different colored leaves lay in the creek. They become lodged in the steps of the shale waterfall (11) until they were washed down and piled up against obstructions or lay at the bottom of the pools with their color still showing.

Up further along the creek there was a pine tree that had fallen across (12). The branches almost blocked the way but I could get under the trunk by pushing a branch or two out of the way.

Sometimes, in the winter when it was very cold and there had not been any snow, water flowed on top of the ice and became frozen, building the ice higher and higher. It could be several feet thick in places. Occasionally, a leaf could be seen imbedded below the surface of the ice, preserved there until the first melt. The stream of ice was like a miniature glacier that flows imperceptibly down a mountain ravine. I suppose, given enough time and cold weather, this ice might actually flow. Eventually the water found a way to flow underneath the ice and it could sometimes be heard gurgling but not seen.

The Fossils

Fossils could be found lying on the ground anywhere in the woods but the creek was the best place to find them. This 12” long specimen was near the lower path. I wondered how long it had been there and where it had come from, perhaps from further up the hill. The sides looked like they had almost been cut with a diamond saw. It was also too good to just leave there. I had also coated this with shellac. I also found two slabs that were about a square foot in size and 2-3” thick. These were also very heavy.

The presence of fossils indicated that this area was once under water and perhaps from an ancient sea bed from the Mississippian to Permian age and as old as 345 million years. Most of the fossils were brachiopods and crinoid stems. The little serrated disc fossils had me puzzled for a while until I learned they were part of a crinoid, and invertebrate animal. The stem of this plant was made of these discs which were stacked one above the other. When the plant dies, the discs all separate.

Flat stones several feet across having wave marks were also very easy to find and formed part of the creek bed.

Beyond my Hill

If you followed the upper path (24) to the west, past the property line, it would eventually lead you to the home of Dave Sanford. He owned the property next to me. Dave had contacted me because he found the woods had been sold to me and was probably concerned about who I was and what I planned to do with the property. I reassured him that I planned to keep it as it is and make no changes. I showed him one of the large prints I had made from a picture I had taken earlier.

My walk usually didn’t stop at the top of the hill where the property ended. From there I could go forward to a worn path and then turn south toward the power line (28). One year it was along this path I saw that a pair of Roufus Sided Towhees had a nest. The male looked something like a robin but was black as well as red and white. They have a wonderful call that I knew from many years ago in the woods at Cape Cod.

The power line (28) was the limit of the woods that is on the left side of the picture. The line ran down the hill and across Felters road. The brush and trees had been cut down to keep them away from the lines and also perhaps to reduce the risk of fire damage. One day, I noticed a line had come loose from an insulator and had written down the pole number. I called the power company and in a few months they came out and replaced all of the insulators and fixed the loose line. I learned that the line had been installed in 1926 and needed to be reworked. To my surprise and excitement, they had left the old insulators on the ground. Being a devoted insulator collector, I was able to find several undamaged ones. These were the large brown ceramic type. They had been replaced with smaller gray ceramic ones.

If I continued west along the power lines over the top of the hill, there was an open field. At the bottom of the hill Powers Road merged with Burr Avenue. I usually did not walk further through this field because there was a better path back a ways that led toward the south through Miller’s farm and the top of Felter’s Hill.

This was the usual path leading south to a large field that I called the first field. There was a path that circled completely around the field. It had not been mowed in several years and many briers had begun to take over.

After entering into this field, I would become very aware of being out in the open and it seemed that I was much closer to the clouds, when there were some to see. It was because the land was so much higher here. Some days the sky would be very dark and there was often a warm wind indicating that the weather might be going to change. After a new weather front came through, smaller fast-moving clouds could often be seen.

It was usually very still out in the field. The only sound I could hear was very familiar. I remembered this from my days as a boy in Rumford, RI. There was a dull roar and there was a definite direction where the sound came from. It came from the direction of Binghamton. It was the cumulative sound of cars and trucks and other noises of the city. It was continuous and muffled here up on the hill. The noise increased during the busy times of traffic as would be expected.

In the winter, the grass and weed growth had subsided. The dead stalks eventually got covered with snow and bent to the ground making hiding places for mice and other small animals. I no longer needed to poke around ahead of me with a walking stick to get rid of spider webs strung across the path.

The fall was my favorite time of the year. The time of growing was over and preparations were at hand for the long winter. The foliage in the Binghamton area was spectacular but only lasted for a week or two at the most. In my walks around the first field, there were many colorful trees to see and photograph.

In the fall and the spring, I could hear the geese honking overhead. When I heard them, I could look up and there would be the familiar V formation. Sometimes there were several separate formations at one time. If an airplane flew near that was going to land at the county airport on a hilltop a few miles away, they changed course temporarily but then changed back to their original direction after it had passed.

Very early in the spring, when trudging around in the snow in the first field, I would search for pussy willows that might have opened. They are soft and furry to the touch like a kitten’s fur. If they were open, I would take one or two twigs and bring them back to the lab to show that spring is on the way and that the cold winter is near to an end. Of course, I would also be listening for the first sounds of robins—another harbinger of spring

At the end of the first field, the ground sloped downwards. There was a line of trees and then there was a second field. It was snowing so hard in this black & white picture that the second field could not even be seen. I loved to walk out in the open fields when it was snowing. Of course, the timing had to be right so it would be snowing there during my lunch time.

The second field was better kept than the first and was free of many of the briers and weeds. It was mowed each year in the late summer for the hay. This belonged to the Millers whose farm was on the far side and down below on Powers Road.

A second walk was to the end of the upper path to the power lines (18) and then goes uphill. It was an open area under the power lines and had become congested in some areas with blackberry bushes and their associated thorns. There was no path here. It was very steep and I would have to go very slowly. That brought me to where the first route took me but there was a lower path I could also take into the woods to the south. I think this property was also owned by the Millers. I passed an old junk pile of rusted cans and unusual bottles, etc. Occasionally I would find an unbroken jar or colored bottle. Many appeared to be from the 1940’s or thereabouts. There was a path that led up almost to the far end of first field but I usually continued on through woods that had older trees but little underbrush, making it a very open area. In the spring, the ground was very wet and I had to choose the route carefully. I eventually came out at the far end of the second field.

Here is the second field where the hay had been mowed. In the distance behind the line of trees is the first field. The second field stayed greener than the first field, even in the late fall probably because of the mowing.

I saw another interesting scene when looking east at the edge of the second field. On a clear cold day like this in March, the sun is very bright and the sky is a deep blue. At this time of year there is enough warmth from the sun for lighter clothing.

After continuing on past the second field, there was a dirt road that goes uphill to an area where I could look back and see the much of the city of Binghamton and way in the distance was Endicott. It was one of those fall afternoons when it was too nice to be inside working. Reluctantly, I had to start back but I intended to return more often for more pictures.

Later, on a cold day, I did return. There was still a haze in the distance that often accompanies a recent snowfall. This time I was higher on the hill at Miller’s farm and thought a telephoto shot would be more interesting,

Plant 4, where I worked, was 880 feet above sea level. The top of my property was at 1250 feet, making a climb of 370 feet. The next pictures was taken at about 1400 feet.

The real top of Felters hill with a few trees on it is far away in the distance at the left and is at 1597 feet. This was another one of those bright sunny days in the fall. There was nothing above me here but the sky and wide open spaces. One day in the summer, I saw a fox pouncing in the grass here. He was probably after a mouse that was trying to hide.

One Saturday in 1981, I was up on Miller’s hill, when it was raining, and took this picture. The farm was owned by Fran Vaughn’s aunt and was still in operation then. There aren’t many people who go out walking in the rain. Again, I was reminded that we have been told by those on the radio and tv that this is not nice weather and we should not like it. It is supposed to be bad, depressing and ugly. However, I think it is very satisfying to experience and see what everything is like when it is all wet and the water drips from places that you otherwise might never know about. The colors are different also. With the mist that hangs in the air, plus the rain, visibility was very limited and the hill behind the trees could not even be seen.

The mood changes drastically, when it gets below zero at night and is only in the single digits in the daytime. Then, there is the wind that blows out of the northwest after a front with snow has passed over. It stays so cold all day that the snow doesn’t even melt in the sunshine.

A couple of times I drove up to the top of Felter’s hill and then onto a dirt road that lead to the top of Miller’s hill. Here I am with my Zone VI Sinar monorail 4X5 camera and Zone VI tripod. All of this equipment was too heavy to carry all the way through the woods and up to the top.

From the top of Miller’s hill, I could look far away to the south and see all of Conklin in the distance. Here is a portion of it using a telephoto lens. At the right, the large group of buildings is the Susquehanna Valley School. At the left is the old McIntosh plant #7 that had been sold in 1984. Shaw road is just to the right of it. Conklin Road runs diagonally across the picture. The Susquehanna River runs above that but is hidden by the trees. Interstate 81 runs across near the top of the picture. Most of the houses on the far side of Conklin road were flooded by the Susquehanna River in 2006. The flood did not reach the school or Plant 7 that are on the near side.

This is the end of my journey to the top of Felters Hill. It all started from wanting to escape from the lab at lunch time. As I gradually explored higher up on the hill and beyond, I found even more interesting places. There was no end to the different routes that I could take in my explorations and I never felt that I could get lost. Sometimes I took a random walk through the upper woods and would eventually come out to a place I recognized.

The experience was a wonderful time in my life when I was doing work that I had always wanted to do and at the same time combined it with my love of photography and nature. I took hundreds of pictures and these are only a few that I have used to illustrate my adventures. I hope that others can relate to what I have tried to describe.

I plan to write a sequel about my earlier noontime adventures when I was working at plant 5 in Hillcrest. There was the field behind the building, a woods further to the south, the Chenango River and an old farm house across the Brandywine Highway.

Map of the Woods

List of Locations