Strange things found in the forest

[drajj5]

I'll bite,,,


I was 13 and adventurous; and it was a beautiful weekend to "get lost" in the woods behind my home. I had ventured into the thick laurel that was growing everywhere behind our homeplace in the forest but had never went beyond the laurel thicket. Feeling invincible, I trekked deeper than I had ever been before; crossing each ridge while taking a 'mental note' of where I was. The woods gave way to a clearing which looked to have been an overgrown pasture, "Blackberry bushes were thick and slowing my pace". I was becoming thirsty and looked the terrain over for a low lying area where there would be a creek to get a drink from. I found a tree instead.... This tree was old and slap full of apples, apples strewn all over the ground that had fallen recently.

I kicked a few of them out of the way and sat against that tree surveying the ground for the "perfect apple", soon I spotted one that looked perfect wiped that sucker on my shirt and bit into it. This was quite possibly the best apple I had ever eaten, in fact I was shocked that a tree that had not been pruned and had grown disproportionately large could produce such an awesome apple. After gorging myself on them, I quickly used my shirt as a "carry all" filling the front of it like a sack. Getting close to dark, I made my way home with my sack of apples heading back through those blackberries with thorns that seemed determined to thwart any forward movement. With each ridge I crested an apple core was discarded- I couldn't stop eating them. Finally making it to my familiar laurel thicket knowing I was home I ate....the last apple.

I walked in the house and explained to both my mom and dad that I had found the best apples in the world. Mom retorted, "Guess that is why your shirt is stretched to high heaven". They asked where were theirs, and I told them that I had eaten them all. Next morning my belly rumbled and I was stricken with the worst "squirts" in my life.... To this day I remember the repercussions!! My adventure turned into a nightmare.....

Many times; I ventured back in those woods looking for 'that apple tree'- never found it again. Maybe its good I didn't because if I had found that tree, I would have eaten more than my fair share yet again.

 

[4570Man]

I found an old 50s model truck. Ir was pretty well rusted out on a steep mountain side and grow up pretty bad. It was on government land that borders my land. I went back a few years later, and someone had hauled out what was left and presumably sold it for scrap,

 

[oosik]

While living in Alaska we made three trips to Dawson, YT. This was in the late '60's. While scouting/searching we found old cabins, old guns, very valuable old bottles, old newspapers and after moving a mountain of black sand - a very small amount of gold. We also found Louse Town which was the red light district across the Klondike R from Dawson - and much of the paraphernalia associated with that operation. We located the old Klondike Brewery and a stash of old beer bottles with paper labels from 1897. The majority of what we found was photographed - then turned over to the museum in Dawson. Except the gold - -

Today, this entire area has become a national park and activities such as we did back then are no longer allowed.

The YCGC(Yukon Consolidated Gold Corp) who bought all the claims on Bonanza Cr back in the '20's & '30's resold/leased them out to private parties in the 1970's when gold prices increased. Now you don't dare venture off the road going up Bonanza Cr for fear of being shot for trespassing on a private gold claim.

 

[5030]

Many years ago when I was an Eagle Scout, I was hiking alone in the Allegheny national Forest and came across a pair of mens white underwear hanging in a tree in the woods, far away from civilization. Happened to return to the same spot a couple years later and they were gone. I guess someone was doing their laundry.... Natures way...lol

 

[Mace Canute]

While living in Alaska we made three trips to Dawson, YT. This was in the late '60's. While scouting/searching we found old cabins, old guns, very valuable old bottles, old newspapers and after moving a mountain of black sand - a very small amount of gold. We also found Louse Town which was the red light district across the Klondike R from Dawson - and much of the paraphernalia associated with that operation. We located the old Klondike Brewery and a stash of old beer bottles with paper labels from 1897. The majority of what we found was photographed - then turned over to the museum in Dawson. Except the gold - -

Today, this entire area has become a national park and activities such as we did back then are no longer allowed.

The YCGC(Yukon Consolidated Gold Corp) who bought all the claims on Bonanza Cr back in the '20's & '30's resold/leased them out to private parties in the 1970's when gold prices increased. Now you don't dare venture off the road going up Bonanza Cr for fear of being shot for trespassing on a private gold claim.

I worked for a year in an asbestos mine about 50 miles or so north of Dawson City back in 1972 - 1973 and one rainy summer day for something to do on my day off I went out with a guy who worked there to see his placer gold mine claim a little bit east of Dawson. It was interesting what with the scenery and the remains of an old dredger that mined the creek bed and all but I did find out the guy was seriously "bushed" as we said of those who had spent just a tad too long out in the bush all by themselves!

 

[buckeyefarmer]

property next to our farm has an old rundown hunting cabin with rusted pot belly stove, probably at least 100 yrs old.
old wooden oil tank on a steep hillside, probably from the early 1900's.

Riding horses in the colorado mts, there are lots of old mines and buildings, including a safe.

And on a hike once, I hung a pair of underwear up to dry and forgot them. (just kidding)

 

[Steppenwolfe]

How bad off are the stills? You could silver solder minor holes up,

No need, I've got three brothers working on my house right now who all were bootleggers in their day. The oldest did 15 months federal time when he got caught back in the 80's. This area is well known for its " mountain dew".

 

[PILOON]

Many years ago when I was an Eagle Scout, I was hiking alone in the Allegheny national Forest and came across a pair of mens white underwear hanging in a tree in the woods, far away from civilization. Happened to return to the same spot a couple years later and they were gone. I guess someone was doing their laundry.... Natures way...lol

Guess the person that washed them came back when they were dry.

 

[DrRod]

Back when we rode horses on trails in MD we would occasionally come across daffodils in the woods. Usually, they were growing in an L shaped patch with a well define 90 degree angle. I took this to be the sign of a former home site now grown over but the ole resident's daffodils persist. Sort of a nice way of being remembered.

 

[MossRoad]

Back when we rode horses on trails in MD we would occasionally come across daffodils in the woods. Usually, they were growing in an L shaped patch with a well define 90 degree angle. I took this to be the sign of a former home site now grown over but the ole resident's daffodils persist. Sort of a nice way of being remembered.

There's an old foundation of a house and some barns in the woods on the property next to our. Every spring there's thousands of double daffodils and narcissus in the old flower beds. I've gotten permission to dig them up, so every year I dig out a canvas bagful and plant them around our house and garden. They keep coming back.

 

[oosik]

Mace

You must have worked at the Clinton Creek asbestos mine? Those asbestos trucks were high-balling it down the 'ol dirt road from the mine - going like they were being chased by the devil himself. Our group of five pickups used CB radios to communicate - "here comes another truck". We'd just pull over and let them whiz on by. 1968 was our final trip to Dawson and those wild drivers and their asbestos trucks were still making their runs.

 

[snowbelt geauga]

Found some old logging stuff through the years hunting in north central Pennsylvania. My brother found a school bus on top of one of the mountains.

 

[Ed of all trades]

My family and I were exploring around an old mill that used to be run on the Rivanna River in central Va and dad found a well. He was walking along and the "ground" just dropped out from under him. They had used old boards to cover the well and honeysuckle had grown over it and of course the boards had rotted. He was quick thinking enough to throw himself forward and we could help him get the rest of the way out of the well as from the waist up he was on the ground with his legs hanging over a 20' hand dug well.

On the far I grew up on was a small hole that was about 3' deep and about 6' x 12'. It was on top of a hill way back in the woods. I asked my dad and he said his grandpa did not know anything about it except that it was very old. My great grandpa fought in the war defending Richmond. I asked my grandpa on my mamas side and he said his daddy said the same thing. That hole always git me to thinking, and wondering, who, when, ect. Ed

 

[DFB]

I have stumbled across a lot of things in woods, often find old motor vehicle parts and you have wonder sometimes who and how they got out there. There was one fellow found an old vehicle while hunting behind the orchard where I work that he thought was worth getting. So he came looking for permission to cut an acess road and pull it out. We never even knew it was back there!

There was school bus made into a hunting camp I discovered one time. Definitely was there a while, and no way was it coming out either... not at least not without cutting a few trees.


New England woods in this area abound in old homesteads way up high on the surrounding mountains. Always stone walls, cellar holes and old wells hidden in the overgrowth certainly have to be careful poking around them. People lived at higher elevations years ago avoiding the damp river bottom land of the steep hillside valleys. My shed has a cool antique door pull and latch assembly I scavenged from an old burned out farmstead near where I used to hunt.


A few things stand out in my memory

A local old guy with beagle everyone knew went missing once. Big search. My ex fil knew all his hunting trails he found him expired dog sitting there with him.

And when we were kids a town street dead ended at the wood line but there was a overgrown road that continued on and at the very end of that was 3 vacant dilapidated houses. We kids always called them haunted houses and would go up after school to investigate them, of course by that time things would start to get dark we would scare the daylights out of ourselves letting our imaginations go wild and to top it off there was a old family cemetery we had to pass both on the way in and on the way back out too! :laughing:

 

[Agvg]

My grandad found this

 

[Citydude]

My grandad found this <img src="http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/files/rural-living/449556-strange-things-found-forest-forumrunner_20151206_183658-png"/>

Amazing find!

 

[Mace Canute]

Mace

You must have worked at the Clinton Creek asbestos mine? Those asbestos trucks were high-balling it down the 'ol dirt road from the mine - going like they were being chased by the devil himself. Our group of five pickups used CB radios to communicate - "here comes another truck". We'd just pull over and let them whiz on by. 1968 was our final trip to Dawson and those wild drivers and their asbestos trucks were still making their runs.

Yeppers...Clinton Creek it was. I worked in the mill as a pressure packer operator for a bit and also as a floorwalker. Good money at the time.

One of those wild drivers almost got himself and a couple of other drivers on the wrong side of a mother bear one fine summer day. He saw a young cub at the trailer camp where the truckers used to stay, grabbed it and tried to pull it inside one of the trailers. Of course as soon as he grabbed it, it started to make as much noise as it could and the momma bear heard and came running. Fortunately the driver let go of the cub before he got it inside. Everyone figured if he had got the cub inside and shut the door the old momma bear would have gone through it in a heartbeat and likely anyone inside would have either been killed or seriously hurt. He was fired that same day

I remember another time one of the long time workers decided he just had to go into Dawson one winter day. Everybody thought he was nucking futs because of the stormy weather but off he went in his Vega. He was making good time apparently because he drove into the back end of one of a semi trailer hauling out a load of asbestos and got wedged under the not-as-flimsy-as-they-look rear bumpers on the trailer. He got dragged about 20 miles apparently until the driver stopped in Dawson.

 

[stuckmotor]

It sounds to me like the hole might have been the remains of a half bermed root cellar.

 

[Ed of all trades]

It sounds to me like the hole might have been the remains of a half bermed root cellar.

I figured the same thing. Likely under the floor of the cabin that they got to trough a trap door. Could be anything but that is my guess. I like to think about who it was and what life was like for them. Makes me think my heated and air conditioned house be pretty good after all. Ed

 

[Paddy]

Once a a young boy, my friend and I were walking a rail road through farm fields and woods. We came upon what must have been a train derailment near a small bridge. The "goods" were still there but the cardboard cartons long rotted off. It was a shipment of canned tomatoes and Ketchup. The cans were rusty and the Ketchup bottles had no labels. We spent the next hour or so throwing Ketchup and cans of tomatoes against that bridge abutment. Too much fun for a 10 year old!