My father-in-law and his sons, excluding my husband who didn’t exist then, built the cabin near Tionesta, PA where we hunt in 1950, the year of the big snow. It seems to have been cobbled together by a lot of found resources, and it’s not a showplace, but it still stands and it has a functioning kitchen and bathroom, so I can’t complain—except for that mold smell that accumulates when it’s closed up. Ted says he likes the smell. Whatever.
That’s one piece of history.
Over on the hill where we hunt, there are a few others. The land is owned by the Collins Company, and they still log the hills, but they also allow hunting there. You can read the official Collins history here; I’m going to show what’s left of that history that we encounter every year.
Ted calls the ruins of the Collins house, the apple orchard, because of the apple trees around it. Some of them don’t look so good, but then you see some apple blossoms that indicate they are hanging on. We often stop and sit on the house foundation to eat lunch. It’s at the top of the hill, from which we sometimes walk down the winding path that the Collins must have taken in their buggies. That must have been a heck of a ride.
The other spot where we see history, I guess more recent history, is down at the bottom of one of the hills, where there are the remains of some oil drilling. I don’t know the details. Ted does, but he is currently AWOL on this blog. I guess the photos speak for themselves.
Forests, Fields, and Water 