Leave Nothing But Footprints – #5 My Backyard Trails
This is my contribution for Heaven’s Sunshine’s weekly challenge, “One Step At A Time”.
So come along and hike with me, one step at a time!
Donna’s Backyard Trails, Bozman, Maryland~~
A peek at my ‘backyard trails’ that includes roaming my four neighbors’ vast properties. I am so thankful for their permissions!
This specific nature walk was last week when grandson, Jaxon (9 yo), visited us during Easter break. He loves nature walking and birding with me. This time he wanted to include “shed-hunting”, a first for me lol. Now he’s the teacher, telling me what to look for, and telling me we needed to sweep the farm fields too, not just the borders and woods. Okey dokey!
So let’s begin and follow one of my property deer trails….
that pop’s out to one of my neighbor’s farm field.
Jaxon is sure there’s a shed out there in the middle of that seven acres, so we walked and swept much of it. No sheds, but we enjoyed the sights and sounds of birds, wildlife footprints, and the several critter ‘dens’ we found dug.
We headed back to my little deer trail and continued our walk.
Below you can see the beginning of one of my “trails” that’s an almost mile-long private drive to my four neighbors’ vast waterfront properties.
At the bend above, to the left is the below marsh behind our property.
And to the right is the below tidal marsh pond that Jaxon and I love, love roaming around!
That yellow in the water is our Spring pollen that has been falling heavily and drifted in with the tides. Yuk.
Continuing on up the driveway, there are two more plats of farm fields, another marsh, many sections of woods and brush/thickets. Jaxon wanted to sweep the next farm field, so we did, again with no luck. We then followed a few deer trails in and out of the woods surrounding the second marsh. Birds were flitting about!
Jaxon in bird action!
Suddenly…..
What????!!!!!
Jaxon found a five-point shed!
(his 4th shed found to date)
We pretty much ended our walk there lol, Jaxon was too excited and wanted to go back and show Pop Pop and facetime Mom & Dad!
For this Grammy, this just became another top nature walk I’ll never forget. 😊
Since our walk also included birding, I’ll share a bird photo by each of us to round out this wonderful walk that recorded as 0.76 miles and 26 bird species total.
Tree Swallow
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Take a hike, short or long, one step at a time.
Mother Nature promises to reward you!
And please remember~~
Leave nothing but footprints.
Kill nothing but time.
Bay Photos by Donna 
Ah, Jaxon I would be more than pleased to make that find. Your Gran and you had a fine time in some gorgeous nature. I like the birds, too.
Thank you, Sandy! We went back out to look for the ‘other’ matching shed, they say sometimes the two can be laying close together. But no luck. Jaxon said it’s out there, we’ll find it next time. 😁
The next birding generation is hooked! Good job. 👍🏼 👏🏼
Thank you, Eliza! I’ve got me a great sidekick! 😁
Looks like you have a competitor there, Donna. Great photo Jaxon and a fabulous find! 👍👍😊
Yes, I do, Mike! 😉 And I will be sure to show Jaxon yours and everyone else’s comments!! 😊
Jaxon is a little like Barbara Rodgers’ granddaughter Katie who also loves nature and liked hikes with her grandparents, even taking photos with an iPad. How fun Jaxon has found four antler sheds … next thing you know, he will be starting a nature blog like yours – you should encourage him. He is one of the “grands” that give you the fun birdseed treats. You are lucky that your neighbors don’t mind you going there for hiking and photographs.
Jaxon is like Barbara’s granddaughter, Katie! He has an appreciation for nature and it’s a fab connection for me with him, as is for Barbara with Katie. Did you know Barbara is a “Grammy” too?!! 😉
Donna, as I was reading this post about you and Jaxon, I recalled a post about Barbara, Tim and Katie on a nature hike, maybe for Spring break a few years ago. Katie was showing Barbara plants and taking photos of them with her iPad. They had a great time, just like you did with Jaxon. Yes, I did know and how fulfilling this is for both of you.
Jaxon also started using his iPad taking photos couple years ago, then I got him binoculars two Christmas’ ago, this past Christmas I got him the camera. You know what else he likes taking photos of? Tesla Cyber Trucks! I do not know why, we all don’t know why, but he is fascinated with them. And dead critters! Boys!! 😂
That’s funny about those Tesla Cyber trucks – they are so huge. I saw he had binoculars and a camera in the post – this is great you are encouraging him Donna. You and Jaxon will make a great team, birding together, from photos to eBird lists!
🥰
This post had me smiling the whole way through, especially the pics you got of Jaxon. The smiles and excitement on his face is priceless.
I am happy you enjoyed it, Pepper! The smiles of our grandchildren are indeed priceless 😊
loved this story. What a special time with your grandson who shares your interests.
Thank you, he has quickly become my nature sidekick!
Gran starting him young, with birding and photos. Such a sweet post. Thanks for giving us a peek into your time together
Thank you, Sue! I am so happy he has a love for nature, it makes for special times for just the two of us. Baseball tossing and R/C trucks is for Pop Pop! 😉
That is a wonderful miles to bird ratio.
I am blessed! I am creating a sign for our property entrance, going to call our property “Birds Eye View”. 🙂
A very appropriate name.
☺️
Oh what an amazing walk you and Jaxon had! It’s so nice that his new interest in sheds works so well with his interest in birds, and it looks like he has your knack for photography, too, Grammy. 🙂 He sounds like a great kid to share a nice long walk with. How did you count the miles and the number of bird species? With an app? Thank you for sharing this wonderful outing, Donna!
I am happy you enjoyed my post, Barbara, I know you have similar wonderful walks with Katie! I am tickled Jaxon is a nature lover, and an excellent sidekick! With the recent sighting/post of my Painted Bunting, he is so wishing he could get over to our house so I could take him to see it, they live 2 hours away. (It’s still at my friend’s as of yesterday.) For miles logged & bird species, I use the eBird app on my phone for GPS tracking/length and for count/add birds as I see them. You can run it simultaneously with the Merlin app that listens/IDs birds.
Thanks for the tip!
So much to get to discover new things with your grandson. It is so nice that he likes nature & birding and he has the perfect teacher with him. Looks like a lot of fun and a few very nice birds. (Suzanne)
Thank you, Suzanne! We moved to our present property couple years ago and I couldn’t be more happier with being able to walk out the back door and am instantly immersed in nature and remoteness. Not like your remoteness trips LOL but for me, I rarely see my neighbors, three of them aren’t even full-time residents. All the grandsons love going to the marsh pond, and looking for wildlife, but Jaxon’s my first to really love nature. He’s a great sidekick!
I bet he is looking forward to next time!
He said he’s going to move in with us this summer, lol. This morning, I went walking/birding and couldn’t help myself from keeping an eye out for another shed. 🤣
What a great friendship!
What a wonderful time! And what a blessing to be surrounded by so much beauty!
I am blessed and thankful!
The best kind of walk, Donna, with your grandson 😊. You live in a beautiful area and so glad Jaxon found the antlers!
Thank you, Belinda! Jaxon is already trying to come spend the night again, he’s a great nature sidekick! Funny the last few mornings, I’m scanning for antlers now too 😂
What a wonderful trip, Donna. Looks like Jaxon is following in your footsteps! Also, looks like he is carrying a serious camera and binoculars. Had to laugh. I was looking for a shed-shed, not an antler shed.
Jaxon and you would have loved the mile long nature trail I created through the National Forest our property backed up to in Oregon filled with birds and including bears, cougars, foxes, coyotes, etc. (It also came with an old miner’s cave.)
My grandson sidekick is pretty cool! Two years ago I bought him the binoculars for Christmas and the camera this past Christmas. He takes good care of them, too. Ha ha on the shed-shed. Since we found that antler, I now scan for antlers when birding. 😂
We would both indeed love the mile long nature trail you created!! All that exploring, all the sights and sounds!! I have never made it to the three states on the west coast, although we had planned to. We retired & traveled several years in a motorhome before covid then throughout covid. We were going to do a summer 4-5 month N/S or S/N west coast trip, but other exciting destination plans interrupted. 😊
Sounds like he is cool, Donna. I’m not claiming cool here, but he also sounds a lot like me when I was his age.
Peggy and I have travelled extensively in an RV. We had a Pleaure Way Van that we wandered in for 20 years (actually 2 vans). That included 4 years of full timing. When we moved out here, we bought an F150 and a small, 22 foot Imagine trailer. We’ve now made three 4-5 month 10,000 mile trips in it over the past 3 years. We are taking one of our grandkids to Scotland this year, and another one to Greece, so the RV trip probably won’t happen. 🙄
Lucky grandkids! I know you’ve had loads of fun with all those travels and adventures. We sold our last RV, a motorhome, four years ago to plants roots again, and I missed the grandboys too much. Our last was a 45′ tag axle pulling a stacker trailer with my car, golf cart, 2 electric bikes and all the other crap we ‘needed’. 😁 Rick was set up for tools/etc so he could work on things as we traveled. It wasn’t ideal for off-grid anymore, but we still had a lot of great treks, each year we were doing 7-10,000 miles round trips from Delaware. We had so much fun! We kinda miss the adventures now and was just recently talking about doing a round trip adventure for 4-6 weeks in our car to out west and back in maybe two years from now. Rick loved the old western town visits.
We always stayed small, Donna. Mainly because it made driving easier and gave us the ability to get into a lot more places. We switched from our Pleasure Way vans to our Imagine trailer 4 years ago because we wanted to be able to park it and explore in our truck. We may do what you are talking about next.