Age Isn’t Always Just A Number

Sometimes your muscles and bones remind you that you’re not 18 anymore, you really are getting old.

Motrin is my friend.  Usually in 800 milligram amounts.  Why, you ask?  Because sometimes the areas we pin hunt are really rugged areas, like this:

            

The picture doesn’t do justice to this twenty five foot deep ravine, choked with fallen trees and brush.  Of course, the boundary line went right through it, and so did we.  Very carefully.

Fortunately, there were no spills.  Here.  I did take quite a digger face plant on ground that was more level and where there was no reason for the fall.  Except that I’m clumsy, or getting old and the feet don’t lift as easily as they used to.

One thing we’ve found very helpful is hiking poles.  I have a pair that I got in Finland some years back.  I almost gave them away, thinking who’d need them?  Somehow, they ended up in the Journey’s storage compartment for use someday. Well, that day came and they sure are handy.  Marti uses one and I use the other.  We still have other gear we carry when we pin hunt, so only one hand is available for the pole.

The other useful item we’ve been able to use is fellow volunteer Laura.

                

Having her along helping us has actually increased the ground we cover and pins we find.  She has some pretty sharp (read: younger) eyes and has been able to find pins and tree markings a bit faster than we do.

We have our routine down to a science, once we locate the trees that have special markings indicating a nearby pin, I use the metal detector to locate it and then often have to dig through leaves and dirt to expose it.  Then  Laura jumps in and wraps the pin with plastic tape (to make the pin easier to find for the next hunters in the next survey, about five years in the future).

               

Marti is the “Map Maven”.  She has the map that is our guide to the areas we’re checking.  As the pin is wrapped, she crosses the located pin off the list as “found” and points us in the next direction.

              

Long sleeves, long paints, gloves and orange vests are part of our working outfits.  The orange vest are for protection from hunters, it is hunting season around here.

Every area we survey, we find encroachments onto Corps land, like this driveway.   Marti is standing next to the truck  where the property line is and I’m taking the picture from where the next pin is located.  Drawing a straight line between Marti and where I’m standing, you can see someone needs to relocate a part of their driveway.

               

We’ve been averaging 4 to 5 miles of hiking through all kinds of terrain every time we pin hunt.  It’s a lot of fun and very satisfying work.  Especially when there is plenty of Motrin to come home to…  ;c)

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