10 August 2009

3 Mile Nature Walk...

Went for a 3 mile walk. The first 1-1/2 miles I kept to the asphalt biking trail, then at the halfway point I decided to walk back on the horse trail. More shade and more flowers to pick for a bouquet!

About half a mile from home there is an old cemetery which I mentioned in another post recently. I've never walked into it because I wasn't sure if it was private or not. I decided since the gates are always open and it's not posted, it might be okay. As it turns out, it's the old Catholic cemetery.



As you can see from the picture, there is a large open lawn area with a cross and a large headstone toward the back of the property. You can see it better if you click on the photo to enlarge it. To the right of the cross you can see a small white object. That's a deer's tail! It's running away from me with it's large white flag up.

I walked to where the cross and headstone are and saw that there was a small roped off area just beyond them. It contained 20-30 very old graves marked by little stones which were flush with the grass and almost covered over. The exception was one large stone next to the border fence. It looked like it had been carved using very primitive tools and the letters carved in it were very crude. It looked like something you would see in an old Irish churchyard. Very interesting. The large new headstone you can see from the trail was apparently placed there fairly recently and lists the names of all of the people buried in the little plot. It also bore the name of Our Lady of the Pines Catholic Church, which is the local Catholic church which has two larger plots, one adjacent to our land and the other across the road from us, next to the lake.

Most of the graves in the little cemetery were from the 1920's and 30's. I thought it was really interesting. I wonder if it's okay for me to go into the roped off area and take a closer look at the headstones? I'll have to check into that. There is an open space in the rope and I'm sure they go in there with a lawnmower so maybe it would be okay. I'd like to get a photo of that big stone. I never knew I was so interested in cemeteries!

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