Outdoor columnist Dan Geddings: 'You're in a mudhole'

The ground was wet and soft but not boggy. It had rained the night before, and the temporary road was saturated. I didn't want to make more ruts, so I parked at the highway and walked onto the property. There had been so much rain I wondered if the ground would ever dry.

Deer tracks were punched into the soft black earth at regular intervals. About halfway down the road, I was surprised to see turkey tracks out in the plowed corn field. The tracks led on toward the highway and a distant piney woodland.

The land here is flat but has just enough slope across its expanse to shed runoff toward an interior farm ditch. That ditch drains to a bigger ditch at the highway. Even after the heaviest rains there are no puddles of standing water on the property. The soil maps indicate that there is a high-water table, so the land drains slowly.

The field had been plowed back in the fall after the corn had been harvested, and the heavy machinery had made some ruts out in the field near the end of the ditch. Now these ruts held some shallow rainwater. Jack snipes flushed from the ruts and wheeled around the wide open field before settling back on the far end of the ditch.

We acquired the property late last year and had been unable to do much with it due to the weather. Constant rains limited our activities. It is our intention to build new homes here. Sort of a family compound. We want to build ponds, plant pine trees, gardens, and more. There will be much work to do. There's room for wildlife, too. Food plots are planned, and some natural wildlife habitat will be established in what was once an agricultural field.

But on this day in early January, all I could do was look and dream. The house will go there. The pond there. A food plot will be tucked in over there.

Out on the highway I noticed a passing car had slowed. The driver leaned out the window and yelled, "You're in a mudhole." Then he laughed and sped on down the road. I just waved and thought to myself, "You might be right, but we know how to whip it."

The first thing needed is patience. We've needed more favorable conditions. We knew that the rains and cooler weather would eventually end. Our family has been in the construction business for a long time, and we have the knowledge and experience to manage and build things.

Once we got a break in the weather, we were able to do some temporary ditching and roadway grading. Better conditions allowed construction of a permanent access road. Homesites have been established and a big garden. We were too late this year to get the trees planted, but they will go in this winter. A small pond has been dug and another bigger one started. I'll be installing a flashboard riser to manage the larger pond. Wood duck nest boxes will be installed. We've already got a pair of Canada geese using the smaller pond.

The deer are tolerating our presence. They roam the grounds at night and are sampling some of the garden plants. Bobwhite quail are whistling from the weedy ground cover and are seen running across the roads. I will try to keep some of the land managed for them.

Lately, dust is kicked up when we drive into the property. I guess we'll be praying for rain before too long. That's just the nature of men.

Walking the land, I've picked up some pieces of porcelain dishware, pieces of bricks and an old plow point. It is the evidence that people lived here long before we came along. They probably cleared and farmed the land. It wasn't a mudhole to them, and it isn't to me and my family. It will be our home.

Email Dan Geddings at cdgeddings@gmail.com.