Filed under: Lease Property
These photographs are from the day my Dad and I constructed a quaint little tree stand in the crotch of those two branches in that rather large oak tree. This construction was occurring on land that I leased along with my brother-in-law and a handful of Kentucky State Troopers. I intentionally included the picture of my old truck to demonstrate the topography of this land: Of 800 total acres, that strip of grass and brush represents roughly the flattest land on the entire property. Tennessee Gas owns the pipeline that runs the entire length of the property, and they were so kind to come along and clear that brush every five years. The remainder of the land consisted of steep hills and some of the thickest tracts of woodland that I’ve ever seen. It could be described (dubiously) as a “bow-hunter’s paradise” since that’s the only means of hunting that the land really permitted.
I have often written on the relationships that Appalachains have with the land – working with the land, making the land work for you – and nothing in my life exemplified the concept of making the land work for you more than my experiences with this property. As I alluded to, this land left its wildlife inhabitants a definite home-court advantage with its vegetation and topography. To overcome this, I (and the others on the lease) had to adapt and become very creative indeed in our approach to successfully hunt this property. In this way I believe that we all identified with the truly Appalachian experience of finding innovative solutions to problems presented by a stubborn landscape.
