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Beaver, darn! LbNA #21098 (ARCHIVED)

Owner:Adoptable
Plant date:Mar 28, 2006
Location:
City:New Holland
County:Pickaway
State:Ohio
Boxes:1
Planted by:Pioneer Spirit
Found by: curious geroge
Last found:Aug 21, 2007
Status:FFFFFFOFFr
Last edited:Mar 28, 2006
Bring stamp pad and pen/pencil
Handmade stamp.
Difficulty: Easy
Handicap: Easy, assistant required to retrive from off trail area. Beware of multiflora rose thorns. This area is not on a real trail and weeds grow up quickly in spring.

Incorrectly listed as Fayette county, the county line is about 1/4 mile west.

This box is part of my “Re-living the past” series. This is for the Summer of ‘88 when I was very active in the hunting areas of Deer Creek State Park at points farthest from the normal tourist areas and away from other groundhog hunters.

During the early part of 1988, I spent many hours in the fields and on the many farm roads in the area encompassed by Deer Creek State Park. The areas described below has changed quite a bit over the years since this time.

This farm road used to travel around through the now over-grown area and up to the creek to a newly built Beaver dam. Remains of the road are no longer visible to me but there is an interesting place near the road to the left of the parking lot where a house once stood. Clues to this house are the masses of old-fashioned flowers, orange day-lilies, that grow in the brush and the grotesquely gnarled, scary looking old tree with the rocks pushed up close to it. In the wet, foggy, mists of late March, the tree looks like a man-eating abomination you would see on a science fiction inspired alien planet. (Wanda letterbox now rests in this tree.)

Located on the outer reaches Deer Creek State Park on Egypt Pike. From route 207, head West for 1.4 miles to an old farm turn off at the edge of some brush and a farm field. If you see Dick road, you are just past the turn off. From the red “No vehicles beyond this point sign”, walk 11 paces at 105 degrees to where the farm road enters the overgrown brush.

Another 16 paces should bring you to what looks like a three foot high dead Ant hill. Another 10 paces to the right of the hill brings you to a small grassy/mossy patch crossed by a couple deer trails. 3 paces a 190 degrees takes you to a small tree with ‘Beaver, Darn!’ hidden in the hollow crotch a couple feet from the ground. If you reach the creek or the green pole-mounted Duck nest box, you’ve gone too far.

Look for a couple old bottles at the base and a farm implement piece wedged in a small tree 10 feet away pointing to the target tree. A Deer shoulder blade is in another tree also point to the target tree, the bone will not last long as other critters love to gnaw on them.

After stamping and re-hiding the pill bottle-letter pouch combo, walk over to the creek and look at the several unused beaver dam remains that run up the creek. I’m not certain if any active dams remain along this creek but I saw a large, fat Raccoon on the opposite bank.

This area is not handicap accessible, but a helper can retrieve the box for you in under two minutes from the parking area.