A five-month-old baby cache hidden in a house of blocks sounds like a good time to us. We will follow Cache Owner hockeydaze to the nursery.
Along our northbound road march today’s version of the blockhouse, with another five acres ready to develop. Originating in Macedonia, the Stavroff name now attaches to law, design, and real estate.
Down the road, Ryan Homes is ready to serve, with we-build-for-you starting at $365,000. Tired and treeless farm land, long bereft of small creatures, calls upon the earth beneath to bear the weight of 240 tons of house per 1,500 square feet. Farmers weigh the cost of turning beloved homesteads over to public parks preservation.
As our geotarget closes in on Marion, brilliant blue above shames grass and brush competing for the Drabbest Shades of Winter. Trees, wake up and shape up. Get dressed! Go green!
Nobody listens. When we stop at Claridon Prairie, tangled masses of grass will not get their hair combed and sit up straight. They are wild things, rising and falling with each summer and winter, over hundreds of seasons, before Ohio was. Caught between road and railroad track, no one bothered to root them out.
Here the tribal nations, steeped in abundance and diversity, called themselves names such as Yellow Hawk, Dove Flower, Crow’s Nest, Morning Dew, Bluebird, Born on the Mountain, and Head of Creek, in their own languages. The world comes alive around us as we hear the names, and imagine all that is no more. Risk, danger, opportunity, and adventure now flatten to flickering images.
Today’s Two-leggeds wander across the prairie, in metal cages, on narrow trails of asphalt or steel, searching through glass for the wonder of pine needles, the joy of sun-washed air, the soothing serenity of silence. Across eons, the land beneath connects us.
Leaving the prairie behind, we admit we are lost, no thanks to our GPS and far-away satellite. We have circled five miles of country block and are still . . . nowhere. When we try to turn around, a friendly farmer indicates that this, and only this, field, is the one where he has intended to turn into all day long, specifically at the exact moment we are turning around. Yes, sir.
Well, there it is. And other unreported comments. We stand on the line of the Greenville Treaty of 1895, running from Cleveland south to Bolivar, then roughly west, where it passes over our feet on its way to Greenville. Pennsylvanians and Virginians made Black Friday look tame as they raced toward a super-sized land sale. This blockhouse was once a fort, now long gone, built to protect and reassure prospective buyers as British and tribal allies threatened war.
The scattered bones of a deer give eerie form to a past still hanging in the air, when Delaware and Shawnee guides found themselves pushed aside by those they had befriended.
The baby emerges, with many friends to play with. We request our playdate.
Time rolls back into the thousands of years. Here burial sites of Ancient Ones, as ancient as the glaciers, have been unearthed, with their distinctive spear points, ornamental shells, and red clay powders.
Like the image of grandmother in a beloved daughter’s smile, we catch a glimpse of what this land once was.
OH Love Of Geocaching 