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- Apr 5, 2011
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All of my life I have treasured solitude in wild places. Even as a small boy I spend hours alone in the woods or at "my" woodland pond with a willow pole and a can of worms.
That may explain why my years at The Hideout have been the most stress free and peaceful years of my life.
I bought The Hideout, in partnership with #1 daughter and her friend, in January of 1990. It was 115 acres of fallow rangeland with 2 ponds ("tanks" in Texas) and about 30 pecan trees, half volunteers. There was a 5.5 acre plot that it surrounded that I bought in '94, making it a bit over 120 acres. About 40 acres are wooded.
Many years ago it was a cotton farm. After the boll weevil plague in early 20th century it tried to be a truck farm but got seriously eroded. During the depression and accompanying drought the CCC terraced it and put in stone drainage gates to arrest further erosion.
It is located about 50 miles west of Ft. Worth, near a small (pop. 35) community that has a Post Office and a VFD. No commercial enterprises, even today.
In early '93 I became intolerant of living in the city, bought myself a mobile home and settled on our land.
My first surprise was the profusion of wildflowers. Acres glowed golden red, first "indian" paintbrush, then gaillardia (locally known as indian blanket). Plum and pear trees lit up the landscape like a park. Dozens of other varieties took their turns in the range grasses. No bluebonnets. I don't know why.
I was not surprised by quiet. The first year my neighbor, who lived on the 5.5acre "island", raised fighting cocks. Their crowing started an hour before dawn and persisted long after sunset. I bought him out after a year and the birds left with him. I installed a custom built doublewide on it in '99.
Since then it is quiet; usually so quiet that you can hear your own heartbeat. Yes, you can hear rare vehicles on the highway a half mile away and the occasional aircraft. My nearest neighbor is a pilot and has an airstrip.
The flowers are complemented by birds; local birds and seasonal birds. Over the years the summer population of hummingbirds that I feed has grown to dozens, with migrating transients building it to hundreds for brief periods. There is also a wintering flock of mixed finches, mostly goldfinches, that has grown to about a hundred. They, along with local birds, consume about 20# of sunflower seeds a week.
Resident populations of deer, coyote, bobcat, 'coon, turkey, snakes and armadillo furnish entertaining critter watching. I have even made passing acquaintance with a few individuals. Flower was a skunk that lived in my machine shed for a few years, and Tripod was a three legged coyote that happened by regularly for about 10 years. Peter cottontail lives under my front porch.
For years I spent hours roaming the woods and fields, noting the flowers and critter abodes. I also spent hours at the pond, feeding and catching the catfish and sometimes just sitting and marveling at the animals and birds.
The larger pond had a good population of channel cat that furnished grandbuddies and me good sport and better dining. The newer, upgraded, pond has bass and bluegill.
Then, a few years ago, I had major surgery from which I didn't fully recover. I use a cane and don't roam the woods and fields any more. I sit on my front porch mornings and evenings and enjoy a wonderful view. I kept an acre and a half and sold the rest of the Hideout to my good neighbor for raising cattle. Nothing has changed except I now have more critters to watch.
This morning I went out when it was still dark. I listened to the birds awakening. An owl hooted. As the light increased a doe minced her way across the field and the daily coyote serenade rose from several directions. They sing in the evening, too. Sometimes so close they seem to be in my front yard.
Jenny wren is nesting in the little house nailed up to one of the porch posts. She came out and danced up and down the rail, scolding and flicking that tail. Can anyone watch a wren without smiling?
Soon the hummers will start arriving and boldly hovering a foot from my face as if to challenge (or greet?) me.
I still have unlimited access to the pond. I have made a path for my car to go up there and will be there, come Spring, challenging the bass and bluegills with my fly rod. I will also stretch out in my canvas chair, deposit a worm and a bobber out there and reminisce about doing almost exactly the same thing at "my" woodland pond some 70 years ago.
If I dreamed, then, of solitude in a wild place, my dream is realized.
[EDITOR'S NOTE] Find all your fishing supplies at iboats.com
(JB Cornwell writes from "The Hideout" in Whitt, TX, and is also an expert moderator, instructor, and fountain-of-knowledge in the iboats.com Boating Forums, where he may occasionally share a yarn of his own.)