My WIldlife Viewing Tower

Between spinal stenosis, leukemia, and being sick more often than not from my medications, I just can't get around very well anymore.  If I am on soft ground I can stand up for maybe 20 minutes.  If I am in the house, I may go ten, but if I am on a hard floor like in Walmart or Lowes, five is the best I can do.  I either take my wheelchair of use one of their supplied motorized buggies.  It sure beats sitting in the truck while my wife is getting groceries.  

As some of you know, I live in the mountains.  My land is steep and thick with pines and mountain laurel.  It is hard enough to get around on if one is healthy, but in my shape I can't do it.  Not on foot, anyway.  

My property had been logged before I bought it, and there are logging roads going all over the place.  I can get a truck some places, but mostly I use my Honda Rubicon ATV.  It is my "Hov-a-round" for my property.  I still can't get everywhere, but without it, I would be stuck at the house all the time.  I just would not be very happy if I could not get up on a ridge and look around some once in a while.

I even built a special structure on my place so I could enjoy the woods any time I want.  Actually, my wife, daughter and two nephews built it for me.  I can't do that kind of stuff anymore.  All I can do is supervise, and sometimes the supervised don't like me super imposing my managing skills.  So, nobody likes the boss.  Who cares?  HA!  

Anyway, at the top is a picture of my favorite place on my property.  It is my tower stand.  Since I cannot climb a ladder anymore, a walkway was installed.  All I have to do is drive up, park, step onto the walkway, meander about twelve feet into my tower, and take a seat.  Most of the time I can not sit there very long as my back succumbs to the pain of sitting on the chair, but what little time I can be there is very enjoyable.  I should have made it big enough for a recliner!  I also should have made the door and the walkway big enough for a wheelchair in the even I won't be able to walk at all one day.  As I keep getting worse, I feel that is a probability.

 I have seen lots of deer while sitting in my tower blind.  I have also watched coyotes, raccoons, grouse, and all kind of birds.  Turkeys like to come through there occasionally, but I have not seen any there yet since we built the stand a couple years ago.  I just have not been there at the right time.  Below is a picture I took recently from inside the blind.  That is a piece of netting in the top right corner.   You can see the poplars getting some green leaves and the red buds are flowering.  I do not know why the are called red bud.  They should be called pink bud.  But I didn't name them.  I just like looking at it.