rachelhartleysmi
Waldrip Cabin: "Attractive Nuisance"
We hiked and found the Waldrip Cabin today to fulfill the 5/6th graders' "Social History" credit as they are finishing up the requirements to gain their badges as Indiana Junior Master Naturalists. This was one of our last field trips and one of the best.
As we were wandering around the outside of this 100+ year-old structure, we scared a giant black vulture out of its nest in the loft. It perched itself in the oak trees above us and didn't want to leave. It was, by far, the largest (and meanest) vulture I have ever seen.
The entire area, which is now dense woodland on the edge of a giant reservoir (a.k.a. Lake Monroe), was once a poor but functioning family farm full of children and chickens and hogs and fields and orchards. We were led along and told stories by a wonderful, sweet lady who worked with the Department of Natural Resources. She had explored the area and its history extensively, even interviewed the children who had once lived on the farm. As we were leaving, and even as Matt and I were discussing coming back another day (There IS a geocache ...), she asked us not to come back to the cabin if we could help ourselves at all. She said the DNR would actually like to detour people from finding the cabin and have tagged it an official "Attractive Nuisance," i.e., so lovely to explore but so stupidly dangerous.
I was reminded of the old Pike County fire tower of my childhood as it stands tall, missing most of its steps, and surrounded by ten-foot fencing and barbed wire, surely with the same official tag stamped on its paperwork.
She also said they will likely collapse the cabin soon so that it might still represent the history and place albeit no longer standing. The whole thing barely stands as is; it's incredible that it stands at all. Its tin roof is oddly in tact somehow supporting the weight of whole, fallen trees. There is even an old cellar right beside it, made of stacked limestone, ten feet deep and nearly full of rain water. And - YES - the cabin DOES beg you come inside. Even the black vulture seems to whisper a dare: "Try it." The stairs are still there. I feel I NEED to return to this place before the cabin falls ... I have to.
Attractive Nuisance, indeed. Might we all be so lucky as to obtain such a glorious label of distinction before we collapse.
Waldrip Cabin: "Attractive Nuisance"
We hiked and found the Waldrip Cabin today to fulfill the 5/6th graders' "Social History" credit as they are finishing up the requirements to gain their badges as Indiana Junior Master Naturalists. This was one of our last field trips and one of the best.
As we were wandering around the outside of this 100+ year-old structure, we scared a giant black vulture out of its nest in the loft. It perched itself in the oak trees above us and didn't want to leave. It was, by far, the largest (and meanest) vulture I have ever seen.
The entire area, which is now dense woodland on the edge of a giant reservoir (a.k.a. Lake Monroe), was once a poor but functioning family farm full of children and chickens and hogs and fields and orchards. We were led along and told stories by a wonderful, sweet lady who worked with the Department of Natural Resources. She had explored the area and its history extensively, even interviewed the children who had once lived on the farm. As we were leaving, and even as Matt and I were discussing coming back another day (There IS a geocache ...), she asked us not to come back to the cabin if we could help ourselves at all. She said the DNR would actually like to detour people from finding the cabin and have tagged it an official "Attractive Nuisance," i.e., so lovely to explore but so stupidly dangerous.
I was reminded of the old Pike County fire tower of my childhood as it stands tall, missing most of its steps, and surrounded by ten-foot fencing and barbed wire, surely with the same official tag stamped on its paperwork.
She also said they will likely collapse the cabin soon so that it might still represent the history and place albeit no longer standing. The whole thing barely stands as is; it's incredible that it stands at all. Its tin roof is oddly in tact somehow supporting the weight of whole, fallen trees. There is even an old cellar right beside it, made of stacked limestone, ten feet deep and nearly full of rain water. And - YES - the cabin DOES beg you come inside. Even the black vulture seems to whisper a dare: "Try it." The stairs are still there. I feel I NEED to return to this place before the cabin falls ... I have to.
Attractive Nuisance, indeed. Might we all be so lucky as to obtain such a glorious label of distinction before we collapse.