WOODLAND PATHS

Lately we've been discussing the idea of cutting a few paths through the woods. These woodland paths would allow us to take walks year-round, not only in the fall when the leaves have fallen and the brambles have died back to the ground. Now we only have to determine our favorite routes and mark the trees with orange tape. Our landscape contractor will then follow the markings with his bobcat, mowing down the herbaceous and woody material in its way. Marking a path, however, is easier said than done. Our point of entry into the woods is mostly the same, just west of the shed, but we always come out, unintentionally, in a different spot. Sometimes we find a deer path to follow for a time or don wellies and walk the stream until the brush becomes too thick to continue. See below for a few woodland path inspiration images, from grand gestures like Warren Manning's birch allee at Stan Hywet Hall in Ohio, to the smaller interventions such as Susan Child's jagged boardwalk in Vermont that ends almost as quickly as it begins.