Big River State Management Area

My boyfriend and I leashed the dogs up to explore a new find today - the Big River State Management Area is a 8319 acre forest for hunting, hiking, fishing, bird-watching, and much more.

We didn't expect it to be as much of a labyrinth as it was and we barely made it out of the woods in time for sunset, but the dogs had a great time running around, we had a great time exploring, and it was a very serene place to be.

We ran into three people and one dog in five hours. One was a hunter who I would not have noticed if not for his bright orange safety gear. He was silent as anything - not even the dogs noticed him. He was going through the forest far off the trail and gave us a wide berth. The other two were bikers, far ahead of us and going in a different direction. They had some kind of sighthound running along side them.

We found a couple interesting things, but among them was a historic cemetery that had almost been reclaimed by the forest. WG062 in our state's historic cemetery registry. The lot contains three headstones, though I only saw and photographed two. There were downed trees and the stone wall had collapsed, so it's hard to say what kind of condition or where the third headstone was.

It's something I'd like to go back for. I would have never known it was there if not for London's nosy nose and the collapse in the stone barrier that boxed the headstones in. I think when I go back, I'll clean it up, but we have very specific rules on what to do and how when cleaning up historic cemeteries. It's an all-volunteer job and it's prime time for cleaning and cutting away the brush since we're going into winter.

There were many old stone barriers throughout the hike, which used to be property boundaries - typically for farms. I suspect when the cemetery lot was created, this was all farmland (like most of New England at the time).

Of course, it wouldn't have been a day without TK rubbing on something or bringing something home. He found this downed tree and decided it was The Best Thing in the forest, so he tried to meld with it.

Otherwise, the area was packed with young pine which made the trails very difficult to find and follow for some of the hike, but that's what made it fun.

The boys went home tired and happy and we got to add a great place to our roster.