Farther down the creek, which empties into Goss' Fork (called "Gossy" by most local folks), we visited the amazing ice cave. This cave gives me the overwhelming feeling that people have lived or sheltered here in the past. Native Americans? Probably. Early settlers? Likely. Escaping slaves following the Underground Railroad route? Perhaps even more likely, since we know the route went right through our township. Until 1863, the state across the Ohio River from us, just 10 or so miles away, was Virginia, not West Virginia as it is now. And the Ohio River was considered a boundary between "slave" and "free" states.
I always expect to see flint arrowheads or even cave paintings in the ice cave, though I've never found either one. Chet explored the nooks and crannies while Liam broke off and tasted icicles. Jules and I just soaked up the moment inside the cave, and admired a perfect phoebe nest from last summer, built in the only part of the cave wall that a black snake could not get to.
Chet sniff the entrance to the ice cave.Inside the ice cave, looking out. The sunlight in the icicles was brilliant.
After a tough slog up the western hill, we found some serious pileated woodpecker workings. Our entire walk was accompanied by a soundtrack of pileated (and other woodpeckers') drumming and calling. We've been monitoring the pileateds' work on an old sassafras tree near our southern fenceline. One male pileated was drumming so loudly and sharply that it sounded just like a machine gun being fired. He's found himself a really resonate drumming site. We can hear him for a mile.
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