Pandora's Box

Call it my Pandora's Box. 

We've walked up the hill and are standing on the plateau to the west of the little river valley where we live. 

Every time I pass this circle of trees that bend like a team of football players standing in a huddle, I have wondered what secret they are hiding at their core. 

What do you think? 

Is there a pond at the centre of that thicket of trees?

This concrete structure certainly looks like it was part of some sort of pump apparatus, don't you think?

The house on the property was torn down a few years back to make way for a shiny new subdivision. 

Last year someone still used the farm field to grow corn, but this land's days of producing food are numbered.

Les's Winter Walk Off seemed like the perfect opportunity to solve the mystery: pond or no pond.

Our little expedition of discovery seemed like a simple matter of walking across a field, but as you can see here the snow is still about a foot or more deep. 

Pandora's box indeed! Curiosity sometimes has a price.

With the wild mood swings in the weather, the surface of the snow had a thin crust that only sometimes held our weight. Underneath it was a much less stable layer that was a grainy mix of ice and snow particles.

Snowshoes or cross country skis would definitely have been helpful!

At one point I my left leg sank down to my knee cap and my foot became like a hook trapping me under the weight of the snow. It took the two of us working together to lift me out.

There were however, moments of beauty on our walk.

And here we are at last. 

I was right. The trees were watching over an old farm pond!

The only surprise was how really deep it was.

With this post I am participating in Les's Winter Walk Off challenge. To see winter walks taken by other bloggers please be sure to visit a Tidewater Gardener.