The balmy fall afternoon was almost summer-like, and between the sounds of children at play, frogs sang from the creek bank and a pair of mourning doves cooed a melancholy refrain in the distance.

A wet weather stream meanders through the middle, and here and there Spruce trees pierce the dense canopy of briars, competing for the sunshine and littering the ravine floor with a luxurious carpet of dry needles.  Several of the evergreens sport tree-forts assembled from lumber the children have salvaged from the wreckage of an abandoned barn.  A network of paths and tunnels connect the forts with each other and the outer banks. The balmy fall afternoon was almost summer-like, and between the sounds of children at play, frogs sang from the creek bank and a pair of mourning doves cooed a melancholy refrain in the distance.  A well-traveled trail formed several switchbacks during its’ decent down the steep bank and ended abruptly at a small clearing just inside the thicket. From this point on, the four of us would have to crawl on our hands and knees.  Earlier in the season, our efforts might have been rewarded with a bounty of juicy blackberries.  The berries were long gone, but the sharp thorns remained, camouflaged by the thick purple foliage of an extended Indian summer.  Despite our best efforts, the thorns snatched at our clothes, and periodically resulted in a “youch!” and a grimace, as a determined thorn found it’s mark and pierced somebody’s hide.   OBIE’S QUEST, SC