Smallmouth Fishing on South Sylamore Creek; Mountain View, AR

4th of July, 2008

Autoharp and ukulele duo; Mountain View, Arkansas

We're gearing up for the big time - from the porch to the Sqaure (Big plays a pretty mean ice cup)

tomato pest

can you tell the front end from the back end?

$12k Lawn Mower: bushhogging our nature trail

When we moved here in the winter, we found a half mile trail around our property perimeter. It passes three pretty pastures and heads to the little creek behind us. In the winter it was easy to naviagte. It has been impossible to breach in the summer. And boy are there some ticks; epic amounts. Our neighbor brough over one very fancy tractor and we're on our way to blazing our own little nature trail.

videos of the homebase

entrance

flowers out front

Piney Creeks District: Ozark National Forest

We strayed away from our home turf and explored West. Memorial Day weekend at Richland Creek we decided; somewhere new. It is ClOSED for an undetermined amount of time due to the severe Spring Floods. The roads are washed out and trees are washed down. Luckily the parade road guard alerted us to this fact while we were waiting for the Whitt Springs Parade to pass.




He advised us to trek further West and into the Piney Creeks valley for fishing and dirt biking. We drove down a long FS road and pulled into the last remote campsite available. A couple was there for an afternoon of fishing. They let us pull in and pitch tent.



This was the snakiest place I have ever seen aside from the Temple of Doom.




We got to know and like these folks. The lady is from just down the road on Moccasin Creek and she was up for the afternoon . The more we heard about her home, the more we wanted to go see it. She owns 40 acres of a hollow that are grandfathered into the National Forest. It is a apart of the old Paige Homestead. The Paiges were from Mississippi and resettled into Moccasin Creek in the mid 1800s. Supposedly a couple of hundred people lived down in the hollow - and this is just hard for me to imagine.








This valley is so remote. The homestead has a home built in the 50's and numerous outbuildings on it from the mid 1800s and pastures and more swimming holes than one could ever hit in a weekend. They fed us and toured us around and there was no place else I'd rather be!







Unlike the Sylamore District of the Ozark National Forest, there were biting flying insects here and I'm not accustomed to that!

Arkansas Laws on Creek/River Pollution and dumping and who to contact

Popular opinion states that you can dump whatever you want in Arkansas, wherever you want. Even a local elected dignitary told us that if it’s on private property, you can almost forget about it. The renegade culture in Arkansas is part of its inherent charm; the trash ain’t so cute. I spoke with a chief inspector at the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality today. He stated it is ILLEGAL to dump poultry or livestock into any stream. If you find instances of livestock or poultry (even their waste) you call this number to report it to the inspector: 501.907.2400. If you find solid waste like appliances, autos, household trash go here to find your local inspector. http://www.adeq.state.ar.us/ . The water guys I spoke with at ADEQ deferred to the solid waste guys. I have a query into them now.