In several of these columns, I've described events happening "up on the sandhill we call home."
From the threatened Blandings turtle crossing through the yard, to the screetch owl in the rafters of the barn, to the adventure of cutting a wasp nest out of a tree in the llama pasture, a lot of nature happened on that sandy hill outside of Hortonville.
But we no longer call the sandhill home.
Plans for a four-lane highway bypass across the road, running through the farm field where I counted cranes, watched tom turkeys in full display and saw deer gather by the dozens in the evening, was not something we cared to hang around to witness. That and thoughts of growing older in a two-story house with the maintenance of an oak woods sent us looking for a new place in the country.
