Sledding, Ohio Style

South of Dayton is somewhat hilly. In fact, they refer to our neck of the woods as Far Hills. I can imagine that with the flatness of the overall landscape, that these hills (short as they might be) could have been seen from miles around before buildings were erected to block the view and before the factories came in and fogged up the air. Other than the far hills though, it's pretty flat; except for the occasional Indian mound.

Ancient native peoples that we have very little information about built these mounds all over the midwest. For years, we thought they were all burial mounds. Some were, but excavation has proven that others were not used for burials at all. Some were built to look like animals, like the Serpent Mound and the Eagle Mound. Some were ploughed over by farmers, ignorant of their significance. The ones that are not burials, are considered by the experts to be of some religious significance. Serpent mound for example orients towards significant astrological and solar locations.

Just a few blocks from our house, we have one such mound. It's not much. DH often refers to it as the pile of dirt. I can't get over the age of this pile of dirt though. To me, it is pretty impressive that a people who had to struggle through most of the year just to stay alive hunting and gathering and maybe farming in the good months, would have the ability to plan and build such a structure as even a pile of dirt. What we see of it now is probably lower than the original. The base would have been covered over the years with inches of organic matter, collected in the crevasse formed by it's base. The top, maybe worn a bit by the winds over the flat lands. The top may have been less rounded originally. We'll never know.

but now, it stands as the neighborhood sledding sight. Any kids who walks to this park has to climb the mound and look out from it, summer or winter. Heck, even we adults will often climb up there just for the experience. Somehow, coming back down always seems a bit scarier.

But just to give you easterners an experience of the mound, I thought I would share some pictures from our mid-February snow storm where my friend Sandra and her daughter F came to visit. F got to sled on the mound, but I didn't have my camera then. Later, I brought the littler boys from the neighborhood with Lastborn to have their own turn. We generally don't let them walk to the mound alone. I snapped the pictures to let everyone see the mound.

This one gives you an idea of how flat the neighborhood is.

And here are the kids climbing up to the top. Then, finally, they made it!