Now that the woods are becoming somewhat open, it is easier to walk through them. I was walking cross country in the area of the old Fighting Creek Community just a few miles west of the Sugarland and happened upon an abandoned wagon road. Both sides were lined with stacked fieldstones. The road was littered with fallen and new trees as the forest slowly reclaimed this roadway that served the people who lived in these hills. Here and there one can still find four piles of stone in a rectangle with a larger pile along one edge: all that remains of a log cabin and its chimney. The inhabitants of Fighting Creek are long gone but this wagon road served them until 60 years ago. The care that was taken in its construction seemed to indicate it was a main thoroughfare.
Those ferns, known locally as Christmas Ferns, will remain green throughout the winter, even on Christmas day which gives them their name.