A Trail Through the Woods

In the rural-suburbs, meeting your neighbors can be as challenging as discovering decent pizza.

For three years, Matt and Rin Smith lived one house over, yet it took us until just recently to connect. When we finally did, it felt like catching up with an old friend. Matt and I discovered we have a lot in common… a love of working on our properties, raising awesome kids, riding bikes, trail running, and dabbling in the homesteading life.

But Matt has something I don’t: a tractor.

That tractor has already saved Sans Souci Farm from buying one ourselves, driving over from his house, onto Route 23, to help with some heavy lifting. But Route 23 isn’t a safe place for tractors—or people, really. My old friend and neighbor Harley, who lived in the house between us, used to call it “Murderer’s Row” for all the roadkill we’d see on the reg. Harley himself was once struck by a car while riding his bike and turning into his own driveway. It’s a dangerous stretch with a blind curve, and none of us liked the idea of Matt rumbling down it with his Kubota just to get over to Sans Souci.

So we hatched a plan: build a trail through the woods.

The idea was simple but execution required care. We didn’t want to cut any big trees, and we didn’t want to intrude on Maureen’s space next door. She graciously agreed to let us route the path along her southern boundary, and in exchange we’d help with her groundhog problem. Over a few weeks, Matt and I scouted routes, bushwhacking potential trails, then today we set to work. Chainsaws cleared saplings and deadfall, and before long we had a rough passage wide enough for the tractor. Matt fired up the Kubota, smoothing the path, pushing down a widow-maker tree I’d pre-cut, and carving out a 200-yard lane that now links his yard to our fields.

By the afternoon, the trail looked like it had always been there—rugged, secluded, and a pathway to potential. Matt even pushed out bays in the back of our fields for incoming materials, giving us a neat place to stage compost, river rock, bamboo stakes, and whatever else the farm needs.

As we worked, we talked—about families, jobs, and maybe installing solar lights along the trail. We joked about names—Liberal Lane (a shortcut connecting two of the few left-leaning neighbors in the township), the Human Highway (I was humming the Neil tune while I worked), or the Jacobsen Bypass…

But we’d never bypass Harley. He and I built trails too—bike loops through his woods, a disc golf course between our properties, and plenty of music and guitars when the work was done. He was one of my closest friends and a partner in so many projects until he left us too soon. But I can picture him pitching in here, the way he always did… shovel in hand, a smile on his face.

Permaculture is grounded in three guiding ethics: Earth Care — caring for soil, water, biodiversity, and all natural systems; People Care — ensuring that communities and individuals are supported, nourished, and empowered; and Fair Share — returning surplus resources to both earth and people, and limiting consumption so that balance is maintained. These ethics aren’t abstract ideals — they become the lens through which every design decision, every trail cut, and every shared resource is measured.

So now we have a trail that makes us safer, a neighbor who’s become a friend, and a tractor that can go where it needs to without risking Route 23. More than that, we have another reminder of what Sans Souci is really about: building connections—with the land, with the people around us, and with the stories that continue even after someone is gone.

Stay Curious.