![\"\"](\"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/S-snow-1.jpg\")
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Yesterday we had the first snow of the winter. It wasn’t a particularly heavy or pretty snow, but the neighbors, who have not one but two ATV’s, invited me to ride with them on today’s equivalent of a sleigh ride: the ATV ride.<\/p>\n
These neighbors have property on three sides of the abbey’s woodland, and fortunately we get along well. Most of the people in this area, actually, have some form of off-road conveyance. Given that something like half a million ATV’s are sold each year in the U.S. (and the market is growing), this is happening everywhere.<\/p>\n
In the hands of the irresponsible, ATV’s can make a serious mess, causing erosion from the ruts they can create. Fortunately my neighbors are responsible. I gave them permission to build a bridge where one of the old rights-of-way crosses a stream on abbey land. Not only does the bridge look much better, a bridge avoids the mud and erosion that can happen where ATV’s ford streams.<\/p>\n
These vehicles are not just an American phenomenon. They’re being sold in large numbers all over the world. On the Scottish islands of Mull and Gometra, which I visited in 2018, there are no real roads, so ATV’s are the new mule carts.<\/p>\n
Sometimes neighbors ask me why I don’t have an ATV. The real reason is that they cost too much. But I show them my walking stick (which is always with me when I wander) and say that I already have one — an economy model that I picked up in Scotland.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/S-snow-2.jpg\")
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Yesterday we had the first snow of the winter. It wasn’t a particularly heavy or pretty snow, but the neighbors, who have not one but two ATV’s, invited me to ride with them on today’s equivalent of a sleigh ride: the ATV ride. These neighbors have property on three sides of the abbey’s woodland, and … Continue reading “ATV’s: a new reality of rural life”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rural-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18084"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18100,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18084\/revisions\/18100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/bridge.jpg\")
\nAn ATV bridge of all-local materials. Two streams come together here at the lower end of the abbey’s woodland.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"