Engineered for Nitwits

This month's masthead feature's NitWit Bridge. I've mentioned NitWit bridge a few times to friends and occasionally on this site. I even featured a few of the photos in an old gallery that no longer exists. But I never really told its story. I've neglected featuring photos or mentioning it because it was so closely tied to Maggie, the dingo and founder of Wild Dingo. You see, NitWit Bridge was aptly named by Maggie, as told in the story and photos below.

The bridge is located on our property and was "engineered" (insert tongue-in-cheek) in 2006 by our home builder for a few reasons. Firstly, our good-producing well was located about a quarter mile away from our home site and we conveniently needed to find a way to pipe the water to our home. Secondly, we had the dingo, Maggie, who loved the outdoors and loved to hike and walk. Building a trail from the top of our property to our home through the Redwood forest was always on our agenda and the well gave us the perfect excuse to make a trail for the pipeline. But there was one snag. The trail had to cross a creek that was about 40 feet below the trail and 90 feet across to the other side. Our contractor found a fallen redwood tree and there, we "engineered" our suspension bridge: 2 planks over the fallen redwood held taught by cable wire which was posted into the ground on either side in cement. The contractor found outdoor flexible pipe for the waterline and ran it under the redwood tree while he built our bridge.

Maggie, my late dingo and founder of Wild Dingo,  gives the bridge a first inspection. She looks down. Now Maggie was a brazen dog with incredible agility who used to walk on house roofs and leap a 6-foot fence from a standing position. But she took one look below and didn't get further than three or four feet. The entire bridge is roughly 90 feet long. She gave up and refused to cross the bridge. Because she was old and more frail, I didn't make her cross it.

Another day Maggie takes her friend ShyGuy, the basset hound seen at the end of the bridge. Maggie looked on and said, "Hey ShyGuy, are you crazy? Only a NitwWit would cross this bridge. Oh wait, I forgot who I'm talking to."
As much as she liked ShyGuy, Maggie was a bit critical of other canines and felt intellectually superior to any she met.

So Mr. Wild Dingo chose the hottest day that summer to go out to NitWit Bridge and stabalize its safety with pirate netting. In the event a paw should slip off, the netting would catch it. Maggie came to supervise construction. The stairs in back lead up a very steep section of the trail. To the left, you can see the black flexible pipe for the water.

"I am Wild Dingo and I approve the safety netting on this bridge. I hearby name it NitWit Bridge." Maggie crossed the bridge the first time that day, with netting in place. Smart doggie.

This spring (2009) took its toll on the brige. When its wet, one has to be extra cautious in walking the slippery bridge.

Because look what awaits you, should you fall. But you'd surly have to jump over the netting and cable to really "fall" off this bridge. Unless...

A tree like this happens to fall while you cross the bridge. Thankfully the tree fell on the stairs and not on the bridge, because it would have taken out our waterline too. It took out our stairs, which Mr. Wild Dingo later repaired. But for a while Loki and Juno had to do some agility work to get around the fallen tree. And people at school wonder why our dogs have good agility and a good bond with us! Its because we make them do this stuff! Booowhahahah!

Ah, who are we kidding? These two love the trail, the bridge and the stairs and don't have any complaints.

They love it so much, they pose for me in the middle of the bridge to show you that it isn't as bad as it looks. Still, they seem to have the same opinion Maggie had and every day we cross the bridge, they take great care and caution.

When Wild Dingo's ISP service is in better shape (it only took 13 hours to get this post published in my slow ISP shape), I'll feature one of Loki's Training for NitWits videos, which are appropriately shot on location of NitWit Bridge. Also, I'll feature a few walking trail photos so you can all sympathize with how difficult the walk is right outside our door. (No joke, it's a workout!)