Great pics, I live in a very similar environment in NEPA, (NorthEastPA), I'm surrounded by either woods or outside the woods farmland.
I'm living on just about 8 acres of land with a beautiful creek/stream running through the middle of my yard, (though with all the snow we got this year I'm not looking forward for the flooding to come as the snow melts up north and works it's way towards me).
I grew up in the city (20 minutes from Manhattan) but spent a lot of time in the woods as a kid, upstate NY and in PA with my Old Man teaching me how to trap, hunt and basically survive off the land. I've lived here in PA for nearly 30 or so years we got to design and build our dream home, well not build, I used to build houses for a living at one point so it was nice to be able to design my home and have somebody else do the hard work.
I came to this area, (a mile from the Delaware river) to raise my daughter so she didn't grow up in the same environment I did she has a good balance, she's comfortable in Manhattan, we used to take her to the city for plays, the museums, the city life in general and she's comfortable in the woods. What drives me crazy here is that many of my friends here and their kids have never been to a big city and are terrified of going anywhere near them.
I see you out there with your kid and it reminded me of me doing the same thing with my daughter, teaching about the wild plant life, tracking and identifying animals, it's like a wilderness park here, we've got everything from frogs, fish and turtles to wild blue herons fishing in the creek. We've seen deer, bear, coyote, there's even a wildlife refuge about 3 miles down the road where they had wolves, (which got out one year and wreaked havoc on the local farmers stock.
Sorry for the long post, I really enjoy your pics and we live similar lifestyles so your posts and stories hit home with me. Keep them coming we all enjoy them and above all enjoy the time with your family. Living in the country can be and usually is hard work, especially if you live on wooded property but it's so much more satisfying, relaxing and comforting.
Again sorry for the long post, I don't wanna hijack your so I'll sign off for now, I'll have to post some pics of where I live to share when I get a chance, (no snow, no rain and warmer temps today means yard time), gotta go into the woods today and see what trees are down and which ones I have to drop to get ready to start processing for wood for this year. I ran short of firewood this year, with the colder temps than we've had in 8 years I used up my 4-5 cords that I thought would be enough a couple of weeks ago.
What we really need is a Show your backyard thread
so we can all see what the others see when they look out into their backyards.
