In my bride’s family birthdays are celebrated with endurance and fanfare. In fact, my bride’s late father preferred to think of birthdays as commemorative seasons, not days at all. Celebrating for anything less than a week was simply barbaric in his estimation.
Corn Cake Batter
So, over the last decade I’ve become accustomed to multiple birthday celebrations, abundant gift-giving and the family birthday dinner: game hens, artichokes and mashed potatoes or rice followed by birthday cake. For my vegetarian bride swordfish is substituted for a game hen, but few other exceptions are made.
Tradition is tradition. Comfort food is comfort food. These are the givens.
Most families enjoy revered meals steeped in nostalgia and embraced generation after generation. And yet my family’s most traditional comfort food, corn cakes and turkey gravy, provokes looks of bewilderment and lame excuses when I invite friends to experience meal.
Care to Try Corn Cakes and Turkey Gravy?
Conjured out of Thanksgiving and Christmas leftovers, neither holiday is complete without the lumpy griddle fried cakes and rich turkey gravy, thick with chunks of leftover turkey. Eaten for lunch or dinner, the meal is filling, tasty and a delightful flashback to the autumns and winters of my childhood.
Corn Cakes
Over the years I have introduced countless friends to this quirky combination of ingredients. And though most have been polite, few have devoured the meal or asked for the family recipe.
My bride’s recent phone call with her mother offers the typical response to my corn cake and turkey gravy invitations.
“Why don’t you join us for corn cakes and turkey gravy on Sunday,” Susan asked.
“Corn cakes and turkey gravy?”
“You’ve never had them? Oh, it’s a tradition in George’s family…” Susan went on to explain the dish.
“Hmmm, that sounds interesting, but…” It was clear to me that my mother-in-law’s interesting was akin to, “Are there any other options?”
So we ate steak with leftover mashed potatoes and green beans. Delicious.
Craving Corn Cakes…
Turkey Gravy
But on Monday evening I fired up the griddle and prepared corn cakes and turkey gravy. Leftover mashed potatoes, green beans and Brussels sprouts rounded out the meal (as did a mind massaging Chardonnay from South Africa.)
I got carried away and prepared enough corn cakes and turkey gravy to eat all week! Now, who can I invite over for the leftover-leftovers so that they can politely demur when I offer then seconds?
I suspect there’s a forgotten history explaining my family’s post-Thanksgiving and post-Christmas culinary comfort food, but I’ve been unable to ferret it out. Yet.
Time to Interview Mom
I’m pretty certain that the tradition comes from my mother’s family, so I’ll pose a few questions to the world’s best (and my favorite) mom, Melissa Davis.
Me: Is it fair to say that I inherited my appetite for corn cakes and turkey gravy from your side of the family?
Mom: Yes, I don’t know anyone else who ate them other than the Duvalls, so from my side via my mother.
Me: Do you know anything about the origins of corn cakes and turkey gravy?
Mom: No, just that my grandmother Lela made them. Or I thought she did. I suppose my mom could have made them up!
Me: Did you eat corn cakes and turkey gravy as a child or did the tradition start later?
Corn Cakes and Turkey Gravy
Mom: We always ate them the same way we Davises now do, following a turkey dinner (which for us Wellers was the traditional Thanksgiving and Christmas meal). We would also have them if we had a random turkey meal at other times of the year. I’m trying to remember if my Aunt Margaret Liggett (my granny’s sister who lived near us in Colorado) also made them. I vaguely think so which would increase the chances that they came from that side of the family. They were daughters of a union of a Swedish American and an Irish American.
Me: Did you actually enjoy corn cakes and turkey gravy the first few times you ate it?
Mom: I can’t remember the first time I had them, but I loved the meal always. For a while when I was little, I preferred them to the first meal of the turkey. I loved the holidays because I knew the corn cakes and turkey gravy inevitably would follow!
Me: When you serve corn cakes and turkey gravy to people for the first time, how do they tend to react?
Mom: Politely but without enthusiasm! Our guests on Friday were complimentary, but only one person ate seconds. Do you remember when I fed them to your college Christmas visitors? They were all polite, but I don’t remember anyone gobbling them up. I can hardly think of anyone to whom we introduced this fabulous meal who genuinely liked them!
Me: What do you consider the best accompaniment for corn cakes and turkey gravy?
Mom: Browned leftover mashed potatoes or hash browns (so you can add the gravy to them) and a green salad. If you like cranberry, it’s a good place to get rid of the leftover cranberry sauce. I don’t especially!
Me: Can you offer any special tips on how to prepare corn cakes and turkey gravy?
Mom: I have always just used the basic Joy of Cooking pancake recipe, cut back on the sugar amount and added canned corn. I’ve doubled it without problem and added a second can of corn. I use any leftover gravy from the main meal and make new gravy from the first round of “stocktaking” off the turkey bones. I also add lots of leftover meat if it is for our family. I don’t always make it as meaty for guests since the meat seems to be off-putting to some.
My mother’s brother, Uncle Herman, admitted an enduring fondness for corn cakes and turkey gravy while confirming the maternal family link, and he offered a possible clue.
I wonder if they were a Pennsylvania Dutch recipe Mom discovered. ~ Herman Weller
Perhaps. Or Swedish-Irish. Or just a creative way to get kids to eat leftovers?
It worked. I still love them! What’s your family’s comfort food?
Corn cakes and turkey gravy aren't the most elegant victuals ever laid upon a dining table, but they're deli http://t.co/iAALP5mR
Last Sunday my bride and I settled in for a post-lunch-tea-and-snooze in the parlor. The previous week’s unseasonably temperate spring-going-on-summer weather had yielded to cold and rain, so we weren’t feeling too guilty about playing hooky. No gardening or tidying up the waterfront for spring boating. No orchard pruning or apple tree grafting for us. Just a lazy afternoon on the dry side of our rain pelted windows…
Whaplumf!
That’s the noise of a dove crashing into a window pane.
Hawk Attacks Dove
We headed into the breakfast room where we discovered a fierce looking hawk pinning a dove to the ground on the lawn near the bird feeders, ripping beak-fulls of feather and flesh from the stunned dove’s back.
Did I mention that the dove was still alive? Despite the predator’s fierce talons and efficient beak, the dove periodically struggled and lifted its head to look around. The efforts were futile and only increased the hawk’s aggression.
It was a fascinating if deeply disturbing sight. A real world immersion in the sort of wild spectacle usually limited to the Discovery Channel. A Rosslyn safari sequel to the the Fox & Squirrel episodes.
Cooper’s Hawk on bird feeder (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A dusty impression of the dove was still visible on the glass, and I surmised that the dove had crashed into the window while attempting to flee the hawk. I had seen a similar image about a week before on the kitchen window, as if a dove had been rolled in flour and then pressed against the glass, wings outstretched and head turned to the side revealing an eye and and the beak. Had this same drama played out then?
My bride was horrified. She raced outside flapping a pair of bright pink dishwashing gloves and shouting at the hawk. “Stop that! Get out of here. Go away!” The hawk looked at Susan flapping the pink gloves menacingly less than 10 feet away, then looked down at the dove, then up at me standing in the window, then back at Susan. The dove lifted it’s head, eyes wild with fright.
A standoff? A detente?
Suddenly the hawk flapped its wings lifting the still struggling dove from the ground. My fearless bride leaped toward the hawk, flailing her gloves and shouting angrily. The hawk settled briefly in front of the kitchen window and then flew away, abandoning the injured dove.
My bride pulled on her gloves and lifted the injured dove from the grass. It gazed up at her, struggling to breath. She carried the dying bird to the edge of our front lawn where placed it gently into a comfortable nest of leaves and twigs.
In recent weeks we’ve seen three of four piles of feathers near the bird feeder on different occasions, but I assumed the fox had switched from squirrels to doves. It turns out that we have two efficient predators who’ve discovered the benefits of dining on critters drawn to our birdfeeders.
Hawk Attack Dove “Research”
Never having witnessed this before I turned to the interwebs for assistance in deciphering what we witnessed. I found forums and blog posts documenting the exact same experience, in many cases even including the dove or pigeon smashing into a window before being nabbed by the hawk. And there’s a veritable glut of video footage online if your stomach is strong and your emotions are steely. (Note: If you are remotely squeamish, these videos are not for you.)
Are we contributing to the predation by overfeeding wildlife. I’m increasingly concerned that we are. Is there a better balance between feeding songbirds during the winter and over-concentrating/over-fattening the squirrel and dove populations? Certainly. But we haven’t quite figured out how to proceed.
I’ve recommended limiting bird feeding to the cold winter months, and my bride has reluctantly agreed. Verbally. When the food runs out. Which means that Rosslyn remains a fast food restaurant for foxes and hawks. And while my bride had repeatedly decreed our yard a safe haven for wildlife, we haven’t figure out how to communicate this to the predators. All advice welcome!
Hawk Attacks Dove Update
Half a year later I flash back to this experience.
It’s autumn, and we’ve just placed the bird feeders out for the winter. I’ve seen a fox slinking among the cedar hedge, spying on the squirrels, planning his next meal. The first pigeons arrive to peck the overspill sunflowers from the ground beneath the feeders.
Still no hawks.
And then, one crashes through the interwebs, plunges into my day, startles me, horrifies me, fascinates me. A hawk. A hare. An attack so familiar it seems as if I had watched the hawk attack the dove only yesterday.
After the rainiest spring/summer in years, the summer of 2012 appears to be one of the driest, and Rosslyn gardens have mostly profited. Time for an update on our mid-July veggies, plus an important question about squash blossoms at the end.
Lake Champlain water levels are plummeting (waterfront/dock/boating update soon) and lawns are either crispy, crunchy or perpetually showered by sprinklers. With the exception of new grass we’re starting as part of ongoing repairs to the damaged waterfront, we’re trying to minimize our environmental impact by letting the lawns dry up but drip, drip, dripping the vegetables, herbs and orchard.
Eggplant and Blossom, Rosslyn Gardens
It’s a curious twist of fate that we were just beginning to repair our waterfront from flood damage at this point last year, and this year we’re experiencing a sustained drought. But we’re taking advantage of the heat for lots of Lake Champlain watersports and Adirondack Coast bike rides. Life is good!
What about that mid-July veggies update I promised?
So far, the drought winners in the vegetable garden appear to be the zuchini and yellow squash (Are they are channeling their “inner tropics”?!?!), Imperial Star Artichokes, eggplant, peppers and tomatoes. Although I keep expecting the watermelons and cantaloupes to explode, they’ve been sluggish. Bizarre. Many years our seasons are too short for them, and yet when we blast them with dry heat day after day, they get logy. Why?
The leeks are also struggling. I suspect they need even more water than they are getting… Will try to keep them wetter this week. The pumpkins and cucumbers are also way behind where they’d normally be at this point in the summer. I’d hoped to trellis the cukes this year. Never done that before, but intrigued by the smaller plot and self-shade possibilities as well as the opportunity to keep the cucumbers up off the earth so they’ll be less vulnerable to pests. Unfortunately the plants are still so small I haven’t been able to train any of them up onto the cedar trellises yet. Soon, I hope!
Zuchini Squash Blossom, Rosslyn Gardens
The good news is that we’ve been devouring radishes (see French Breakfast Radish) and greens for over a month. Already finished with the first radish and lettuce patches and making good headway through the second patches. Will plant more lettuce this week along with beans and another squash crop. No more radishes. I think I’ve already hit my limit.
Why so much squash? Yes, we too get sick of squash, but each year I plan to harvest and prepare squash blossoms. But so far it’s never happened. This year I’ve vowed to learn several good ways to prepare squash blossoms. I have some interesting recipes, but would love to hear your favorite way to prepare squash blossoms. And I need to figure out the best way to clean the squash blossoms before cooking. Seems that ants in particular love to get inside. How do you prepare your squash blossoms?
Thanks to Sacha Marcucci for her tasty sounding recommendation:
@virtualDavis one of our favorite restaurants stuffs them with ricotta, then lightly batters and frys (fries?sp.) them. delish.
I’ve started ordering seeds for my vegetable garden this summer, and Cuore di Bue Tomato (aka Coeur de Boeuf or Oxheart) is new to me. I tasted these tomatoes grown in a friend’s garden and decided to add Cuore di Bue to my “Must Plant” list.
“This curious and striking tomato is guaranteed to turn heads as well as satisfy appetites. Its name is simply Italian for oxheart, although this selection (Riviera) is an exotic twist on the oxheart tomato type. These big tomatoes have a bottom-heavy shape reminiscent of a pouch with a gathered top. They measure 3 1/2 inches wide and 4 inches long and weigh in just under 1/2 pound each. Cuore di Bue is one of the tastiest saucing types with dense flesh and lustrous, orangey-red skin.”
Can’t wait to plant, harvest and eat, eat, eat these Cuore di Bue tomatoes!
It’s that remarkable season of reawakening, spring, glorious springtime! And more than all of the other blooms that announce the season of unslumbering, Dandelions remind us that nature is nourishing and vibrant and brilliantly colorful.
Routinely dismissed, even abhored, as an annoying weed, dandelions are for me a welcome harbinger of warming temperatures, greening environs, several seasons of blooms and fruit and vegetables. And yet dandelions remain mostly symbolic representatives of reawakening, vivid reminders of the abundance we’ll soon celebrate.
Friend or Foe: Dandelions (Photo: Geo Davis)
A decade or more ago Tom Duca introduced me and a gathering of Essex area friends to The Teeth of the Lion: The Story of the Beloved and Despised Dandelion by Anita Sanchez. His enthusiasm for her enthusiasm about dandelions made an impression on me that afternoon. I planned to read it, but it slipped off my radar. Until now. I’ve located a copy that is presently wending is way to me. So, soon I’ll be able to amplify my understanding (and presumably my appreciation) for dandelions.
But even before educating myself I’ll comfortably come down on the side of dandelions bring friends. Yes, I know that many might consider them an invasive scourge peppering the perfection of an otherwise green lawn.
Friend or Foe: Dandelions (Photo: Geo Davis)
But I do not share this disdain. Rather, dandelions evoke childhood wonder and enthusiasm for spring a perennially optimism inspiring season for me. Simply put springtime is seasonality’s metaphorical morning. And rambunctious riots of dandelions are one of the most exuberant symbols of the season. Persistent, yes, but in so many cases we’re able to recognize the merits of persistence. Why not dandelions?
We know too that dandelions are a forager’s friends, Nature’s nourishing gift of vitamins and minerals after months of hibernal stinginess. I’ve enjoyed tender dandelion greens in a spring salad mixes from the store, but I’ve rarely made the effort to harvest these spicy freebies from the yard. It’s an embarrassing oversight I intend to remedy. Soon. And dandelion wine? So many experiments to explore…
Friend or Foe: Dandelions (Photo: Geo Davis)
So for now, I’ll optimistically file dandelions as friend (and not foe) despite the proclivity of so many among my gardening aficionado cohort to vilify and endeavor to extirpate this sunny sojourner. If designation by and large comes down to bias, I’ve now made mine known. Caveat emptor. And once I’ve made it through Sanchez’s book I’ll be able to update this post with a meatier installment justifying my somewhat sentimental declaration that dandelions are our friends. Stay tuned…
Tucked into the folds of the icehouse rehab scope of work some accomplishments stand out more than others. The garapa paneling in the bathroom, for example, has been a long, slooow labor of love many months in the making. Many stages and many hands have shaped this initiative, so anticipation has been building for many months. The column flanked vestibule (and the bookmatched ash threshold upon which they rest) is different. I’ll try to explain why this installation is momentous for me.
Justin Installing Columns (Photo: Geo Davis)
[Let’s start with the] architectural salvage [of]… Greek Revival columns that we salvaged from Rosslyn’s future dining room back in 2006 in the early days or our renovation project. (Source: Architectural Salvage: Repurposed Columns)
Icehouses didn’t historically rely upon columns for structural support, of course. They were utilitarian buildings purpose built to preserve ice cut from lakes, ponds, and rivers during winter to ensure access to ice (and cold storage) during more temperate seasons. Icehouse design was practical. Embellishments like Greek Revival columns would have been impractical, perhaps even frivolous.
But, needless to say, Rosslyn‘s icehouse rehabilitation is not an historic preservation project. It is an adaptive reuse project. It’s heart and soul is relevance to us today. Think dynamic, multipurpose, vibrant. Think simple and minimalist, but beautiful. Think inviting. Think whimsical. Straddling an unlikely divide — home office (though I prefer the connotations of study/studio) and recreation/entertaining space — the icehouse we’re conjuring into existence will blend productivity, creativity, wellness, and the largely outdoor lifestyle that we favor.
Why, you might well ask, would we need two imposing columns inside the diminutive icehouse? While the question is reasonable, perhaps *need* is not the most appropriate evaluation. After all, adaptive reuse of a utility building originally constructed to fulfill a highly specific (and outdated) function obviously doesn’t *need* handsome embellishments for structural support. And yet the opportunity to re-integrate these historic Rosslyn elements into an otherwise utilitarian barn has presented a whimsical challenge that at some level echoes the unlikely marriage of work space and recreation hub we’re imagining into existence with this newest rehab project. (Source: Re-tuning Columns)
Just as fusing work and play in a single space might initially seem incompatible, designing a column flanked vestibule inside an icehouse might evoke concerns of incongruity. Fair concern. And final judgment will be for you to make once we reach completion.
Peter in Column Flanked Vestibule (Photo: Geo Davis)
And so as we stride toward completions of the icehouse rehabilitation I draw your attention not only to the finally repurposed columns that once supported a beam in Rosslyn’s dining room. Now let your eyes drift down to the floor, to the bookmatched ash threshold crafted byPeter from some of our homegrown stump-to-lumber hardwood. Yes, it’s breathtaking. And, yes, the charactered grain forms a large stylized heart (and an enormous grin!)
Columns, threshold, and header are finally coalescing in a long envisioned “spatial transition from the more intimate entrance and coffee bar into the loftier main room”. Witnessing this accomplishment after so many months of planning and anticipation filled me with joy. It affirmed hopes and plans, it rewarded a risky design decision, defining and framing two functionally distinct spaces without losing the transparency and porosity. It instills a playful unlikelihood in an otherwise mostly predictable environment. It filters light dramatically, adding sensuous silhouettes to an otherwise geometric linearity. It delineates without restricting. It is a suggestion. It is poetry.
And, although there’s more work to be completed before a final assessment is justified, I am immensely pleased with the column flanked vestibule. Thank you, Peter. Thank you, Justin.
I often refer to Rosslyn as a homestead, but I’m aware that might mislead some of you. No livestock. That’s probably the biggest deviation from most self proclaimed homesteads. No chickens. No pigs, sheep, or goats. No milk cow. No 160 acre land grant (though we’ve slowly grown Rosslyn’s acreage to more than a third of that historic sum.)
I’ve long longed for ducks. Hatchlings, then ducklings, then juvenile ducks, then mature plump ducks waddling around gobbling grubs and beetles and vegetable garden pests. Susan’s been a staunch bulwark against this homestead addition citing coyotes and hawks and an inadequately envisioned long term plan. Perhaps one day, some day. For now I celebrate wild ducks (“Common Goldeneye Ducks”) and safeguard the mallards (“Make Way for Ducklings” and “Mallard Jacuzzi”).
But ducks or no ducks, our homestead is not about livestock. There’s abundant wildlife, and our vegetable gardens and orchard provide plenty to eat for our family and friends. Throw in farm shares with Full and By Farm, plenty of supplementary victuals from Hub on the Hill, and nourishing ourselves offers bountiful satisfaction.
At Rosslyn, homesteading is less about producing everything that we eat and drink, and more about living as responsible stewards in a property presently and historically endowed with sufficient grounds and outbuildings for homesteading while honoring the homesteading tradition in as many ways as practical for us. I’ll revisit this idea soon, endeavoring to articulate more concisely our personal vision of Rosslyn as a homestead. For now I’ll shift to a few homestead haikus that might better — for their ample vantage despite minimalist format — illuminate what I’m trying to convey.
Homestead Highlights
Bookended between asparagus and apples: skinny-dips, bonfires.
Brookside Dissonance
While ambling brookside, celestial cacophony, a murder of crows.
Apropos Tomatoes
Green Zebras, Black Krims, early cherry tomatoes,… December daydreams.
Now about those ducklings… I might bring up the idea again this spring. Wish me luck!
Rosslyn boathouse during Adirondack mud season (Source: Geo Davis)
I recently returned to Rosslyn after almost two months away. It was my single longest absence since buying the house in July 2006, and the extended hiatus was a bit surreal. I departed Essex in February and returned in April!
For readers familiar with life in the Adirondacks, you’ll remember that we have the distinction of a fifth season in addition to spring, summer, fall and winter affectionately known as “mud season”. Okay, not so affectionately. Mud season — tied with black flies for least sexy North Country inconveniences — is tolerable for two reasons:
Sugaring: Authentic maple syrup is an Adirondack staple. Remember the smell and flavor of real maple syrup, before corn syrup and artificial flavoring and coloring elbowed their way onto the breakfast table? Sugaring is as much a gourmet delicacy as it is a theme of story lore. Extracting maple sap and concentrating it into syrup or sugar wasn’t just a local sweet source before grocers and box stores. According to Bill Yardley, sugaring provided an occupation for lumberjacks during mud season.
Transformation: Like a rite of passage, the Adirondack mud season is sometimes dreaded, usually messy, often cathartic and almost always revitalizing. Tucked between winter and summer, two of the most glorious North Country seasons (the other two are spring and fall,) mud season is our annual reminder that we aren’t living in paradise, just a near-perfect facsimile of paradise.
This year I was traveling during mud season (not altogether a coincidence, I admit) which meant that I missed almost the only snowfall that the Champlain Valley experienced this winter. The silver lining? I also missed the slush and mud that followed.
Maple Syrup (Source: Wikipedia)
But despite my absence, life at Rosslyn sailed on smoothly. By now you may have realized that my bride runs a tight ship, possibly even more so when I’m away from home. And with Doug and Lorri contributing muscle and follow-through to my bride’s decrees, not much slips between the cracks. Except for the tattered flag…
Upon returning from my travels I discovered that a concerned passerby had stopped to complain about the tattered American flag flapping over Rosslyn boathouse. He spoke with Doug, referenced his years of military service and departed. By all accounts, the passerby was courteous and respectful, and his concern was justified. Old Glory was in a sorry state of neglect.
Doug promptly replaced the tattered flag and assumed that the case was closed.
It wasn’t.
A few days later the same gentleman returned and expressed his gratitude. And then he departed. No name. No way to thank him for his attention. A mysterious stranger with a patriotic soul and a neighborly spirit.
Rosslyn boathouse doodle on a slate for Adirondack Art Association fundraiser
The Adirondack Art Association in Essex, NY sponsored a creative fundraiser recently. They invited members of the community to transform recycled slate from Rosslyn’s roof into unique artworks to auction off. Dreamed up by Amy Guglielmo following her successful Depot Theatre “sap bucket” art auctions, the slate art auction was an artistic and fundraising success.
Though I’m not sure how much my goofy doodle of Rosslyn’s boathouse contributed…
Just thought you would enjoy seeing it. Actually part of a longer term project to create slate doodles of many historic Essex architectural views which is the reason I saved the slate back when we were renovating. One more project for a rainy day!
An autumn aura is descending upon the Adirondack Coast. Autumn colors, autumn lighting, autumn sounds (think southward-flying Canada Geese), autumn textures (think crisp leaves eddying and frosted grass underfoot), autumn smells, and autumn flavors…
Autumn Aura: Rosslyn’s shifts into her rustic autumn wardrobe… (Source: Doug Decker)
Thanks, Doug, for snapping that photo above. And for swapping out summer’s lime green sweet potato vines with golden (poetic license?) corn stalks. We’re autumnified! My bride is thrilled.
Here’s a glimpse of the intermediate phase a couple of weeks ago. The pumpkins, freshly harvest from our vegetable garden, complement those practically fluorescent sweet potato vines.
Autumn Aura: Rosslyn’s initial transition from summer to fall wardrobe. (Source: Geo Davis)
Have you noticed that distinctive shift in the North Country atmosphere? It happens every year as the vestiges of summer yield to the advance of winter. There’s a palpable change in the ambience, the mood, the character of the very same facade and yard and early evening that only weeks ago flaunted summery bravado. The tone has shifted. Harvest season. Halloween…
Autumn Aura: Rosslyn’s initial transition from summer to fall wardrobe. (Source: Geo Davis)
Bald eagle perches along Essex waterfront watching ducks.
I saw a young bald eagle recently flying over the lake just off from the hamlet. The ducks by the ferry dock ignored him but I bet they were keeping a close watch nevertheless. ~ Rob Ivy (Essex Column, Feb. 5, 2014)
I bundled up this morning – thermals and lots of fleecy layers – to brace against the subzero temperatures. After almost 24 hours of continuous snowfall I was excited with the prospect of an early morning skiing the fresh powder at Whiteface. But an even greater gift surprised me as I finished scraping the car and climbed in.
Bald Eagle Breakfasting?
My mobile phone buzzed to tell me a Facebook message had arrived.
“Bald eagle out there this morning!”
It was Willsboro neighbor, Beatrice Disogra, a daily Essex ferry commuter with a gift of spying bald eagles (and spectacular Lake Champlain views!) I parked at the end of our driveway, craning my neck to survey the trees. I didn’t see him at first. Our digital dialogue continued.
Look to the left of the boathouse up in the tall trees on the WATER’S EDGE. It came down and plucked a fish out between the boathouse and ferry dock last week. I’m at the ferry dock watching it right now. There’s a young one without white feathers that hangs out in front of your house. Should be easy to spot when the sun comes out.
I got out of my car and walked north, inspecting ash, maple, locust and cottonwood. Then I noticed a likely suspect.
Just walked toward Sandy Pt. Saw large blackish mass high in tree. Not certain it was eagle, but now gone.
It was. It flew past me at ferry dock. It will come back.
“Sitting ducks” enjoying the boathouse bubbler (while bald eagle watches.)
I had snapped the blurry photo above with my mobile phone in order to zoom in and take a closer look once I was back in the warmth of my car. And the eagle must have flown off as soon as I turned to walk away.
Bald Eagle and “Sitting Ducks”
I verified with Ms. Disogra that she’d witnessed the eagle catching a fish, not a duck. She assured me that she had been close enough to see it.
But bald eagles are also fond of ducks, and the area we keep bubbled in front of Rosslyn’s boathouse inevitably offers an inviting smorgasbord for hungry eagles. So far no photos of an eagle flying away with a duck in its talons!
It is worth noting, I am conflicted about this bald eagle and “sitting duck” situation. I am a big fan of the ducks. In fact, I want to raise a few ducklings myself one day, if only my bride would relent. And I am also awed by the magnificent bald eagles which frequent the Adirondack Coast in winter. But one could argue that we are effectively manipulating nature by creating open water which attracts the wild ducks, causing atypically high concentration which favors the bald eagles.
Waterfront Winterization: Pulling out the boat lift on September 22, 2016.
There comes a time each autumn when summer has faded and winter is whispering over the waves. Or when work, travel, something eclipses the languid stretch of fall boating and watersports. Sometimes earlier, sometimes later, and as inevitable and bittersweet as fall foliage, waterfront winterization is an annual ritual that braces us practically and emotionally for the North Country’s frosty November through February.
The photo above chronicles the slow process of dragging the boat lift ashore. We use an electric winch and plenty of manpower. The aluminum dock is next. Rolling it in is the easy part. Lifting it up the stone terracing to higher ground is our version of crossfit.
Special thanks to Doug Decker, Erick Decker, Matt Smith, Alex Shepard, and Jeff Bigelow for making today’s waterfront winterization the smoothest and most efficient to date.
Boats on the Hard
Waterfront Winterization: Pulling the ski boat on September 21, 2016.
Usually in October, we haul Errant, our 31′ sailboat and Racy Rosslyn, our ski boat. This year we had to advance our haul dates to accommodate a busy fall schedule. In the photo above Racy Rosslyn is being towed away for winterization and storage.
Waterfront Winterization 2016: Errant is on the hard at a nearby shipyard.
