After another toss-turn-twist-roll-toss-turn night I spent some time trolling the web for organic mattresses and organic box springs. It’s truly amazing how much this marketplace has changed over the last year or two. There are literally too many options to sort out!
I’m hoping to inspire Susan to look into a few and see if maybe she’d be willing to try out something new… A couple that look promising:
Home Green Home Organic Box Spring
Abundant Earth Organic Cotton Box Spring
Earthsake Organic Box Spring
Royal-Pedic Double Diamond Box Spring
Rawganique Organic Box Spring
I’ve come to suspect that our problem with the bed/mattresses we’ve been sleeping on since moving into Rosslyn might have less to do with the mattress and more to do with the box spring, or lack thereof. The mattress sits on a rigid platform that was built for us. I’ve read in several places that heavier bodies (I’m usually around 205 pounds) are better supported by mattresses with springs in conjunction with box springs.
“Sleepers over 175 lbs. especially will appreciate the increased flexibility of a box spring compared to a rigid slatted platform.” (Home Green Home)
Worth a try? Susan’s found it incredibly hard to sleep soundly on this mattress/bed as well, so we’re both looking for a smart solution rather than trying new mattresses every few months…
Rosslyn boathouse at sunrise (Digital doodle: virtualDavis)
“Coffee? You don’t even drink coffee,” Susan said.
“I know. I know it doesn’t make any sense. But I’m walking through Rosslyn early in the morning with a steaming cup of coffee…”
I hadn’t drunk coffee since college, and I’d obviously never wandered around Rosslyn at the crack of dawn either. But I kept having this vision.
“It’s just barely sunrise. You’re still sleeping. I’m up, drifting from room-to-room, slowly, haltingly, studying the way the sunlight illuminates each room. And those green walls in the parlor? They vibrate in the morning light, like new maple leaves in the springtime.”
I described the shaft of sunlight stretching across the workshop floor. I described the calm, the quiet except for an occasional creaky floorboard. I described Tasha, our Labrador Retriever, padding along with me, anxious for breakfast.
“Tasha sighs and lies down each time I stop. And I stop a lot… to watch the morning unfolding, to watch the sunlight shimmering on the rippled lake, to watch the boathouse clapboards glowing yellow orange for a few minutes as the sun rises above the Green Mountains.”
“I was imagining the boathouse too,” Susan said. “Not like today, but like it was ours, like we lived at Rosslyn. I was thinking, the boathouse’s just begging for a hammock. Don’t you think? A big, two-person hammock in the open-air part, under the roof. Can you imagine lying in a hammock in the evening, listening to the waves?” Susan paused, lost in the idea. “And think of the dinner parties,” she continued. “A table set for four. White linens and candles and sheer curtains billowing in the breeze…”
Spring Dance: deer crossing trail camera during spring 2017 (Source: Geo Davis)
One trail cam. One location. Three months, give or take. Deer. Coyotes. And the transition from winter to spring in the Adirondacks’ Champlain Valley.
Spring Dance: coyote crossing trail camera during spring 2017 (Source: Geo Davis)
The perspective, situated near a fence opening at the transition of scrub forest and meadows offers a glimpse of the dance between ungulates (white tailed deer) and native canids (Eastern coyote). From awkward youngsters to healthy adults to slightly mangy elders, this short series of photographs taken with a relatively unsophisticated trail cam illuminates the springtime interplay of two increasingly ubiquitous species in our local ecosystem.
Oh, yes, there are a couple of human spottings in the video (slide show) above. Who are they? Unfamiliar to me. And unclear what they were were doing wandering this fence line…
Snow fleas? That’s a thing?!?! Yes, you read that correctly. Yesterday my bride, my beast (a perennially curious and wanderlusty Labrador Retriever) and I explored some soggy-but-still-snowy woodlands along the western shore of Lake Champlain with John Davis (The Rewilding Institute) and Jon Leibowitz (Northeast Wilderness Trust). It would be difficult to find a more interesting duo with whom to muck about on a balmy late December day, celebrating oak and shag bark hickory trees and pondering wild critter tracks.
In this melting eden we stumbled upon the snow fleas…
Lots and lots of springtails in December 2017 (Source: Geo Davis)
Does it look like someone sneezed pepper on the snow? Is the pepper bouncing around? You’re probably looking at springtails, also known as snow fleas. Don’t worry, they aren’t real fleas — they just bounce around in a similar way. (Source: WIRED)
That description, pepper sneezed on snow, is pretty much spot on. Bouncing pepper.
Lots and lots of springtails in December 2017 (Source: Geo Davis)
Springtails are incredibly abundant — there can be 250,000,000 individuals per square acre. They are active year round, but usually are hidden away under leaves or your favorite flowerpot. It’s a good thing to see springtails in and around your garden and woods. They are found where there is rich organic soil, and they help make more soil by snarfing up fungal spores, insect poop, and other debris. They rarely cause plant damage. (Source: WIRED)
Did you get that? Despite the assurance to the contrary by pest control companies, springtails are not bad guys. In fact, they’re good guys!
Springtails are not parasites; they feed on decaying organic matter in the soil (such as leaf litter) and, therefore, play an important part in natural decomposition. (Source: EcoTone)
Lots and lots of springtails in December 2017 (Source: Geo Davis)
Snow fleas are wingless insects, incapable of flying. They move by walking, and also by jumping. But unlike other famous jumping arthropods (like grasshoppers or jumping spiders), snow fleas don’t use their legs to jump… [They] catapult themselves into the air by releasing a spring-like mechanism called a furcula, a sort of tail that’s folded underneath its body, ready for action.
(Thus the name springtail.) When the furcula releases, the… [insect] is launched several inches, a considerable distance for such a tiny bug. It’s an effective way to flee potential predators quickly, although they have no way to steer.(Source: What Are Snow Fleas? All About Winter Springtails)
Lots and lots of springtails in December 2017 (Source: Geo Davis)
Lots and lots of springtails in December 2017 (Source: Geo Davis)
[Springtails] are able to withstand the bitter temperatures of winter thanks to a “glycine-rich antifreeze protein,” as reported in a study published in Biophysical Journal. The protein… binds to ice crystals as they start to form, preventing the crystals from growing larger. (Source: EcoTone)
And this intimate look at springtails courtesy of Mark Fraser (www.naturewalkswithmark.org) offers up the perfect wrap up to this first-and-probably-last post about snowy flea-like cousins to the other jumper pepper grounds…
Welcome to springtime in the Champlain Valley, a glorious but slightly schizophrenic transition — sun, rain, wind, hot, snow, sleet, etc. — when springtails make way for dandelions.
This visual meditation captures the haltingly springlike transformation of a small corner of Rosslyn’s back acreage over the last three months. A meadow’s margin. A fallen tree. A setting sun…
The video was made by compositing photographs from a trail cam captured between March and May 2018. Unlike most of my previous trail cam galleries and videos, this series is thin on wildlife. For some mysterious (and a bit unsettling) reason, wild critters appear to have been less abundant than usual. Or more savvy to the presence of my camera? Nevertheless the seasonal transformation offers a soothing, meditative perspective on the end of winter and the arrival of spring. I hope that you enjoy it.
If you missed previous posts with photographs from the wildlife/trail cam, check these out:
Now that I’ve downloaded the most recent image I’m pondering where to place the camera this summer. Watch the garden grow? Document the orchard’s fruity bandits? Spy on the waterfront for minks, ducklings, and my water-loving Labrador Retriever?
Seasonality might strike you as a strange menu for organizing a blog (and an even stranger way to navigate a narrative.) But in many respects it may well be the *only* useful way to structure a circular story that’s slim on plot, chronically achronological, and deeply immersed in the poetics of place.
Summer’s End
As if on cue, rain, frost, acrimonious wind summon summer’s end. — Geo Davis
I often romance sunrise and to a lesser degree, sunset, powerful circadian rhythm markers. There are likewise singularly potent seasonal markers along our Adirondack shore of Lake Champlain that punctuate notable transitions, from summer-to-autumn, for example. Some are relatively fluid such as hauling and winterizing the boats, removing the docks, and the colorful drama of our much anticipated fall foliage. Each of these examples are determined approximately by the calendar but more precisely by weather changes, prevailing temperatures, the scheduling particularities of our protean paths through life, etc. Less fluid examples of seasonality during this same period include harvesting ripe apples in the orchard, first hard frost of the autumn, and the mysteriously consistent Labor Day weekend meteorological shift. With respect to this last marker, most years we enjoy a lengthy “Indian summer”, but Labor Day — with startling predictability — plunges us into chilly, usually rainy weather as if on cue.
Seasonality: Winter (Source: Geo Davis)
What Is Seasonality?
The concept of seasonality is often cited in the context of business (i.e. financial market and sales forecasting) and healthcare (i.e. patient and virus fluctuations), but let’s consider the idea of seasonality in a less confined context. Let’s look at the root of the word, for starts. Season. I imagine we’re all pretty clear what we mean when referencing the annual rhythm of the seasons, the periodic ebb and flow of monthly rituals, and even their fluctuations in variations. Seasonality is those periodic patterns, variations that recur at predictable or semi predictable intervals year after year.
Seasonality: Spring (Source: Geo Davis)
Rosslyn Seasonality
Our mind easily conceives of seasonality’s periodic points, references for rhythm and repetition, but I think we might need to do a little more work to grok the idea of seasonally recurring events and transitions at Rosslyn, so let’s push a little further.
In keeping with my goal to curate and convey the narrative of our Rosslyn years I’m essaying to distill and disentangle, gather cohesive collections, often thematically tied, sometimes chronologically structured, and often enough coalescing around seasonality. Excuse the clunkiness. It’s a work in progress.
I have remarked elsewhere that Susan and I aspired to recalibrate our lives when we moved from Manhattan to Essex. It was a desire to embrace the art of a slow living. Part intentionality and part immersion in the here and now. We yearned to savor the unique gifts of each passing period of the year. It was a comprehensive paradigm shift away from our habitual efficiency and productivity and busyness, and it wasn’t an easy shift. It was a paradigm shift toward creativity not only in the most active sense of making, but also in the embrace of essentialism. A mindfulness focused on learning and appreciating and investing ourselves in the many microscopic moments of homeownership and rehabilitation and adaptation and outdoor living and gardening and sporting recreation and… living fully and intentionally all of the magnificent processes of our new existence. Yielding to seasonality meant rebooting our lives and our work from New York City to upstate New York, from the quintessential metropolitan hub to its veritable antithesis. It meant homemaking in the North Country, only 5+ hours away by car but a world away in terms of the rhythms and rituals, and even many of the values.
So, what sorts of seasonality, what specific rhythms help punctuate our Rosslyn lifestyle?
I will try to jumpstart your navigation through Rosslyn seasonality with prior posts that offer glimpses into precise instances of seasonality. I will continue to update this post as I revisit and revise older posts and as I compose new ones. If you’re inclined to seasonality as a way of organizing your own experiences, please bookmark this post and reference it in the future as a window into our Rosslyn adventure. (And if you find the idea too contrived or too procrustean for your taste, rest assured, there are a great many other ways for you to navigate this mosaic-memoir.)
Seasonality: Summer (Source: Geo Davis)
Try These Posts
Consider this an evolving outline of my posts explicitly or implicitly treating the topic of seasonality. I will revisit and update when helpful.
December 2014: “In recent years December has given us our first real blast of winter. A premature blast usually because early December snows have usually melted by Christmas…”
De-Icing the Duck Pond: “Let me start by saying that we don’t have a duck pond. We have a lake. Lake Champlain. And although it pains me slightly to say it, we also don’t have any ducks. Not personally, at least. Lake Champlain, on the other hand, has plenty of ducks. And when the lake freezes and the ducks run out of water to swim and eat, we offer them a small “duck pond” in front of Rosslyn boathouse to tide them over until spring.”
Winter Wonderland 2019: “Winter storm warnings wander across our radar often enough this time of year that we become a little meteorology skeptical. Not cynical. Just suspicious that promised snowstorms won’t quite measure up to the hype. Sort of a wait-and-see approach to meteorological forecasting…”
February Swim in Lake Champlain: “February swim, anyone? In Lake Champlain?!?! Griffin, our now almost nine year old Labrador Retriever, was thrilled to chase some throw-toys in the chilly lake today despite the fact that it’s February 19 and the water temperature is exactly three days above freezing… 35° of mid-winter swimming bliss!”
Spring Dance: Coyotes and White Tail Deer: “One trail cam. One location. Three months, give or take. Deer. Coyotes. And the transition from winter to spring in the Adirondacks’ Champlain Valley.”
Spring Meditation 2018: “Welcome to springtime in the Champlain Valley, a glorious but slightly schizophrenic transition — sun, rain, wind, hot, snow, sleet, etc. — when springtails make way for dandelions.”
Moist May 2017: “The Lake Champlain water level is ever-so-slowly dropping, but it’s premature to rule out the possibility of hitting (or even exceeding) flood stage. At present, there’s about a foot of clearance between the bottom of Rosslyn boathouse’s cantilevered deck and the glass-flat water surface. Windy, wavy days are another story altogether.”
Spring Soggies & Blooms: “The rain has stopped. At last! It’s a misty, moody morning, but the sun is coming out, and the rhododendrons are blooming. Life is good.”
First Peaches: “It’s but a month and a day after Independence Day and we’re eating our first peaches of the season. Eureka! So memorable a moment each summer when I savor the first bites of the first peaches of the season that I’ve begun to wonder if we might need to create a floating holiday. It’s hard to conceive of a better cause for celebration.”
Septembering: “September 1 should logically be indistinguishable from August 31. But it’s not. Seasonality along the Adirondack Coast is irrefutable, and possibly no season-to-season transition more apparent than the one we’re now experiencing. “Septembering” is neither sly nor subtle.”
Undocking: “Once upon a time undocking referred to a boat pulling away from a dock, a ship disembarking from a pier. At Rosslyn we also use the term to describe the annual autumn removal of docks (and boat lift) from Lake Champlain…”
Waterfront Winterization: “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.”
Autumn Aura on the Adirondack Coast: “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…”
October Wind, Canada Geese and Essex DNA: “Despite the on-again-off-again Indian Summer that we’ve enjoyed this autumn, there have been some bracing days, many like the one captured in these photos. Picture perfect. Bluebird skies and sunshine. But crisp. And windy.”
Susan and I were driving back to Rock Harbor after visiting Rosslyn, an early 19th century home in Essex, New York, which our realtor had just shown us for the second time in several months.
It was spring. At least a dozen sailboats speckled Whallons Bay as we wound south along the edge of Lake Champlain. Small white caps, light wind, bluebird skies above. Two fishing boats trawled between the beach and Split Rock where a glimpse of Vermont was visible within the cleft.
We veered away from the lake and up Couchey Hill toward one of the most picturesque views in the Champlain Valley. Hurricane, Giant, Dix and the Jay Range were silhouetted against cloud specked blue skies to the east. An undulating patchwork quilt of hayfields and tree lines stretched to blue green foothills clumped against the Adirondack Mountains.
Half an hour can vanish in a single breath while watching a sunny day expire here. Even at midday the view is an open-ended invitation to linger.
But with minds and mouths racing, we did not even slow down on our way back to Rock Harbor. We were sorting engagements, worrying over deadlines and synchronizing schedules for the week ahead. After a quick lunch, we would drive back to Manhattan. Although the trip could be as quick as five hours, Sunday afternoons were typically slower with increased traffic around Albany and returning weekenders adding to the congestion.
Rosslyn boathouse in distance, upended 16′ dock section in foreground
“Hey!” I looked up toward Route 22 and saw C.G. Stephens climbing over the guardrail. “Need a hand?”
It was the first time since our boathouse and waterfront had been submerged that anyone had offered assistance.
“Thanks. I really appreciate it,” I answered. I wanted to run up the hill and hug him, tell him how good it felt to be asked. But I didn’t. I was waist deep in thirty eight degree lake water, propping a portable dock up on the stone terrace to keep it from floating away. “Actually, I’m pretty good now. But thanks.”
Two sections of aluminum docking had gotten twisted and battered by waves and floating logs, and this morning the larger of the two had been knocked over the lowest stone retaining wall and lay upended on the submerged beach. Because the water’s now over my head on the beach and my waders only reach up to my chest, I had to work carefully from the terrace above the beach, slowly hauling the dock back up, waves and gravity working against me.
Before recovering the docks I waded through the boathouse. We’re no longer able to shut the main door because the water has swollen the bottom half too much to fit in the doorjamb. The water’s now thirteen inches deep inside, covering the first step and part of the second step leading up to the second floor. The two louvered doors leading out to the pier on the lake side had been battered all night by the waves, and the hinges were ripping. The temporary fastener we’d used to secure the doors was gauging the waterlogged wood. I released the doors and opened them wide, holding one side back with a rope and the other side back with a large stone. Now the water is surging through the inside of the boathouse, still tugging the doors against their restraints, but hopefully the damage will be less severe with them open.
C.G. and I stood on the bank for a few minutes, talking about the water level, the flooding and the beautiful morning. He said goodbye and headed back up to his big pickup truck idling on the shoulder of the road.
“Thanks for stopping,” I said as he left.
I took a few photos and headed back up to the house to find my bride.
“I’ve just had one of those Ah-ha! moments,” I explained. I told her about C.G. stopping and offering to help. “I finally realize what’s been bugging me; nobody’s offered a hand.”
I’ve been practically morose for the last few days as Lake Champlain water levels climbed and climbed and climbed. I assumed it was just an emotional reaction to watching our dreams and hard work getting swallowed up by floodwaters. An investment under water. After all, it was the boathouse that had pulled my imagination ever since I was a boy. It was the boathouse that had seduced us and won our hearts each time we visited the house with our realtor. It was the boathouse which had provoked a disproportionate amount of anxiety during renovation, which had posed three years of permitting and engineering and construction challenges, which had drained our coffers and strained relationships with contractors. It was the boathouse that most represented the lifestyle choice which compelled us to leave Manhattan and begin a new life in Essex. It was the boathouse which starred in recent memories of swimming and waterskiing and windsurfing and kayaking with our nieces, nephews, family and friends. It is the boathouse that is celebrated by local artists in exhibition after exhibition. It is the boathouse that adorns postcards and book covers and brochures and newspaper articles over the last hundred years. It is the historic boathouse that was resuscitated by the inspiration and perspiration of so many people over the last few years. Obviously watching the water swallow it up is unnerving. And waking up in the middle of the night, hearing the wind, worrying that the waves will unleash a floating log like a battering ram against the walls or the columns or the railings…
But three words, “Need a hand?”, illuminated the lightbulb for me. Literally hundreds of friends and strangers have stopped to photograph the submerged waterfront and boathouse. Emails, Facebook messages, Twitter tweets and photographs have flooded in. Sincere condolences and flip observations have lightened the mood. Even a few aesthetic and philosophical reflections have attempted to reframe the scenario. “But until C.G. stopped, nobody’s offered assistance. Is that strange to you?”
My bride listened. She agreed. She’d noticed the same thing.
“And, CG, though I’ve known him for at least twenty years, maybe more, isn’t even a particularly close friend. He’s more of an acquaintance, not somebody I would’ve bothered with a request for help.”
Susan told me that on Friday night over pizza at Dogwood, one of her closest friends had dismissed the flooded boathouse with a cavalier, “Oh, you can always rebuild it.”
Right. We can always rebuild it.
Rosslyn boathouse with Kestrel
Only, we can’t. Rosslyn’s boathouse is historic, built most likely in the late 1800s. It is a part of the historic architectural heritage of Essex, NY. History can not be rebuilt. It can be replaced with a facsimile.
Only, in the case of Rosslyn’s boathouse, it probably could not. Having been through the complex, multi-authority permitting needed for our original rehabilitation of the boathouse, I can say that if it were dismantled beyond repair, it is very likely that we would not be granted permission to rebuild it. New structures of this sort in the Adirondack Park have been disallowed for many years, and depending on the degree of damage to the structure, rebuilding is not a foregone conclusion.
And even if it were, the time, labor and material resources alone would be prohibitive. Flood insurance has not been an option. It is a boathouse after all. And even though there is absolutely no historic precedent for Lake Champlain to flood this high, insurance does not offer the safety net that it might for our house or carriage barn.
And then there is the human capital that it took to rehabilitate this structure. Mine. My bride’s. Several engineers. Between three and four dozen contractors, carpenters, laborers, painters and landscapers. Literally thousands and thousands of hours. Sweat and patience and dreams. People working in some of the most challenging conditions — forming and pouring concrete in freezing water; steel construction in snowy, windy winter; roof shingling and copper flashing in scorching summer — to save and restore a building that has greeted Essex residents and visitors for well over a century.
In other words, we can’t “just rebuild it.” And the notion that a close friend who witnessed Rosslyn’s rehabilitation from beginning to end wouldn’t see that surprised us both.
Why the self-pitying post?
Actually, it’s not self-pitying. Or, hopefully it’s not. I realize I’ve flown pretty close to the woe-is-me frontier, but I’ve tried to stay out of the No Fly Zone. I’m not asking for pity. Frankly, I’m not asking for a hand. Not yet. I’m keeping my fingers crossed and my psychic energy focused like a laser beam on dry, windless days until Lake Champlain’s water level drops two feet.
We’re resilient. A boathouse is a luxury, a folly, a non-essential, but we’re confident and optimistic that our funny little building on a pier in Essex will endure the flood, take on a handsome weathered patina and slip soon into the realm of “Remember when…”
So, if this isn’t a self-pitying post, what’s the take-away? If you’re a corporate speak aficionado, the take-away is empathy trumps apathy. Every time. And consider offering a hand when your friends might need it, even if you think they’ll decline, even if you’re not sure how you can help. Intention needs no translation.
On that note, if you’re anywhere near Essex, NY or Westport, NY consider offering a hand to the Old Dock Restaurant, Essex Shipyard & Rudder Club, Essex Marina, Normandie Beach Resort, Westport Marina and Camp Dudley. All of them are coping with Lake Champlain flooding, and even if they decline your offer of assistance, I suspect they will be genuinely flattered that you offered.
And, to close on a less preachy note, here are some of the more unique messages that I’ve received over the last few days:
“Global warming.” ~ Charlie Davis
“People pay a lot of money to have an indoor pool… I hope it’s heated.” ~ Michelle Rummel
“I got some great photos with the ducks swimming by, though. It’s all in the name of art…” ~ Catherine Seidenberg
“So sorry about your boathouse! Those pictures were so beautiful and so sad!” ~ Elena Borstein
“Maybe you can start your own ferry service – is it time to ski to Charlotte?” ~ Bobbi Degnan
“I suppose the bright side is that you can fish inside it…” ~ Paul Rossi
“I am all for starting a nice water taxi service, the Venice of the Adirondacks…” ~ Linda Coffin
“Still a beautiful boathouse even underwater.” ~ Matilde Busana
“Let’s all move to Flagstaff!” ~ Chris Casquilho
“I always thought it would be cool to live in that boat house with the lake and all… never quite meant it so literally though…” ~ Kevin Cooper
“Sad. But maybe there’s a children’s book there?” ~ Amy Guglielmo
“George is using him mind control on the lake. Watch it recede as he uses his awesome powers.” ~ Kathryn Cramer
“Heck, Catherine and I canoed through your boathouse today… We were very careful!” ~ Tom Duca
Building a drystack stone wall at Rosslyn, Essex on Lake Champlain
Yesterday, Thursday, May 15, 2009 was windier than a subway median at rush hour. Lake Champlain wind blasts reached 50 mph. The forecast had threatened gusts up to 90 mph. The rain drizzled off and on all day, but the fellow building the stone wall near the mud room stuck it out and got the job done.
This morning my bride interrupted me, frantic. She could only see one wind surfer on the on the boathouse dock. There had been two. Could the wind have blown it away? Possible, I supposed aloud, but unlikely.
I headed down and discovered that the older, larger Mistral sailboard was gone. Scanning the shoreline I spied it some two hundred feet north of the boathouse smashing against the rocks in heavy waves.
I couldn’t believe it. The wind had lifted it off the pier and deposited in the lake where it drifted until washing ashore. The wind! It’s a “vintage” sailboard at least a decade old. Huge. Heavy. A veritable aircraft carrier…
Yet there it was, getting splintered against the rocky shoreline.
I made my way north and climbed across the rocks. It was banged up pretty well, but still usable, though I figured it might be time to re-purpose it as a standup paddleboard.
I retrieved the board and made my way precariously back to the dock house, struggling to control the board in the still gusty wind. I was nearly blown off my feet several times before making it to the lawn.
Susan met me at the waterfront, and together we stored the Adirondack chairs inside the boathouse. I lashed the louvered doors shut because they’d blown open and wedged the sailboards in beside the chairs. The building moaned and the windows rattled against the wind gusts.
We headed back up to the house holding hands. The internet/television cable dangled from the pole where it had snapped and we counted two immense ash trees that had been knocked down in woods to the north of our front lawn. Leaves and branches were strewn all over the deck, driveway and lawn. An apple bough laden with blossoms lay on the grass.
After 24 hours our internet service was still down so I called the local company again for an update. A day later I showed the technician the dangling line. He’d been looking for about half an hour, walking around and using the hydraulic cherry picker on his van to lift him up for in-air surveillance on both sides of the road.
I’ve been back in the Adirondacks for a week after a six week “walkabout” with my bride and beast (Griffin, a 5 year old Labrador Retriever). And today is the first day that it hasn’t rained since we our return.
The sky is blue. The sun is warm. Robins are plucking worms from the soggy lawn. The purple lilacs are blooming. Spinach, radishes (French Breakfast Radish… Yum!), arugula and lettuce are reaching toward the sunny heavens. And Lake Champlain is wavy but not choppy. A postcard perfect day. But all is not perfect…
Remember these Lake Champlain water level graphs that I shared frequently during the 2011 Lake Champlain flood? Well, they’re back! And not because I love wonky diagrams.
Unfortunately I’m once again preoccupied with Lake Champlain’s rapidly rising waters. As you can see, the Lake Champlain water level is approaching 98 feet. While this isn’t an unusually high water level for spring, the rate at which the level is increasing concerns me.
You see how the lake gradually dropped a foot and a half over the last month? At the low, everyone was a little worried. Too low. Starting out the boating season with such low water levels would have been a concern in August and September. Boats find reefs and sandbars when the lake gets sooo low. Which isn’t fun for boat owners. Though full-service marinas tend to fare rather well…
Of course, low water levels are no longer a concern. We arrived home last Tuesday, and since then the rain has been falling and the lake level has been raising. Lake Champlain’s jumped almost two feet in a week. At 10:00 AM the current USGS Lake Champlain water level is 97.94 feet. And it’s continuing to go up, up, up.
And our dock is already at water level. Exactly. And while the boat lift still has almost a foot of reserve if we need to jack the runabout higher, the batteries are sitting on the dock. And they need to stay dry.
We might resort to putting the batteries in the boat to keep them dry. Especially if the water level continues to rise. Which I’m hoping it wont. I’m hoping that it’s cresting. That it’s about to start falling. Precipitously!
But hope and Mother Nature don’t always collaborate. Today, perhaps they will.
“George, uh, when you get a chance, can you give me a call? A, uh, a turkey hit your door last night and, um, it knocked the door off its hinges…”
A turkey? What? The voicemail had popped up on my mobile while I was riding to the airport in Antigua following ten days of sun soaked family relaxation. I wasn’t ready to go home much less hear that our house had been broken into by a wild turkey.
The connection was poor, the roads were bumpy, and the suspension was complaining.
I replayed the message.
Doug’s voice was tired and faltering, but it was the unlikely message, not the connection or his delivery which stumped me. A turkey broke down our door? What?!?!
Turkey Tale with Fishy Facts
I called Doug back as we bumped along. He answered and dilated the unlikely facts. The story was even more perplexing in long form.
A 23 pound wild turkey smashed through our mudroom door at around 8:30pm on Saturday night. Literally knocked the door right out of the wall, shredding the doorjamb and trim in the process. The alarm went off and New York State police responded to the call, immediately dispatching a trooper to the house. He was so surprised to discover the door blasted off the hinges and a dead turkey sitting on the threshold that he called in the police sergeant. Neither of them had ever experienced a break-in quite this bizarre before, so before long two troopers and one sergeant (plus an investigator by telephone) collectively unraveled the most likely circumstances and documented the incident. Photos were taken. Our caretaker, Doug, and our housekeeper, Lorri, witnessed and brainstormed the incident with the police and then the entire house was searched for evidence of any foul play. They found none. Apparently the turkey smashed the door down but didn’t manage to get into the loot. Or even the bar!
Doug confirmed that he had repaired the door temporarily to secure the house, and he had kept the turkey to show me when I returned. Did he want me to cut it open?
“Why?”
“I heard shots in the back meadows the day before. And the next day. Maybe somebody shot the turkey?”
I had my doubts. “At night? Who hunts turkey at night?”
“So get rid of the turkey?”
“No. Not yet. Let me talk this through with Susan on the flight home. I’ll call you when we land.”
When I hung up my bride who had been listening intently barraged me with questions. Chief among them — and reiterated in several different manners before I had a chance to respond — was the same question that loomed ominously for me too. How in the world could a turkey knock a robust exterior door right off its hinges?
I failed to adequately answer her questions or assuage her concerns. We fussed and worried, allowing our imaginations to inflate the surreal scenario nearly to bursting. By the time we landed in Newark I had decided to hightail it north to Essex the next day by train rather than driving north a couple of days later after my bride completed work commitments in Manhattan and New Jersey. I’d also decided that Doug’s idea about the wild turkey being shot might make a strange sort of sense. I couldn’t wrap my mind around a turkey, no matter how large, breaking and entering. And Doug’s mention of shots distressed me. Foul play?
At the very least this wild turkey tale smelled fishy.
Training to Scene of the Crime
I called Doug from the train to let him know I was on my way north and then followed up via email with a few people who’d already gotten wind of the turkey mystery.
DL: How is the turkey soup?
KS: I heard about your turkey burglar…
TD: Wow, I think that turkey was flying fast and hard… Sorry about your door! There must be a bad joke here somewhere?
DW: What?? Why would a turkey even do that? Truly stranger than fiction!
MD: A turkey??! Literally? That’s a hell of a turkey!
Me: Turns out the guajolote was 23 pounds. Literally knocked an exterior door right out of the jamb… the alarm was tripped and the artillery arrived to sort through the giblets. NYS Troopers consider it one of the most unique break-ins they could remember.
NH: Shock Horror! Was turkey acting under its own volition or was it being wielded? Was turkey cold? Is house on the site of an old turkey burial ground?
JK: Did you and Susan eat it, doorkill, housekill, randomkill, however it is labelled? Fricasseed, à la king, roasted, curried? Or did you just throw it out… Please do answer my query about the guajolote (wonderful Mexican word) so I can sleep in peace.
Wild Turkey Evidence
Needless to say, the old bird was beyond eating condition by the time I arrived in Essex. I snapped some photos and asked Doug if he were really willing to cut the carcass open to look for shot. He was. And he did, but found none.
This confirmed the original hypothesis. The wild turkey had most likely been ambushed by coyotes in one of our back meadows. Most of the feathers had been pulled off of his legs and a large wound in his breast suggested a coyote attack. The turkey escaped despite his wounds. But his adrenaline ran out (or his injuries simply got the best of him), and he crashed into the door, striking at precisely the spot where the top hinge attached the door to the jamb. We discovered that the contractor had failed to adequately secure the jamb to the surrounding frame, and the combination of sloppy construction and a heavy, rapidly moving projectile had been adequate to shatter the jamb and knock the door in.
Incredible.
But true.
Eastern Wild Turkey
It’s time to learn about the Eastern Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) which is a familiar critter in the Adirondacks and one of the most abundant examples of wildlife in Rosslyn’s meadows and woods.
Wild turkeys have excellent vision during the day but don’t see as well at night. They are also very mobile. Turkeys can run at speeds up to 25 mph, and they can fly up to 55 mph. (National Wild Turkey Federation)
When mating season arrives, anywhere from February to April, courtship usually begins while turkeys are still flocked together in wintering areas. (National Wild Turkey Federation)
Two major characteristics distinguish males from females: spurs and beards… Soon after birth, a male’s spur starts growing pointed and curved and can grow to about two inches. Most hen’s spurs do not grow. Gobblers also have beards, which are tufts of filaments, or modified feathers, growing out from the chest. Beards can grow to an average of 9 inches (though they can grow much longer). It must also be noted that 10 to 20 percent of hens have beards. (National Wild Turkey Federation)
Kamikazes and Banana Republics
Our kamikaze wild turkey had apparently sported an 18″ long beard (removed by Doug’s son by the time I took the photo), and his spurs were at least an inch long. Whether or not the old boy enjoyed a final mating ritual before crashing into Rosslyn’s mudroom door will remain a mystery, but I’d like to believe that he did. The love of his life, the real deal…
The next day the shots rang out behind our carriage barn, but I realized that they were coming from Essex Farm, an adjoining property where gunshots are about as common as a cinematic banana republic. My concerns about wild turkey “jackers” evaporated as I settled in to accept the latest chapter of our Rosslyn safari.
And lest you need a visual jumpstart to help you imagine coyotes’ appetites for wild turkeys, I’ll close with this short video from a stranger who would probably sympathize with our Gallopavo imbroglio.
What’s your verdict? Can you believe that a kamikaze wild turkey was behind this Rosslyn breaking-and-entering scenario? Dubious? Share your hypothesis below!
