Pleasant Interlude

Just a snap from my walk a few days ago, as a little interlude from our usual fare. The hills going down to the shore are quite steep in our area, and the lake roads—I live on East Lake Road—meander where they can along the shorelines, looping down below the two-lane highway higher up. My loop is about five miles long, I think.

I walk two miles along the Lake Road three or four times a week, sometimes with my younger dog, sometimes without him so I can keep to my own pace. When Butters is along, he sets the pace, and there are lots of starts and stops. The discontinuous nature of the lower roads keep traffic local, and, offseason, Butters and I can sometimes walk the whole two miles and not have a single car pass by; other days two or three.

Many of the houses are on the land side, but in some places there's enough room for houses between the road and the lake. There's no zoning regarding how much shoreline footage you have to have per house, or how close houses can be "stacked" behind each other, so there are places where the homes are jammed in together pretty closely. At the spot where this picture was taken the houses are behind me, and there are nothing but boathouses and docks down below. The steep grade continues underwater, so most of the docks, even for bigger boats, are very short and close to shore. There are some exceptions.

We've not had "good" Fall colors this year—not cold enough, is my guess—but we've had beautiful weather all the same. Autumn is really a special time in the Finger Lakes—it's quietly lovely rather than spectacular, but, as ever, there are many occasions as my days unspool that I find myself unexpectedly struck by the beauty of the land or the sky or the light or the clarity of the air. It happens perhaps not frequently, but nevertheless regularly.

The area is so hilly that our rural mail carriers must replace their brake pads once every three months on average. Corey, my mailman, a tough, wiry fellow who is also a grandfather, finally broke down and bought himself a right-hand-drive Jeep (I believe it's a Wrangler Sport RHD), and he marvels that it can go six months on a single set of brake pads. That's a lot. On his old car, which gave him back problems because it was left-hand drive, he replaced the brake pads every single month.  

At the end of the month they'll turn the water off in the summer Association across the street, and Mike and Ginny, who are the last holdouts in there as far as I know, will return to their Winter home. Soon enough after that, the snow will fly, and more of the restaurants will close for the season, and it'll get lonely for a few months. There will be only us introverts left. For now, though—and for the stretch of the year from April till right around now—there is no place I'd rather live.

Mike

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Mike Shwarts: "Weather does have affect on your fall colors, but you don't want cold and cloudy days. Here is a simplified primer. When daylight periods get short enough, processes in the tree are triggered to protect the tree from the coming cold weather. Chlorophyll, which helps the leaf take in sunlight, ceases production. Passage of water and chemicals passing back and forth between the leaf and the rest of the tree is cut off by the forming of an abscission layer where the leaf stem meets the twig. The same sunlight that interacts with the chlorophyll as part of the photosynthesis breaks down chlorophyll, but no new chlorophyll is being produced.

"The greens associated with chlorophyll fade. These greens mask the ever-present carotenoids responsible for yellows and oranges. The abscission layer also traps glucose formed by the remaining chlorophyll resulting in the formation of anthocyanins (reds and purples). Carotenoids and anthocyanins will eventually be broken down by sunlight leaving the brown (tanin) leaf.

"Weather has an influence on the amount and brilliance of colors. Even dry summers delay Fall colors. Warm, sunny Fall days with cools nights help in anthocyanin formation. Carotenoids are are always present, so the yellows and oranges of Fall are consistent."

Comments

[Les Myers]

This is a beautiful essay. Much of what you describe applies to Maine, where I live. It has been a beautiful autumn, with spectacular leafy color during the past couple of weeks.

[Peter Komar]

A very peaceful photograph that conveys the season quite well. I like the wide screen crop, I think any other such as 4x3 or 2x3 would not do the scene justice. I recently started using the 16:9 crop setting on my camera and really like the wide screen look.

[Dave Van de Mark]

Wow - it looks like you've found heaven on earth and congrats! The photo certainly supports your feelings. Since your comments disregard winter, maybe semi-congrats! Me, I'm a mountains loving guy who has never lived where I can wake up to a view of a "big" one, but they are only a few hours drive away, thank goodness. Here in coastal Northern California, we have no seasons, just winter and "non-winter". The reward is the ability to walk all year without turning into a moving block of ice :-)

[Phil]

I was going to be flippant and say "you need a 'like' button", because this is where the "like" button in social media is such an ingenious invention. It let's me feel like I'm engaging with you (and your essay and photo) but it also let's me do that with minimum time and effort so that I can move on to the next thing. Ultimately, though, moving on with minimum effort is good for the proprietors of social media but I don't think it's as good for me (and probably not for you) as stopping and considering your essay and photo and thinking about what that means.

It's wonderful to hear that you've found a place you love. I hope you get to stay there for a long time. The photo draws me in and makes me want to go across the lake, snoop around those houses on the other side and then go up back into the sunshine over that hill.

Have a good weekend, Mike.

[Luke]

Oh, my. I'd want a little sailboat.

Wouldn't the mailbox side vs driver side problem exist anywhere?

[Ben Rosengart]

Your letter carriers have to supply their own transportation? To me, that is quite odd. I have always seen them in official USPS vehicles.

[Yes, rural letter carriers have to provide their own vehicles. Oddly, official Post Office delivery trucks are being rented out for Fed-Ex deliveries on Sundays. So I get my mail delivered in a Jeep and Fed-Ex packages on Sunday are delivered by a USPS van. --Mike]

[Steve Jacob]

You do live in a very beautiful corner of the universe.

[Michael Perini]

What a lovely piece, thanks
Something indeed to be grateful for.
Places where land and sea and sky meet are always full of wonder and teeming with visual gifts.

Enjoy, Post Pictures

[Tom Burke]

That’s a great elegiac post, Mike. I’m pleased to say that i’ve seen that view, or one like it - you’ll remember that I visited you in Keuka in the spring of 2005. I remember the view over the lake, and also the odd ‘lower’ road - sometimes it was there, and sometimes not! I’d love to show you the countryside near where I live, the Peak District of Derbyshire in England.

I recently saw an excellent exhibition of the art of Thomas Cole, the great landscape painter of the early 19th century in the Hudson Valley. Truly extraordinary.

The thing that really throws me is the amazing (to me) temperature range you experience in the eastern US. You’re almost on the same latitude as Rome, dammit, but you get months of snow every winter! At 53° N I live north of anywhere in the lower 48, but most winters we get little or no snow and few frosts - and nothing like the ones you get. Minus 5° C is a cold night here - that would be around 24°F, I think. Not really worth calling it a frost....

[c.d.embrey]

Mike's photo got me thinking. I've always said that I could never live in a place where there are no palm-trees. On other things I'm much more flexible. I've had a very low boredom tolerance forever. Been there done that ...way to often, is my mantra. Maybe it's about time to re-invent myself—to re-boot into another universe.

How many of the ebbing hours of old-men's-lives have been wasted arguing about ...? It makes no difference what your obsession, maybe it's time to acquire a new fixation. A fresh infatuation to consume all of your time and money. Your latest enthusiasm will lead you to a newfound group of enthusiasts to argue with about your current hang-up—another group to buy your works. Just sayin' 8-)

[Mark Jennings]

Those northern lakes. Yes!!

[LARRY JOHNSON]

A couple of weeks ago I spent a bit more than an hour in your town and imagined fitting into the lifestyle there. I criss-crossed the downtown area, stepped in to the nice tavern with the two pool tables downtown, investigated three or four neighborhoods and jotted down for-sale info to check later. We'd driven up from Watkins Glen and enjoyed seeing the thriving vineyards along the way. There's a lot to like in PY and I think you've found "the place just right." I'm still going to be on the lookout for what might be mine.

[subroto mukerji]

Lovely piece, well written, with a terrific photograph thrown in for good measure. Thank you so much for this post.

[Rob Campbell]

I quit the relatively big smoke of a city for a life on an island; don't be misled into thinking there is terrestrial paradise: everywhere you go you bring along you. That "you" easily becomes the problem in every location.

From wanting to live on a yacht, fortunately prevented by my far more rational wife, we settled for this island in the Med. Yep, wonderful for a couple whilst still healthy and financially relatively independent, but far less heavenly bereaved and alone, and without the bank interest that underpinned much of that nirvana; solitude can morph into isolation rather than persist as a perfect state of being.

Don't forget climate change. Those expensive seafront properties will become marina foundations in a few years, Lakes, I believe, can only follow along as the rainfall and outlets dictate, both of which have ruined villages and snuffed out many lives this past week or so in Portugal, Spain, its islands and France. All it took was the spin-off effect of one hurricane in the wrong place.

[Jim Arthur]

Fall is my favorite time of year. I always make time to roam the countryside with my camera when the leaves start to turn. I was up in the White Mountains of Arizona (Fort Apache Reservation) last weekend to photograph the aspen when a snow storm hit. Getting a chance to photograph such beautiful country during a heavy snowfall is a lot of fun (except for some white knuckle driving) and some of the photos end up looking like paintings. Many of the small towns in the White Mountains also dwindle in population during the winter months and I enjoy the solitude when I visit during this time.

Roaming a half empty town or standing in a forest at 8000 feet always reminds me of the Robert Frost poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. It’s the only poem I know by heart and I learned it in grade school. It’s funny what sticks with you.

[Andreas Weber]

A week ago, here in the Wild South of Germany: