Lakeside Living 6: Dear deer by Ruth Ross Saucier

     When your new house is sited on a deer path, you get a revitalized appreciation for many things in life: deer-resistant plants [your deep-seated desire to raise geraniums is utterly thwarted], deer deterrents, and matted deer nests in your flower beds. 

     When your new neighbor (whose house was also sited on the deer path) decided to plant vegetable gardens, but found them regularly decimated, I helpfully recommended a motion-sensitive sprinkler.  The sprinkler was modestly successful at driving off the deer, but it also soaked visitors (me) and delivery people with equal abandon.  No lasting harm there, but when a local dog found the sprinkler to be a joyful experience, he trampled the entire garden into a muddy mess.

     My then husband who was new to the depredations of deer, was delighted when mama and her spindly-legged baby wandered through the yard lightly trimming the hedge.  She then brought baby over to nibble on my only surviving rose, gently pulling off leaves.

     “Well, that isn’t so bad,” he said, “At least she’s leaving the flowers behind.”

     “Really? That’s not usual…” I said, as she inhaled an entire blossom, one huge delectable mouthful.     But we immediately forgave them, for the speckled baby was undoubtedly hungry, and we could not find it in our hearts to deny her. (The rose bush made several comebacks over the years, but finally disappeared when a beaver nipped it off at ground level and dragged it over the frosty grass to the lake. No doubt it was considered a prize for nailing together a lodge nearby.)

     It was early afternoon, though, when we experienced another deer habit.  Mom had twins that year, and they were daily visitors, grazing as they meandered through the yard.  But this afternoon, they grazed as usual and then bedded down. They stayed in the yard for nearly four hours, grooming and stretching, nibbling and napping. 

     No sign of mama, no sign they were ever going to leave.  It was pretty clear that mom had told them that only old people lived here, so they would be safe hanging out until she returned.  Then mom finally returned, gathered them up, and they were gone. 

     Only later did we discover that this is a normal part of the weaning process…but for a while, we were grandparents to twins.

Lakeside Living 5: Launching Adolescents by Ruth Ross Saucier

Great Blue Herons are modern pterodactyls with wingspans of six and a half feet and a call that is harsh and prehistoric. Supreme predators of the waters’ edge, the ancient Celts believed them to be reincarnations of children who died young.

My small mountain lake hosted a heron rookery, and their presence could be seen on almost any day, stalking the shallows for sushi. But one morning, just before I needed to leave for work, I saw something that left me shaken and confounded in equal parts.

Herons are normally solitary hunters.  It’s rare to see more than one at a time, but this morning I was witness to a spectacle.  My lake front faced a cattail-covered peninsula that jutted out into the water a good fifty feet.  At the tip of the peninsula was a partly sunken log, and as I watched, a juvenile heron awkwardly flapped his way out to the end of the log and balanced precariously there. On his heels came five more herons, each settling a little farther back on the dry land of the peninsula, and each perching in the same direction, facing junior’s tail feathers, the wind, and the lake.  

And for all I could tell, they proceeded to settle in and watch the juvenile heron, patiently, as he seemed to gather his wits and his courage. I needed to leave for work, but this was such an event, I could not tear myself away. They waited, the bunch of them, all monitoring Junior as I held still and watched in awe.

The watch went on and on and eventually I dubbed members of the audience Mom, Dad, Uncle Harold, Aunt Josephine, and Cousin Mabel. Junior remained on his perch, tentatively raising his wings, bobbling a bit, re-positioning his feet  and ducking his head, but each time he would settle back to parade rest. 

Finally, Uncle Harold had had it. He launched himself into the wind and straight over Junior’s head, flapping those ponderous wings to gain altitude slowly, a process that lasted more than a hundred yards down the lake.  Once he was high enough, he turned tail to the wind and came back toward the peninsula and my house, and high in the air he passed right over his family below.  A few heartbeats later, Aunt Josephine followed his example, launching herself into the wind, following the same flight path while Junior watched and wobbled on his log.  Sure enough, one at a time, each of the rest of the three copied the example laid before them, and soon all that was left was Junior, still wobbly and now completely alone.

Frustrated and a little frightened, he waited a bit longer, flexing and teetering, but clearly agitated now that everyone had left. Finally he hurled himself clumsily into the air, but instead of following all those good examples and flying into the wind for altitude, he turned abruptly away from the lake.  Careening wildly, he tried for a 180 to follow his family’s last known direction.

But his skills with low altitude cornering were no more developed than he was. His flight path now took him straight at me and my two-story house.

The fifty feet he had to gain altitude was in no way enough to clear my roof. He was coming straight at me, flapping madly. Oh my God, he was clearly going to smash himself headlong into my house! 

My hand flew to my face  as I watched him hurtling straight toward a head on collision. At the last moment, I covered my eyes as I struggled to think: who was it again who served as an animal hospital for wild birds? Where were they? How could I find their number?  I listened for the crash and thump, envisioning broken wings and a huge wild bird that would not appreciate my help…but I couldn’t hear anything, so I threw myself out the door and around the house.

But there was nothing, no sign of a collision. Somehow his clumsy flight had cleared all obstacles and he was on his way. 

Lakeside Living 4: Swan Song by Ruth Ross Saucier

     I was sitting by my picture window one morning, marveling at the view—or, actually, at the complete lack thereof. Normally, I was 30 feet away from waterfront. However, 

overnight an impenetrable winter fog had blanketed my mountain lake, obscuring everything except the very edge of the lake, perhaps ten feet of water.  The grass was frosted over hard, leaving not a hint of green.  In fact, everything before me was some shade of white or gray: frosted grass, a solid white wall of fog, and a thin strip of silvery water.  The white out was complete, the fog curtain blocked everything.

     The utterly still, gray-and-white panorama lulled me quickly into fantasy.  Perhaps I wasn’t living on a little mountain lake at all, but on a great ocean. Just beyond the fog was a grand vista of sailing ships and a tree-lined harbor.

     But as I began to elaborate on my time-killing fantasy, the perfectly frozen tableau inexplicably began to change. The solid, flat wall of fog began to balloon out in two areas near the water level.  The fog wall bulged out, getting bigger and bigger with no clue about the cause. 

     Finally, the pregnant fog spheres burst open to reveal pristine white swans: the first I had ever seen on the lake. The swans glided by, not even disturbing the surface water and producing an elegant tableau in white and silver. A moment later, they disappeared--leaving behind nothing but the fog wall and the secrets it guarded.

     

     But wait--were they royal swans? Was my lake a feature of castle gardens? My fantasy took over once more.

Lakeside Living 2: Nothing’s sacred to a beaver~by Ruth Ross Saucier

    When my house was first built it faced the lake and was surrounded by three vacant lots that were mostly forest. The privacy was perfect.

    Mostly.  There was a one sightline in the forest that needed plugging. So I decided to buy a couple of those cylindrical hedge trees [Arborvitae for those of you in the know]—they’d make a perfect screen and complete the privacy of my deck. 

 It was August. That’s never stopped me before; I plant when I’m in the mood, not when it’s good for the plant.  It was pushing 90 degrees and the humidity made breathing a soggy experience.  I found a couple five-footers and lugged them to the car. Once home, I lugged and tugged them along the side of the house and finally got them positioned. Just that much had me miserably hot and sweaty, but this was going to be the project of the day, dammit, so I persevered.

Stupid.  I grabbed a shovel and started to dig. Hardpan. The entire lot had a layer of hardpan a few inches under the topsoil, but normally you could break through it to soil that wasn’t a layer of cement without a lot of turmoil. This hardpan, though, went down about five inches and required getting out the pick. I had to make a bigger hole, too, since the roots needed someplace to go that wasn’t the texture of concrete. A couple of hours later this soft, namby-pamby librarian was soaked in sweat and huffing and puffing like Thomas the Train.  Sweat is running freely down every crevice and my clothes are sopped.


Three hours total and the trees were planted, staked, watered, fertilized, and ready for their new life guarding my privacy. I staggered inside and stumbled into the shower.  Cleaner but no less exhausted, I wobbled downstairs to get something to drink. Glugging down a second drink, I paused when I saw motion in the yard.  The next thing I remember, I was out the door, across the deck, flying across the lawn, and screaming incoherent threats.

      Waddling faster now that he had a demented banshee after him, a BIG beaver was lugging a five-foot-long Arborvitae branch to the water. I galloped right up to him and he, after calculating his odds of survival, decided to drop the branch and make a break for the water. I skidded up to the edge of the lake as he rose from his dive and slapped the water with his tail. 

       Sweating all over again, I whirled and scooped up my prize: a major branch off my newly planted tree. At least I had saved that!


       From the deck my husband Dan inquired, “Just what were you gonna do with him if you caught him? And hey, now that you got the branch back, whacha gonna do with it, Elmer’s?”

Lakeside Living 1: the heron & catfish vignette ~ by Ruth Ross Saucier

     I lived on a small lake for nearly 20 years. Only trolling motors were allowed, and those were used rarely--so the lake was a refuge for an amazing cross-section of nature. Birds, fish, mammals, rodents all flocked to it and lived around it for the water and the food. If you parked yourself in front of the view and held still, you never knew what you’d see, because the show was always on.

     I was staring at the lake from the deck one day when a heron came into view. He was stalking something painfully slowly, his skinny legs not even leaving a ripple in the water. He lifted one leg and then froze for the longest time, slowly cocking his head slightly to peer into the water. He waited and I waited with him, barely remembering to breathe. In a split second he slashed through the water and his head reared back with a big, fat catfish flopping madly.

     The struggle continued for a while and the heron

finally lost patience and threw the catfish up onto my lawn. The heron followed the catfish onto the lawn to inspect his catch. There the catfish continued thrashing, so the heron stabbed him, once, twice, and scooped him off the lawn and juggled the persistent fish in his beak.

When the catfish refused to submit, the heron hurled the fish to the ground twice more and stabbed him again and again. I was wincing from the violence of this National Geographic struggle, but I could not tear my eyes away. Finally the catfish was barely fighting. Satisfied, the heron scooped him up and juggled the fish in his sword-beak until the catfish was facing down the heron’s gullet, all whiskers swept back.

     Stretching out his neck, the heron began gulping the fish down until every last bit disappeared. But no; the catfish became a sizeable, writhing lump that squirmed down the heron’s neck until it vanished.  Undeterred and relentless, the heron slowly resumed his hunt. 

Futurism ~ by R. R. Saucier, Editor, Writer, Observer

     I am an amateur futurist. Ever since I saw my first episode of the Jetsons in 1962, I have wanted my own flying car, Rosey the robot maid, and a wind tunnel that would do your hair, wash, and dress you while you did nothing (I am not a morning person). None of those have come true yet, but the Jetsons’ future bewitched me, enticing me into a lifelong fascination with what the future might bring.

The ‘60s were manic-depressed when it came to the future.  The Seattle World’s Fair predicted technological nirvana and built the Space Needle as a lasting tribute to a future not dissimilar to the Jetsons—after all, George and Jane were living in a Space-Needle-like home. But while many were promising a glorious future, dire warnings of a future filled with overpopulation and environmental disaster were prevalent.  Many predicted the earth would suffer horrible calamities in 50 years if we did not control our population. Hunger, drinking water shortages, and people living in overgrown rabbit warrens prone to crime and despair were all part of the portrait of the future.

It’s now 60 years later; have the warnings of the 1960’s come true? Overpopulation is a moving target, depending on the amount of people the earth can maintain without causing environmental deterioration and an impaired quality of life (see Webster for this definition). Most contemporary estimates put the carrying capacity of earth under our current conditions somewhere between 4 and 16 billion.  Current population is over 7.3 billion…so are we there yet?

One of the most fascinating books on population basically says the earth will take care of itself.  Laurie Garrett’s The Coming Plague (1995) supposes that the natural environmental forces that govern the existence of life on the planet will take over when human population overstrains the environment. Garrett provides the science behind the correlation and causation of a wide number of diseases and overpopulation. Whether it’s malaria, tuberculosis, hantaviruses, or Ebola, she makes a case for humanity’s numbers being curbed by our own infections. 

So when I read articles on the current typhus epidemic in Los Angeles or the growing number of cats in Wyoming who are dying from bubonic plague, I think back to Laurie Garrett’s work and wonder if nature isn’t striking back—again. [And yes, bubonic plague is contagious between cats and humans. Fleas and rodents are not your friends!]  

The environment may be overstressed, but human overpopulation is the cause. While we work to clean up the environment, Mother Earth is working on the root cause—as is the Bill and Melinda Gates’ Foundation. But few in our leadership talk about overpopulation directly, because if you think politicians are too scared to deal with the environment, try overpopulation with its corresponding issues of birth control, abortion, and equal access to health facilities and insurance.  Those issues are enough to scare us all. But Mama Earth does not respond to lobbyists, folks, so she’s going to take care of all of us, whether we like her approach or not.  

Laurie Garrett, The Coming Plague.  Worth a read.

Laurie Garrett. The Coming Plague. 1995. Review, Michiko Kakutani, Nov. 9, 1994, New York Times.

“Typhus epidemic Worsens, While Los Angeles’ Response ‘Too Slow, ’” NBC News, Los Angeles, Oct. 11, 2018.

Cat with bubonic plague in Wyoming is third in six months, KIRO news, Jan. 13, 2019:

Editing and Control: Musings ~ by R. R. Saucier, Editor, Writer, Observer

     Old School Control. Let’s talk control. As an editor, I can’t help but note that the job description for editing has morphed since self-publishing became a viable option for writers. In the ‘70’s, I was a grunt for the publishing wing of the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington. Manuscripts were scrupulously combed through. The attention to detail was superb: every word, every bit of punctuation was dealt with at least three times, sometimes more. Despite working with highly educated academics, the editor’s way was gospel. Sure, there were freelancers then and people who wrote term papers – but professional publications were subject to editorial control that was lodged firmly with the editor.

     Control in Free Fall. Today, I work with a lot of authors who are self-published. Some of them have been professionally published, some not. But the power equation has changed. If you hire me to edit your work, I will give you my very best effort and will let you know when the edit is a matter of grammar or opinion. You remain in charge, having relinquished no control at all. You can accept my work, ignore it, and ultimately, decide whether I’m the editor for you. 

     Professional publishing today still retains a high degree of control, however. Try enforcing how you are edited when you are dealing with a publishing house, and you better have good rationales for your choices or great sales! Curiously, many have argued that some famous, professionally-published writers are allowed too much leeway (read: control) over their works. Once their profits soar some readers feel their work suffers, seemingly from a lack of – you guessed it – editing. In other words, some writers can handle control and some cannot. 

Derry, Emily, Amelia at two weeks

     Diverting Uncontrolled Anecdote. I’ve always been a cynic. I gave up on Santa by the age of three and religion by the age of six. I have always believed that control is an illusion; the moment you feel you have it, you’ve got a surprise coming. Falls under the adage, tell God your plans if you want to hear him laugh. Or, as Leia said to Governor Tarkin, “The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.” [Star Wars 4, if you’re counting.] 

     My husband and I had two miniature schnauzers. When one died early of Addison’s disease, we were utterly bereft. We went puppy hunting, having convinced ourselves that our surviving female schnauzer, Liesl, needed company… a ridiculous notion that I doubt either of us really believed. We adopted two male schnauzer puppies that summer; both were charming and a tad precocious.  

     When Liesl went into heat we consulted our vet, who averred unequivocally that the four-month-old boys were too young to father a litter, we were safe. As he was a professional and we were vulnerable, we believed him, but even so, we still kept the two of them separated. Ten days later we were sure the heat was over. And, after all, he was too young anyway, so we relaxed our control over Liesl. Shadow, who had not been informed he was too young, immediately proved the vet wrong. It took him about three seconds to figure it out, and that’s all it took. As Dr. Ian Malcolm would say, “…life, uh…finds a way.” (Jurassic Park, 1993)

     
     My husband wanted a little black female puppy; Liesl, ever his dog, produced three little black females. (Yes, schnauzer pups are born black and achieve their real color with time--but I’m convinced she did it just to please him, like everything else she did). And yes, you guessed it; we ended up keeping them all for a total of six: Mom, Dad, Uncle Snickers, and the three little girls, Emily, Amelia Peabody, and Derry.  

Derry, Emily, Amelia at one year.

     You need some.  Don’t misunderstand. We need control. Control throughout life is vitally important to success, personality, and self-fulfillment. Babies who lack control of language are utterly frustrated until someone figures it out for them. Seniors in nursing homes desperately strive for whatever tiny bit of control they can eke out of that environment; if they lack it utterly, despair is often the result. Children must be given choices and understand that they have control over their choices if they are to become functioning adults. A total lack of control is often cited by those who attempt suicide. Mid-level managers with little or no control who are surrounded by co-workers who are at loggerheads must be ingenious negotiators or risk total frustration.

  So, you gotta have it. Just don’t fool yourself about how much you really have, or you could end up being a schnauzer pack leader. Or just a member of the pack, because, after all, control is tricky--especially with schnauzers.