shavertown road

this is a long, meandering post. i've crammed in as many photos as i could to ease the reading.

we see the first deer on the way to breakfast tearing out of the trees and brush on the south side of 28 the way deer do sometimes, without thinking at all, without looking first, even a little bit. it comes out with about nine hundred legs clawing the pavement, scrambling to the other side with an intensity that suggests it does know the dangers of paved roads even if it doesn’t act like it. when our car hits the space where it was when we first saw it it is down the embankment on the north side and gone.

we eat breakfast at a place that serves pancakes out on the front porch and while we’re waiting a fat finch hops right up next to our table, eyes us only just a little, then leaps up with maybe a flap or two to perch nonchalantly on the edge of our table. it looks around with that little birdy head canted to odd angles all curious and glassy-eyed and when it realizes we have nothing, no food, it gets those wings going and is gone. we eat there with a handful of dogs milling around. small ones, mostly. a pudgy little white dog with spots spends some time with the sweetie and something that looks exactly like a teddy bear snuffles around near the front steps. a place that encourages pancakes and friendly dogs on the same porch is worth an occasional visit.

the next deer runs alongside us on 28 as we drive back. it is impressive and beautiful but we easily outrun it. it seems more aware than other deer of how to avoid the dangers of pavement but it is still clearly a thrillseeker.

we are taking the boat to the d.e.p. today for bathing and numbering and stickering. for legitimacy. the road is forty gently winding miles of forestiness on one side and sprawled out reservoir on the other. playground of deer. getting the boat to the d.e.p. has proved to be almost as interesting as getting it the forty miles from where we bought it to home. more rental truck circus. more grown men assuming i do not exist or cannot lift a boat. but after a lengthy and helpful conversation with the d.e.p. man about how far down to fish for what is biting now and with what bait, we decide to scout out a spot across the bridge from our retired boat, where the old road used to go down to shavertown, i suppose. the road has one of those no vehicles gates across it and the pavement is shot through with weeds and flowers. although the water is only a few feet away from the road, the trees and vines and brambles are dense enough to hide it. the sweetie is still at the car doing some sort of mr. rogers shoe shifting thing while i tromp down the road with a tiny speck of water sparkling at the end. this is when the third deer, a monstrous thing much larger than any other deer i’ve ever seen, flings itself out of the trees and brambles on the water side of the road and clears the road in a single leap, crashing into the dark foresty other side. there is no way that animal gathered up that much speed in the space between the water and the road. i yell for the sweetie, try to find the deer. what i will do if i actually do find it is not yet clear in my head, although i suppose i am thinking i will pet it a little on its soft nose and maybe hug it once if i can reach up around its neck.

we like this deer infested spot and ease the boat into its new home, nestled between other flatbottomed slowmoving boats, none even half as lovely as ours. after yet another trip back to drop of the rental truck, a journey of 280 miles (yes, that is seven separate forty mile trips) ends with the sweetie and me carrying our boat from its new home down the raggedy road and right on into the water.

and i am in love. the boat is happy here in the water. it is not moaning or sighing or taking on large quantities of water. i put the oars in the oarlocks and even though they are still too short for me to row as well as i’d like, i dip them into the water and we sail across all that glittering and sparkling surface like nothing. we eat pepperoni rolled up in provolone like cigars. we drink limeade. the sweetie feeds sawbelly after sawbelly into the clear green water. the swallows come and go, dart into their mud baskets all along the bridge, then scream out onto the water again.

we spend the evening like this, out in the middle of deep water. the sky and the water and the mountains shift with the changing light. we are out of bait fish and we are out of cheese so i row back slowly along the shore while the sweetie casts from time to time into the weedy underbellies of fallen trees. the sweetie catches a fish that comes across the water with a gaping mouth and fiery red eyes. it is too pretty to be a fish. it is also to small to take home so he sends it back to grow a bit.

we are close to the road again, the one that used to go down to shavertown, when i hear a crack in the thick trees on the bank. i assume it is a bear intent on killing us and eating our few remaining pepperonis. the sweetie is not convinced. i peer into the branches in search of gleaming teeth and deadly claws. what happens is a little red deer comes stomping out all spidery with those extra legs deer seem to have. it stands there a while staring at us while i fumble for my camera whispering to it to stay still. it is my conclusion
that deer have very poor hearing or a limited ability to put together snippets of the english language with wild gestures in any meaningful way because it slams itself back into that little stand of forest between the road and the water and leaves me with nothing but a blurry photo of its backside.

we go home without fish, without any photos of deer. we walk back out of the water along that road and put away our boat for the night. i don't know for sure if that road ever went to shavertown but that's what the bridge is called and that's the name of one of the towns down there under the water. i imagine being able to walk all the way down that road, trout and alewives swimming around me, all the way down to the little general store and school and one of those white painted wooden churches a hundred and fifty feet into a valley. they are all elusive. the fish. the deer. whatever is at the bottom of that road. it doesn't matter. the getting is nice but really it's the looking, the adventure, that fills up a life.