DEC-B-4

 

THE SNOWY WINTER WONDERLAND STAY IN MAYVILLE, NEW YORK BETWEEN LAKE CHAUTAUQUA AND FREDONIA, WITH ELK DINNERS AND CHRISTMAS CHEER WITH FRAN AND RUSS AND FAMILY

 

December 18—21, 2003

 

            I made it in the trusty Bronco in eight hours with two gasoline stops, ending at dusk around Lake Chautauqua at Point Bemus as the big white flakes started accumulating on the road.  It has been snowing steadily since, and at the temperature outside, it will continue to accumulate.  I had stopped at the Lake and looked around to see if there was a need to put it in the 4 WD for which I had locked the hubs.  When I saw the 430 and 17 junction, I saw the sign to Fredonia.  That is where Margeaux, Virginia’s niece, is a freshman, and she is getting a bus out to fly to Chicago tomorrow.  I tried to call to say that I was very close, with a 4WD and might be able to get her out if she needed help, but I could not get through to Virginia in time.  I had a couple of phone calls on the way up across the “Southern Tier Highway” through the “Seneca Nation” while listening to 1066 one of two audiobooks I had plugged in, the second being the Proving Ground” a story of the disaster of the Sydney to Hobart  “Maxie Class” racing yachts sailing into a hurricane.

 

            As soon as I pulled in to the winter wonderland of the Elwells, we were swapping pictures of recent deer and elk hunts and toasting the success of each.  The piece de resistance was elk sirloins from Wyoming being served along with the smoked salmon from Alaska.  We have lots more good stories to swap, since Russ Jr was the guide for the successful elk hunting trip to Wyoming, and he and Leah are scheduled to drive through this snow to arrive on Friday night—where they will stay until they are married here in the festive farmhouse after the holidays.  Gretchen, Russ’s sister is in SUNY Binghamton as a freshman graduate student in “Geographic Medicine” for which I have just downloaded the chapters I had assembled on that topic.  And I am going over the orders on the furniture and appliances that had been forwarded to me by the two designers—Sandy Shelor for the interior designing and the furniture order to get them started on customized upholstery etc to be ready for February delivery, and the all-Viking stainless steel kitchen appliances—a choice that Fran, a professional class cook—approves.

 

            So, we are looking at the magnificent trophy bucks that Christian and his dad got in Missouri and then the trophy room I am putting together to house just such a collection of trophies.  A new sound system is being plugged in here around the large Christmas tree in the family room before tow more are brought in to go into living and dining rooms, to prepare the house even more than it currently is for the annual “Boxing Day” celebration for which I had been in attendance two years ago.  I am sorting out a few of the items I had brought for the end-of-the-year filing and then will go with Russ to pick up that large loads  of processed venison from their Amish butcher who reported “My, those were mighty big deer!”  I could also learn from Russ about his big diesel truck and how he likes using it to go west in his hunts with this vehicle. On the way back from the elk hunt, he had a drop off of the elk, which became wrapped venison the following day for our enjoyment tonight, all if it transported effortlessly by the diesel truck.  I may have a chance to learn more about this kind of transport system shortly, but for now, I had the Bronco performing very well for its trip up here—not it’s first, but likely its last—as the Audi is awaiting me in the GW parking structure upon my return.

 

A VERY HOMY WHITE CHRISTMAS IN THE COZY

ELWELL HOME AS THEIR FAMILY GATHERS FOR BIG EVENTS,

AND THREE BLACK LABS LIE AROUND IN FRONT OF THE CRACKLING FIRE AS IT CONTINUES TO SNOW HEAVILY AND PRETTILY

 

            It is always a pleasure, but Fran outdid herself in the culinary arts this time, including the newly acquired Southwest Cooking School she attended in Santa Fe with an instructress who was getting her degree in foods and made a living by the photography of foods.  We started with elk sirloin, and had venison lasagna the next night, with salmon fillet from Russ’s Alaska trip.  We sampled a few bottles of fine wine.  We had two outings; one to an Amish farmer Troyer who now makes a living processing deer—at fees about one third mine in MD.  I forgot what they have to deal with as the women were in the shop and Luke came out sporting his new wooden leg, after a prolonged bout of infections and osteomyelitis which came about from a compound fracture after a fall from the roof in his prior carpentry and fix-it process.  They had asked for a picture of the very big deer that Russ and Christian each got in Kansas on their self-guided hunt for big whitetails.  They were the biggest deer they had seen of the 1012 deer they had processed this year.  I asked “we might be able to send it over by fax” since I had just had the big buck pictures in hand.  The round wife of the group in her Amish apron and cap pointed to the gas light and said “Yah, we Amish you know do not have electricity!”  Only then did I realize that the wood stove was their heat and the light at the shop was a gas light with a flame—otherwise it was bundling up to bed for the cold winter night for them.  It was snowing consistently through the day and night, and we got into Russ’s Duramax Diesel Chevy pickup truck and carefully drove the snowy roads passing Amish buggies drawn by horses through the falling snow and around the New York state and Chautauqua County snowplows.

 

            On Saturday, we went over to Tweedie’s place his nearest neighbor, to get some help from the very handy neighbor with the snow blower that had lost a “key” in the gear box.  A bit of spot welding made the snow blower almost as good as new, and Russ both plowed with the font end loader and used the blower to clear the driveway.  While we were engaged in a few of these repairs on the big Massey Ferguson Diesel tractor (which he had successfully used to power the generator for a day when the power had failed) we heard a shot.   It was not Russell Junior who had just got out of bed, but it was Alice Tweedie’s wife.   She feeds the birds in winter and was very annoyed to see a Cooper’s hawk coming after the birds.  So, I got my first close-up look at a Cooper’s hawk!

 

            Two out of three of the Elwell kids made it home as Friday’s snowstorm was falling.   Russ and Leah came the furthest from Bozeman Montana, and they had driven over with their truck full of stuff including kayaks, saddles and their dog Mengis.  This makes for three big black labs in front of the fireplace (Begira and    being here already) and if Christian comes up later, that will add Strider as a fourth.   Russ and Leah are here for the holidays but with a following big event, they are getting married in the backyard at the house in the snow on January 21.  This is after many years of living together and after Leah just finished her Master’s Thesis on Ecology of mixed stream inhabitants including the trout subject to whirling disease.  She is walking in Bozeman Montana on May 9 to pick up her Master’s degree  

 

            Gretchen, their daughter, came in from Binghamton where she is a beginning geography graduate student.   She is keen on computers and what she can do with them so she will be ready for the GIS revolution. 

 

            So, I was part of the reunion’s front edge of the wave, since Christian will not be able to come up until later for the traditional Boxing Day celebrations with the Reddingtons and with the wedding coming up thereafter.  I accessed the Photo Works pages and spent an afternoon printing out pictures for the ones that I had wanted Christian to get and also to illustrate some of the hunting stories I had swapped with Russ the second, who is going to send me a packet for a Wyoming elk hunt drawing.

 

            So, as always, a good time was had by all, with stories about the hunts, the Kung Fu and martial arts, and a good deal about the horses and cattle on the farm and the Chautauqua environment.  It will be good to rendezvous later in the newly renovated Derwood and back up in Chautauqua County of which Mayville is the county seat.

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