The Great Memorial

In Normandie, as the French spell it, there are many memorials to those who fought and died in the Allied invasion during June and July of 1944.  One of these is the American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, on a bluff above what English speakers call the English Channel.  

It seems appropriate that the largest seaborne invasion in history would take place in the area of France conquered by earlier seafaring invaders.  But the scale was quite different.

The remains of almost 10,000 souls are interred here, resting under rows of monuments installed with impeccable precision.  That the memorial is emotionally powerful is an understatement.

The names, rank, unit, and date of death of each are inscribed on the headstones.  The lives ended prematurely either on the beaches or nearby are predominantly short.  They gave up not only their lives, but future families, children, and grandchildren not even imagined.  

Michael Wess
PVT   325 GLI INF  82 ABN DIV
ILLINOIS   June 12, 1944

Sam Sandrowitz
PVT  120 INF  30 DIV  NY
June 15, 1944

And there are those unidentified.  Not granted even the small solace of recorded names, they lie there with all the others.

"Here lies in honored glory
a comrade in arms
known but to God."

But here, they are not forgotten.  They sacrificed so that a tyrant would not continue to impose his twisted will on France and all of Europe.

The inscription on the circular chapel in the center of the cemetery says, "These endured all and gave all that justice among nations might prevail and that mankind might enjoy freedom and inherit peace." Indeed.  But the fight continues, and will never end.

This place is both a memorial to the brave souls who died here in Normandie, 

and also to the insanity of War.

A Royal Pain

Available at fine retailers everywhere.

The most recent example of fawning over the British Royals is the reaction to the birth of a young lad.  It is all very nice that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex now have a presumably healthy baby boy. Any birth signifies new hope and is clearly worth celebrating.  However, having the world atwitter, and particularly Americans going gaga (not in a ladylike fashion) is disgusting.

A few hundred years ago, we Americans threw off the yoke of the blood-sucking Royal leeches that required our tribute.  In doing so, we established the operational fact that all men are created equal. We still struggle with application of the concept. Slavery is mostly behind us, but Pogo’s observation that “Some is more equal than others” remains true. However, we categorically denied the right, divine or otherwise, of Kings and Queens to rule us.  Not only that, the notion of equality dictates that we abolish the existence of royalty altogether.

Admittedly, the current status of the English Monarchs is royalty lite, but their existence is contingent upon funding from the state.  I’m sure their continued existence is a net positive, financially, for England, since they fuel an entire tourism industry for their properties and appearances, and also a huge speculation and conjecture business which follows their every move, but that’s not the point.  

Some insight into the British preoccupation with the Royals is provided by a chance meeting, many years ago, just prior to the State Opening of Parliament.  As usual for our brethren across the pond, a great deal of pomp was provided for the event. The Queen and much of her brood were being transported from Buckingham Palace to Parliament in fancy horse-drawn carriages.  On holiday (We vacation in the US. It’s “holiday” in England) with my own family, we blundered into the roadblock that allowed the procession to proceed, so stopped to watch.

As the gilded carriages clip-clopped past, I said to Mary, “Amazing what the accumulated tribute of hundreds of years will buy.”

My comment was overheard.  “Oh, no!” said the woman standing beside me. “They gave us everything.”

“Oh,” I replied.  Evidently, the Magna Carta and the like were just fake news.

This preoccupation with all things royal extends to us in the colonies...er ah..the United States.  It is amazing how much “news” coverage is provided to royal weddings, royal marriages, royal births, royal Halloween costumes, and so on.  

By buying into the hubbub, we Americans are buying into the notion of royalty.  “It’s OK,” we think. “It’s just the English doing their Royal thing. Fascinating to follow what they do.”

Ha!  Don’t you see it?  They’re just putting up the jolly front, waiting for the day when we the people are so fed up with representative democracy that we’ll beg them to re-establish the Ruling Monarchy.  And judging from current events, that day is not far off.

“Give us a King to lead us,” said the Elders of Israel.  “Give us a King to lead us,” cry those tired of Brexiting. “Give us a King to lead us,” demand those who lament the un-drained swamp.

But remember that he will claim all as his own.

“But anywhere has to be better than in this frying pan!”  

Pogo should have said that, too.

A Monarch worth supporting.

Another Loon Weekend in the Book

Yes, another burst of activity in the woods.  Good stuff got done.

Here the door is being nailed in place, never to open again.

Shelves in a closet!
Short ones on Gimp 1's side.

Taller on the other side.
Her Majesty approved.

Though all were quite worried he'd shoot his eye out,
No mishaps were reported,
though hearing loss was suspected.

Almost all the snow was gone.
Lefty missed the cameraman.

The lake was high.

And someone finally got the hat he's always wanted.

The effort was wrapped up with a fine bonfire,
first of the season.
While the spirit is still willing, 
the body has other ideas.
The fire was out and all were in bed by midnight!

And there were fabulous prizes.

FABULOUS PRIZES !!!

Your Dam Business

The hubbub was that the dam would be repaired after only one year of delay.  Sure enough, come September 2018, the trucks and hoists and equipment arrived. Truthfully, the preparations began long before that, with an improved gravel service road being installed, and a good deal of concrete work above the waterline being completed.

Reworked section looking almost like new.

In September, the water did actually go down as low as the dam would allow.  

Lots of mud.

Water level down more than 10 feet.

A mile and a half upstream, it was anticipated that my poorly designed dock would be high and dry and begging for reinforcement.  But that was not the case. Though the water at the dam was drained down as low as it would go, what really regulates the winter level on Stewarts Landing is not the dam.  The rapids above the dam are what actually determine the level. You’d think after about a thousand portages completed from one Adirondack lake to another, one would understand that principle without seeing the dam level all the way down, but some of us are a little slow on the uptake.

The natural rapids of Sprite Creek,
only visible when the level at the dam is much lower
than the usual winter level.

In fact, not only does the top of the rapids near the dam determine the water level upstream, but every little riffle adds to the height.  Wherever there is flow that is impeded by the rocks in the stream, a small amount of height is added to the “bottom” as determined by the top of the rapids.  A quarter-inch here and a half-inch there adds up. So the winter level of Lily Lake (and Canada Lake), where the channel widens and the flow is no longer impeded, is significantly higher than well downstream.

Riffles, small drops in the water level,
exist wherever the constricted flow passes obstacles,
and the channel is full of them.

Perhaps selfishly, some enjoyed the solitude provided by the early lowering of the water level. Less people means more wildlife.  Those who paddle don’t need much depth to explore the channel. With warm September days providing ample opportunity to get out on the water, exploring the natural channel was a pleasure.

This female Merganser was enjoying the sun
on a rock that is usually far below the water's surface.

The assumption that the channel formed by the flow of Sprite Creek out of Lily Lake is the result of the dam is not correct.  The channel has always been wide and deep enough for small boats to make their way from Canada Lake to a short distance above the location of the current dam.  Verification is provided by the fact that unlike the surrounding dam-flooded areas, there are no stumps in the natural channel. Trees have never grown there.

No stumps here!

But there are logs.  Hundreds of them. Visible under the surface, at the bottom of the channel lie sunken logs, artifacts of the logging industry that led to the settling of the area.  Any ideas for creating something out of 100-year old sunken logs?

This bottom-hugging log is not a factor to boaters
when the dam raises the water to summer levels.

Another artifact is the remains of the wooden dam of the Stewarts Landing sawmill.  The sawmill was on the creek, but the placement of what’s left of the dam makes one wonder if it had any effect at all on the water level above the rapids.  Further investigation is necessary. A time machine and a drone would come in handy.

Remnants of the wooden dam across the channel.

100+ year old boards,
preserved by submersion.

The man-made jetty in the stream,
most likely for guiding logs to the mill.

The Stewarts Landing sawmill,
from the Fulton County Archives, by way of
Barbara McMartin's book Caroga.
(Well worth reading!)

Back to the current dam.  Work continued through the autumn and was pretty much done before the usual blanket of snow covered the site.  

Work in progress on the downstream side.

Before they were through, the workers extracted the gate which holds back the water and drives the level up for summer.  Let’s hope it returns! But it is not only the thing determining the summer water level. There are boards installed across the top of the spillway which add their width to determining the level.  These, too, were replaced while the work on the dam was in progress.

Details are important!
These boards dictate the maximum level at the dam,
though prodigious flow can raise the level upstream.

The missing gate is bad news for boaters,
unless they happen to be the kayakers
who shoot the downstream rapids when the water is high.

PS - Yes, the updated gate is now in place and ready for summer 2019.  We’re all looking forward to a great summer!

Working to replace the gate in early January.

Ready for summer!

Wonderland

Stratford is a township in the northwest corner of New York's Fulton County.  It covers about 77 square miles of the earth's surface, and supports 640 full time residents.  8 people per square mile.  Less in the colder months, since many of the locals do what they can to spend time in warmer places.

The population density is even more astounding when considering that Stratford is a 4 hour drive from the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn.  That's assuming the arrival or departure from downstate is near 3 AM, to minimize the travel-limiting effects of the 38,000 or so people per square mile found there.

Roughly 1300 feet higher than Lake Ontario to the west, like most of the Adirondacks, the town collects moisture from the lake and from regional storms in the form of snow.  Lots of it.  As one drives up from the lowlands, the weather changes significantly, the snowbanks grow, and you enter Wonderland.

The open spaces beckon, but Wonderland is mostly  in the woods.

Welcome to Wonderland.

Up the hill and into the woods
on skis or snowshoes,
depending on preferences and conditions.

Choose a direction.
It really doesn't matter.
Don't worry about getting lost on such a nice day.
Follow your tracks or the sun to get back home.

Hardwoods, 

or Hemlocks?

We'll explore both.

Curls of the paper birch bark catch the snow.

Slim trimmed limbs grace this space.

Not only is a grove of mature hemlocks a visual delight,
the snow caught in the limbs blots out sounds
to make for a rare total silence.

A gust catches the tall top of a nearby lifeless trunk.
The silence is broken by an ominous creaking.
Look up and look out, Mary!

Lattice work created by the big wind a day before.

Mushrooms and driven snow
hugging the same tree.

Someone else was here first.
Perhaps a fisher,
or a porcupine dragging his belly through the snow.

Quite pretty, these small hemlocks, thick at the edge of a swamp.
After the 3rd failed attempt,
it was determined that going around
was preferred to going through.

Time to follow the sun back home.

Almost there, we see a sign of human activity.
Thank goodness snowshoeing and skiing are not mentioned,
and that we forgive those who trespass against us.

Back home, one realizes that
even the edges of the dwellings
are conscripted for Wonderland.

But some just don't care.