End of Summer

It is Labor Day weekend in the Finger Lakes.  This time of year is bittersweet for me.  Being a professor at a college I look forward to starting classes and seeing all of the new faces at school.  The fall also brings spectacular colors as the leaves on the trees change color and the apples are picked and eaten.

This summer was special for me.  I took off from work, and, among other ventures, spent the summer looking for invasive aquatic plants in the lake.  My search ended this weekend when, my husband and I canoed the southern end of Skaneateles Lake looking in the stream inlets for Hydrilla, an invasive species recently discovered in Cayuga Lake.  This plant is an aggressive invader that chokes out other native species and spreads prolifically.

We didn't find any Hydrilla but we did see a Bald Eagle perched on a tree branch, oblivious to the jet skis that were motoring all about.  Then, suddenly, we heard what sounded like a waterfall.  We stopped to pinpoint the noise and noticed that across the lake a rain shower was heading right towards us.  We quickly paddled under the nearest Willow tree for cover, but were drenched anyway.

Summer in Upstate New York is ephemeral, and pretty; I hate to see it end.

I also spent weeks swimming with friends.  We would meet in the morning and swim a 1/2 mile- 1 mile a couple of times a week in the lake.  We got to know all of the moods of the water.  I have done this training for the past eight years.  Each year we mark the passage of summer by swimming a mile with over 200 other people in the annual Skanraces - Escape from the Judge - race event.  This morning as we jumped off the Judge Ben Wiles at 8 am.  The skies were cloudy, the water calm. The only waves were those stirred up by the hundreds of swimmers.  I thought about how all of the swimming and training over the summer pays off, and what a joy to finally be done with it.  Now though, I sit and think, I wouldn't mind it if summer lasted a bit longer.  I am not ready to let it go.

This summer, I also accomplished something I always wanted to do: I wrote a book. It is set in the Finger Lakes, a coming of age story about a young woman (Emalee Rawlings) who, after the tragic death of her parents in an apparent murder/suicide, navigates her way through adolescence to adulthood.  What she experiences is something we all know well, that people and places we encounter throughout life change the way we think.   The book follows Emalee from her home in Canandiagua Lake, to college at Hobart and William Smith on Seneca Lake, and finally to the wilderness of Algonquin Provincial park in Canada.   It is a testament to the beauty of wild places and the importance of protecting them.  My goal in writing the book was to educate and entertain. It is appropriately enough called, 'Ephemeral Summer'.  Look for it next spring, I can't wait until until then.

Mayfly Hatch

The mayflies (Ephemeroptera) are out.  I was watching them the other night by the lake.  They have recently hatched after spending their young lives under water as nymphs.  When they first come to the surface, they have wings but do not fly yet, they are commonly called duns by fishermen, this is their subimago state.  They shed one last time and can use their wings to fly,  the imago state, which means they are ready to mate.   Mayfly nymphs have gills to breath under water, and can take up to a year to go through what is called incomplete metamorphosis as they molt their exoskeletons.  This may happen 20-40 times depending on the species.



These episodes of life stages are called instars.  After the last instar, they climb out of the water and rest until they complete their final molt and begin to fly.  At this last stage of their life they do not have mouth parts, their only purpose is to mate.  They do this in a courtship dance above the water.

The males swing up and down in the air, looking for a mate.

I saw several mating in the air, clinging to each other in flight.  After this ritual, the males go off to the nearest tree limb, lamppost or rock and die.  The females go to the water to lay their eggs and then die on the surface.  On the lake it looks like a soft rain is falling when you watch hundreds of the female mayflies dipping their bottoms where the eggs are stored, into the water.

Mayflies need clean, well oxygenated water to survive their youth.  You find them around lakes and streams where the water is not polluted.  They thrive around Skaneateles Lake and are a treasure to see each year.

Growing Vegtables in the Winter

I work at a community college in the Finger Lakes: Cayuga Community College.  We have two campuses, one in Auburn, NY and one in Fulton NY.  Both experience heavy snowfall,  and lately, it has been very cold.  But while the temperature outside hit 9 degrees Fahrenheit last week, the temperature inside our High Tunnel Greenhouse was a balmy 40 degrees.  The soil was 38 degrees.  This greenhouse, built with grant funds from the Walmart Corporation, is a collaborative project the college is undertaking with a local agency called the Cayuga/Seneca Action Agency.  The food grown in the greenhouse will be donated to a local food pantry.  We are growing shallots, garlic, and bok choy and they are sprouting!  Here is a picture taken in January 2013.

Visiting the Finger Lakes Tourist Hotspots

Yesterday I went with a group of students from Cayuga Community College to visit three sites in Cayuga County that are tourist destinations.  We first visited the William Seward House, named after the Senator and Diplomat that served New York State and the Nation before and after the Civil War.  Seward is most fondly remembered for "Seward's Folly"  the purchase of Alaska from Russia while he was a Secretary of State under Andrew Johnson.  The Seward House is his residence in Auburn NY, donated by the family to the Emerson Foundation in 1951.  It contains many if not most of the original furnishings from his life-time, including a gallery of pictures of diplomats from around the world.  It is definitely worth the trip to Auburn!

From there, we drove to Aurora, NY to have lunch at the Aurora Inn.  This beautifully restored Inn in the heart of small-town Aurora is charming and the food was fabulous!  The views of the Cayuga Lake are remarkable.  The Inn is hosting many interesting events, trying to lure more people to the area to learn about the good wine and food grown locally in the Finger Lakes.

Finally, we ended our trip with a visit to Mackenzie-Childs.  This world-famous home decor production company has hand-crafted fine pottery that makes one "smile".  Really, that is how our tour guide referred to the goods there, and he was right.  The whimsical designs are one-of-a-kind.  I personally do not own much of their wares but know many people that collect Mackenzie-Childs.

I realized after the trip what a wonderful place we call home here in the Finger Lakes.  Where small towns can reclaim their heritage and offer such hospitality to outsiders.

El Clima

We recently welcomed a Rotary Exchange student from Venezuela into our home. Her English is limited so it has been a challenge to hold conversations. I must say though that she is really trying and it is a delight to speak with her and realize how new and different our local environment is compared to Venezuela.

As we were walking one day she pointed to the sky and said the clima (pronounced cleema) is very fresh!  She told me in her broken English how in Venezuela the sky is polluted and very, very hot.  Even more impressive to her was that we drink the water from our lake and even swim in it!  It made me realize how lucky we really are.  Then she asked me about the "ice in a cup" that comes at Christmas.  I had no idea until my daughter pointed out later that she was talking about snow globes,  and asking me what the name was for the "ice in a cup", or snow.  She is so excited for the snow to come!  She has no idea that once it comes it stays for at least four months!

Glass Castles Author Coming to Auburn

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I have been in a book club for over 12 years now and have read two of Jeannette Walls books: Glass Castles and Half Broke Horses. Each book invoked intense discussions about family, obligations, and quality of life. They are wonderful accounts of her family and her life. Glass Castles is an especially moving story of what it was like for her to grow up in poverty- literally starving all of the time. I encouraged both of my daughters to read her book so that they could appreciate how much they really have. Books like these remind me as a parent that there are three things that I am ethically required to provide to my children to ensure that they grow up to be decent human beings: love, food, and shelter. As Jeannette's brother states at the end of the book, it is really that simple.

Snow Geese

I have lived in Upstate New York for quite a while now and it has not been until the past few years that I have noticed snow geese.  I was passing through Montezuma on my way to work today when I saw a gaggle of geese flying by.  On the lakes they look like a floating iceberg.  Suddenly, that iceberg moves and what a surprise! 

I guess snow geese have become quite abundant over the past decade.  Their numbers have increased from 500,000 in the 1970's to over 1 million now.  They make their way from the arctic to New Jersey and Maryland via the Atlantic flyway - passing through the Finger Lakes region along the way. The reasons given on the New York DEC web page for their increased numbers is better food supplies, restrictions on hunting, and consequently increased reproductive success rates. I think they are beautiful.