October 12, 1989 - Some Down-Home Wisdom from Upstate814 The Suffolk Times • October 12, 1989
Some Down -Home Wisdom from Upstate
By Paul Stoutenburah
Last weekend we traveled up north to
catch the fall color in the mountains,
and would you believe it? We hit it just
perfectly. We here on Long Island with
our oak and hickory hardwoods can't
match the splendor of New England and
the mountain foliage.
Actually our purpose was twofold:
one to see the color and the other to
help friends who are building a camp up
in the Catskills. Although they are hav-
ing the same problems there as we here
on Long island with development and
building, their area is so widespread it
doesn't seem that bad to the outsider.
But then again, the same is probably
true of the outsider who visits our end
of the island. for instance, few realize
that the majority of farms they see are
not owned by farmers but rented to
farmers and owned by speculators.
Most of the area we were in was made
up of low, rolling mountains with
lovely small valleys drifting away, satu-
rated in color. It was in these valleys
that small diary farms once flourished
but today you have to drive a long way
to see a true working farm. The area we
were in was near the Pepacton Reser-
voir, one of a series of huge manmade
lakes that supply the city of New York
with all its water.
It's interesting to note that strict zon-
ing is carried on to protect this water-
shed This applies to the whole area that
surrounds this precious resource. I'm
sure there were those who complained
about the regulations, just as we have
people here complaining about zoning,
but public safety and welfare come be-
fore the individual's property rights and
that's the way it has to be. Gone are the
frontier days when man did just about
anything he wanted with his land.
We even had a chance to see a friendly
skunk that came by the house each
night to collect the leftovers. I can re-
member skunks here on the East End
but today on the North Shore there are
none and very rarely do we see them on
our South Shore. Skunks in the wild
are grubbers. Worms and insects of all
sorts make up their diet and I'm afraid
pesticides did them in as they were
particularly fond of potato bugs.
They even have bluebirds up there.
During one of our breaks I noticed a
flock of birds feeding along the
hedgerow and perched along a lighting
wire. They were continually dropping
down into the field and feeding on in-
Focus on
Nature
sects. There must have been 10 or 15 of
them, mostly young birds, which is a
good sign. We can only hope that
someday we'll have a world again here
where bluebirds will be seen.
Stone Walls Meant Work
The terrain is rocky and, like much of
New England, it has its share of hand -
laid walls. Most of the rock is split like
slate and makes beautifully sculptured
walls that follow the contour of the land
like some giant snake.
We gathered stones from the edge of a
field that my friend's father, uncles and
grandfather had hauled out of the fields
on a "stone boat" to clear the land for
pasture and then threw them over the
bank to get them out of the way. We
worked two days and created a huge pile
for their fireplace but you could hardly
tell where we had taken the stones.
What laborious work the farmers had
put into that stone pile and it was just
one of many. Each field had its own
collection and sometimes for
convenience, even more than one to a
field. Once in a while we'd stop and
examine a particular stone that caught
Photo by Paul Stoutenburgh
BLUEBIRD--Once common on our East End, the bluebird today is hard
to find.
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our eye with faint fossil imprints on it.
Others had scar marks where the old
plow drawn by horses had unearthed it
from its sleeping bed.
Near the "camp" that had already
taken shape was the old homestead. It
lay in the valley below, its outbuildings
painted barn red and the big white farm-
house where all the energies radiated
from nestled in the middle. Huge sugar
maples, now in their last years, hung
around the outside perimeter, one with
its feet in the little brook that ran under
one of the buildings. That same brook
kept milk and butter cool in the sum-
mer. Off to one side was the old sap
house with its characteristic opening at
the top where the smoke and steam
from the boiling kettles of maple syrup
drifted into the crisp spring air of the
mountains. I was told when the air was
still it lay like a blanket in the valley,
covering everything with a white man-
tle. Lifting up from the farm were the
fields — some for pasture, some for
hay. Few of them level.
All Work Done by Hand
My friend remembers most of the
work was done on the farm with horses.
The hay was loaded by hand onto wag-
ons and then hauled to the barn where it
was picked up and hoisted through a
series of pulleys that dropped it in the
top part of the cow barn. Below, the an-
imals were stalled and hand - milked. The
cans were loaded on a wagon and driven
a half -mile up the old dirt road to where
it was picked up each day.
Those were true farmers. Men who
thought more of their land and cows
than almost anything else. There are
still a few of that rare breed scattered
throughout our country but I'm afraid
the small farmer, like the small busi-
nessman, seems to be doomed. Once
again man is being deprived of that
closeness to the land. Blacktop and
glass, glitter and chrome, corporate dol-
lars and banks are taking over. It's no
wonder we treat our land so poorly.
It was a special privilege for us to
reminisce and see this land that was part
of what made America great. I'm sure
those who experienced the difficult days
of farming had little time to appreciate
the world they had created. Farm life
hardly gave them a chance to take a
breather in those early days. If those
who have passed on could look down on
today's world I wonder if they might
not say, "If I had a chance to do it all
over again I don't think I'd change a
thing. It was a good life."
J.P. HUBERMAN, M.D.
Diplomate- American Board of Opthamology
Specializing in Cataract Surgery by the small
Incision Kelman Phacoemulsification technique
with intraocular lens implantation
Medicare participant
over 2,500 cataract -lens implant
operations performed
small incision lens implants utilized