CANOESTROPHE ON HATCO POND
A sunset paddle seemed like an excellent idea. It had been a quiet day at the cabin. It was just Jim, Aubrey and I. The rest of the crew is not due to arrive until later in the week. The day had consisted of lots of reading. A little laundry. A minor ping pong competition. And Jim and Abby swimming in the pond. After the dinner dishes were cleaned up, the three of us headed back up to the pond. I was hoping to spy the large blue heron. He had been surveying the fish population while commanding the dock upon our arrival Friday afternoon. He unfortunately flew off before I could get a look at him.
Aubrey was going to read on the dock while Jim and I watched the sun go down from the vantage point of our romantic canoe for two. Jim was pushing the canoe into the pond when I noticed a puddle inside. After drawing Jim’s attention to the puddle (which failed to impress him) he flipped over the canoe in a rather dismissive way, clearly just to appease me. So I’m not much of an outdoorswoman. I’m the first to admit it. I didn’t want to get my bare feet wet.
Coming alongside the dock, he held the canoe steady as I attempted to get in. Then I spied a tiny crustacean floating in the remaining water of the canoe. “Hey Jim, there’s one of those lobstery things.” He tried to pick up the crayfish with his fingers, but it was too small a specimen. Then he tried to lift it onto the blade of his wicked-looking pocketknife and I was suddenly afraid for the wellbeing of the creature. “You’re going to cut his nose off with that thing!” After several comments from the peanut gallery on safe crayfish lifting practices, Jim managed to secure the little lobster on the flat of his blade. Aubrey took the crayfish from Jim with her net and I once again began lowering myself into the canoe.
And then my life flashed before my eyes in the form of a wiggling slithering snake which seemed to have dropped from nowhere (or more likely the rim of the puddle and small lobster-filled canoe.) It was just inches from my feet and closing in fast. I achieved a height heretofore unknown to my less-than-agile ankles. I leapt for all I was worth and clung to the wooden dock with a ferocity I could not have mustered under lesser circumstances. All the while screaming to Jim (and to anyone within a five mile radius) about the unwelcome guest in the canoe.
Jim, true to form, was at this point laughing with pure delight. His glee derived not only from watching me act like a ninny, but in response to what he considered a coup d'état; having a snake caught in a space that would require him having to pick it up. (It should be said that this is one of his inexplicable and untiring goals. Much to my dismay, he is a practiced rock-lifter, creepy-crawler-loving snake-hunter who likes nothing better than picking up, holding, and adoring the slimy creatures.)
And so as I backed up as far as humanly possible without dropping off the other side of the dock, my husband joyously chased the snake around the belly of the canoe with his bare hands. My heart was in my throat and my more sensible daughter added her words of caution in the direction of her father the snake-handler. After not immediately catching the writhing monstrosity, he went to plan B (involving a still-worrisome combination of the crayfish net and his bare hands.) Somehow in the middle of all of that he also caught (within the belly of our canoe) a second crayfish. This one was nearly large enough to apply for residence in a Red Lobster lobby tank. (And one would ask, HOW did all of these animals decide that an upside-down canoe on the shore was such a great place to hang out?)
So Jim had the unpleasant two-foot snake in his hands. Turns out it was a Northern Water Snake. And it had a most horrible smell. Probably a defense mechanism against gleeful vacationing snake-handlers.
A sunset paddle seemed like an excellent idea. It had been a quiet day at the cabin. It was just Jim, Aubrey and I. The rest of the crew is not due to arrive until later in the week. The day had consisted of lots of reading. A little laundry. A minor ping pong competition. And Jim and Abby swimming in the pond. After the dinner dishes were cleaned up, the three of us headed back up to the pond. I was hoping to spy the large blue heron. He had been surveying the fish population while commanding the dock upon our arrival Friday afternoon. He unfortunately flew off before I could get a look at him.
Aubrey was going to read on the dock while Jim and I watched the sun go down from the vantage point of our romantic canoe for two. Jim was pushing the canoe into the pond when I noticed a puddle inside. After drawing Jim’s attention to the puddle (which failed to impress him) he flipped over the canoe in a rather dismissive way, clearly just to appease me. So I’m not much of an outdoorswoman. I’m the first to admit it. I didn’t want to get my bare feet wet.
Coming alongside the dock, he held the canoe steady as I attempted to get in. Then I spied a tiny crustacean floating in the remaining water of the canoe. “Hey Jim, there’s one of those lobstery things.” He tried to pick up the crayfish with his fingers, but it was too small a specimen. Then he tried to lift it onto the blade of his wicked-looking pocketknife and I was suddenly afraid for the wellbeing of the creature. “You’re going to cut his nose off with that thing!” After several comments from the peanut gallery on safe crayfish lifting practices, Jim managed to secure the little lobster on the flat of his blade. Aubrey took the crayfish from Jim with her net and I once again began lowering myself into the canoe.
And then my life flashed before my eyes in the form of a wiggling slithering snake which seemed to have dropped from nowhere (or more likely the rim of the puddle and small lobster-filled canoe.) It was just inches from my feet and closing in fast. I achieved a height heretofore unknown to my less-than-agile ankles. I leapt for all I was worth and clung to the wooden dock with a ferocity I could not have mustered under lesser circumstances. All the while screaming to Jim (and to anyone within a five mile radius) about the unwelcome guest in the canoe.
Jim, true to form, was at this point laughing with pure delight. His glee derived not only from watching me act like a ninny, but in response to what he considered a coup d'état; having a snake caught in a space that would require him having to pick it up. (It should be said that this is one of his inexplicable and untiring goals. Much to my dismay, he is a practiced rock-lifter, creepy-crawler-loving snake-hunter who likes nothing better than picking up, holding, and adoring the slimy creatures.)
And so as I backed up as far as humanly possible without dropping off the other side of the dock, my husband joyously chased the snake around the belly of the canoe with his bare hands. My heart was in my throat and my more sensible daughter added her words of caution in the direction of her father the snake-handler. After not immediately catching the writhing monstrosity, he went to plan B (involving a still-worrisome combination of the crayfish net and his bare hands.) Somehow in the middle of all of that he also caught (within the belly of our canoe) a second crayfish. This one was nearly large enough to apply for residence in a Red Lobster lobby tank. (And one would ask, HOW did all of these animals decide that an upside-down canoe on the shore was such a great place to hang out?)
So Jim had the unpleasant two-foot snake in his hands. Turns out it was a Northern Water Snake. And it had a most horrible smell. Probably a defense mechanism against gleeful vacationing snake-handlers.
Aubrey refused to leave the scene of the debacle until in her words, “Daddy is safe” despite the ¼ inch dock board which was wedged firmly and brutally under my fingernail during my hasty canoe exit. (And I am here to say, Dick Cheney, bamboo (or other pointy slivers) pushed decisively under ones fingernail are DEFINITELY a form of torture…) To Aubrey’s credit, she did eventually race back to the house to steady my elbow so I could remove the throbbing plank with my non-dominant hand.
So our romantic sunset paddle was not to be. But now I’ve got a story. Not to mention a new wariness which will inevitably engulf me every time I flip one of the boats for a voyage across Hatco Pond. (As if THAT will ever happen again…)
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