Back to Nature: The End of Summer in Rural Kentucky

I have just returned from five glorious peaceful days at our lake cottage in Kentucky that has no reliable cell phone service, no television, and no radio reception. The most complicated electronic gadget is the coffee maker. Osmosis from the outside world rarely improves the natural experience.

When I was growing up, we retreated from the hot Florida summers to this rural place with no running water where we carried buckets from the spring behind the house to boil for dish washing. We bathed in the lake and brought drinking water from my Grandmother’s house. Now we have running water and no longer need the old privy out back.

Miles from a town or a store or a road wider than two narrow lanes, the place is much as it was then; the rustic decay of the cottage adds to its charm.

Tucked between hills, with the rising sun beyond the hills behind, the cottage stays darkened until late in the morning. The sun moves across the lake all day, setting directly across in the evening, casting beautiful light across the waters that looks like Tinkerbell hosting a dance party and can be viewed from our front porch.

As the sun sinks in the evenings, the mist curls over the lake and the bats come alive from their roosts, making the approaching darkness a little bit eerie before it finally gets nearly black. When there is a full moon, it rises behind the cottage, casing shadows across the lake and lighting the way for a last walk around its perimeter while the bats fly and the night noises begin.

Our favorite lake meal continues to be a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich (BLT) and we savor the wonderful tomatoes from the local farms. Their sweetness, combined with the salty, crisp bacon, a dash of pepper, a small amount of mayonnaise, and ice cold crunchy lettuce between two slices of toasted wheat bread is the most delightfully delicious combination. I indulged twice this year.

HIGHLIGHTS:

• Sitting on the screened porch in old rockers with split oak seats listening to owls on opposite sides of the lake having conversation and playing ventriloquist games with their prey.
• Laughing at the crazy whippoorwill making its frenetic calls again and again, interrupting concentration on a good book and causing us to stop and listen, smiling at his OCD behavior.
• Hearing woodpeckers in the hollows of the massive old trees, their hammering echoing across the lake at all hours.
• Watching tiny hummingbirds buzz and fight with one another at the feeders erected by our neighbors who are there often enough to keep them filled.
• Walking down to our dock, hot coffee cup in hand, seeing a small turtle scuttle off the ladder step, just above the water, his drying time interrupted.
• Scanning the lake to see an occasional fish jump and dozens of large and small turtle heads pop up, round bodies flattened out behind them as they navigate their way to a good place to crawl out and catch the sun.
• Startling a great blue heron during his morning feasting near the shore and feeling the gust from his loud flapping wings as he departed for the other end of the lake, away from the only human danger he was aware of.
• While out in the canoe, dog asleep in its bottom, watching a double-crested cormorant, with crooked beak, his long pipe-like neck steady and strangely still before diving below the surface to search for food and protection from intruders. When he realized we were too close for comfort, he spread his wings and with great much fluttering and splashing, he ended our hide and seek game.
• Observing thousands of nickel-sized freshwater jellyfish, found in lakes with good water quality and plenty of zooplankton, free-fall happily in the cool currents, tiny tendrils pumping. They have a ghost-like appearance, gelatinous filling outlined in white with a white X in the middle of the circle akin to a three-dimensional single jack with silky white beards waving from the circular outlines.
• Reluctantly driving into town in search of a replacement coffee maker, and being rewarded when a huge, beautiful red-tailed hawk flew directly in front of our car, nearly hitting the windshield. It flew safely into the wooded area on the other side of the road and we marveled at the detail we were able to view up close.
• Watching a harmless water snake that lives in the weeds by the sandy swimming area catch minnows in the shallow water. I don’t care for snakes but this one was interesting to watch.
• Finding a dead snake in the grass by the lake, looking very much like he had been flattened and severed by machinery, and being glad it was not the harmless water snake but a copperhead.
• Walking with the dog, watching him chase squirrels and chipmunks and follow dozens of trails of scents that led up trees or further than his old legs were willing to go.
• Enjoying the cool breeze and the sun-warmed dock on my back while I stretched out with the dog for my pillow.
• Did I mention the BLTs?