OPPORTUNITY

Last day of the season

By Greg Lowell Redstone Review

LYONS – I wrote this piece some years ago back in New Hampshire after another unsuccessful deer hunting season. While the landscape described is different from Colorado, I hope the sentiment resonates with both hunters and anyone else who appreciates the outdoors.

The anticipation of opening day is long gone. The 5 a.m. creeps into the dark woods are memories. The whitetails are wary now after weeks of hunting pressure, and if I see them at all it’s mostly just their white flags disappearing into the trees.

It’s a slog, honestly. I could’ve stopped weeks ago but the hunting itch would always be there until the season officially closes. When I’m not in the woods and hear a shot, I wait for the later second shot – the one that usually signals someone else’s success. Down at the hardware store I anxiously scan the deer check-in list for that big buck I know is out there and am comforted that he’s not been taken. I’ve seen him once this season ghosting through the hardwoods at dusk, his antlers high and bone white. So I continue.

The wool shirt and pants are now standard in this the coldest part of the season creeping toward the new year. Gone are the lightweight camouflage and the comfortable pre-dawn and late-day stands, replaced with huddling, shivering hangings-on until the light fades.

The earlier day-long hunts are now just a few hours here and there. Many hunters are gone from the woods now, their tags filled or their time taken up by other activities – kids’ soccer games or accompanying their wives to holiday craft fairs where Santa’s eight-point reindeer mocks their lack of success.

There’s a sameness to the hunt now and a what’s-the-use feeling I need to fight because I know that every minute I’m not here may be when the magic happens. And so I sit and watch and imagine where the deer will appear. Chickadees dee-dee around me, providing relief from the stillness. The red squirrel I’ve come to know at this spot scolds me although I leave him bread from my sandwich as a peace offering. He takes the bread, retreats to an upper branch and when he’s done, comes back down and harasses me.

It’s not always like this. There was the monster buck on Thanksgiving morning years ago and his near-twin on opening day the very next season. There was an assortment of lesser bucks over the years, all satisfying and all meat in the freezer. But the long seasons – the ones where the deer don’t reveal themselves – are the norm.

The woods become bleaker and monochromatic as the days shorten, but these gray days move me like sunny spring days do other people. The brilliance of October is gone and now among the barren hardwoods and dark hemlocks, there’s revelations. The foliage falls away and the curtain draws back to reveal an owl’s nest high in the canopy, a pile of dirt marking a fox den and some colonial farmer’s stonewall – all formerly masked by greenery. There was a late November morning when I watched a string of six deer file up a faraway beech ridge. A month earlier, I never would’ve known they were there.

The sun’s a muted ball in the gray sky on this the last day of the season. Snow’s coming tonight – good tracking

snow that’ll be useless to me tomorrow. There’s maybe an hour of light left. I’ve trod this ground a hundred times or more. I was here when this big pine tree I sit against, now rotting and filled with ant tunnels, came down in an October hurricane wind 15 years ago. I know these woods well. At least I tell myself I do, for the truth is I would need to be here every day for a year to know the rhythm of the deer that frequent this ridge of hardwoods that descends into the big swamp. I’d have to sit near this deer run for days to Lowell understand that what looks like a regular thoroughfare only gets traveled occasionally or when I’m not here, and that day many years ago I was lucky to catch a buck in a moment of weakness when his nose was down, oblivious to all except the doe he was trailing. But, I reason, if it happened once it’ll happen again. And so I sit and wait uphill from the run as the sun sets on another unsuccessful season. I comfort myself by remembering those seasons where I hung a deer early and could get on with my life. Back home there’s wood to split and stack, leaves to rake and other pressing chores. In the past, I’ve taken off a whole week to hunt, sometimes with success, sometimes not. Now, it’s time stolen here and there from work and family. I’ve learned to pick my spots, and just when I thought I had it all figured out, years of venison drought followed. The sun’s gone now and a waterfall of cold air flows down the hill. My eyes don’t take the gloaming as well as they used to and although there’s ten more minutes of legal shooting time, I leave. The path back is familiar, an old logging trail that disappears more each year as the woods heal the skidder scar. It’s near dark as I reach the crossing over the swamp. I remember the times I dragged a deer through the water, but this season there’ll be none of that. I pick my way among the tussocks and the fallen trees and head for the house a half-mile away where I’ll clean my unfired gun, throw my clothes in the wash and stow them away for another year. Christmas is a couple weeks away and not far behind it a long, cold winter.

Pioneers of Lyons: James and Rosina Lowe

By Monique Sawyer-Lang Redstone Review

LYONS – Hanging in the Lyons Redstone Museum are two framed charcoal portraits of early Lyons residents James and Rosina Lowe. Just who were the Lowes and what was their role in the early years of Lyons history?

James Lowe was born in Rowley Regis, England on March 1, 1865. He immigrated to New York in 1883 and lived for a time in Connecticut. Rosina Wedlake was born in Somerset Shire, England on April 9, 1872; she was the oldest of 17 children. They married August 5, 1889 in Denver, he was 24 and she was 17. Seven years later, on December 1, 1896 they packed up a wagon of furniture and headed to Lyons, a mere 15 years after town founder E.S. Lyons had arrived in 1881. They had three boys: Reuben C. (1891-1981), Alfred James (1892-1977); their youngest George Thomas (1903-1986) was born in Lyons.

In November of 1901 the family moved to their ranch, which they called Steamboat Villa, on Apple Valley Road where James farmed and planted orchards on the property. Lyons was becoming a tourist destination at the turn of the century and a number of resorts and camp cabins were built around the area. The Lowe family was among them. They built cabins in the orchards at Steamboat Villa and Rosina operated a resort for artists and writers who came every summer. They sold Steamboat Villa to Thomas M. Freeman of Nebraska in November of 1916 and moved back into Lyons. In 1918 Rosina worked as a cook at Chautauqua in Boulder and James worked building the road to Estes Park near the Welch Resort. James and Rosina were active members of the Lyons community. He helped build the Congregational Church (Old Stone Church) in 1894, was a member of the Lyons Commercial Association

whose purpose was the promotion and improvement of Lyons. He was also a member of the Odd Fellows and Woodman of the World, and was elected school board president in 1922. He was granted U.S. citizenship October 13, 1904. Rosina was a member of the Rebekahs Lodge for over 50 years, an active member of the Congregational Church, and a world traveler. In addition to the two portraits of James and Rosina, the Lowe family collection includes Sawyer-Lang their marriage certificate, a number of family photographs, two diaries belonging to James, the 1916 Lyons Schools diploma of their son George, and a collection of postcards from Rosina’s travels. Also part of the collection is a handwritten notebook containing Rosina’s recipes which includes recipes for Chautauqua waffles and Chautauqua gingerbread. James Lowe passed away May 5, 1923 and Rosina passed away February 23, 1952. They are both buried in the Lyons Cemetery. Early Lyons residents James and Rosina Lowe.

Monique Sawyer Lang is the Collections Manager of the Lyons Redstone Museum. She is also a volunteer with the Lyons Food Pantry and a former member/chair of the Lyons Community Foundation Board. She lives in Spring Gulch.

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