October 14, 2003

My dentist’s office is just outside the village, about a 10 minute walk from where I work on Route 20. Much of the walk is past farmers’ fields and just plain fields. Walking along the roadside, I have the leisure and inclination to observe the birds, the foliage, the litter and the roadkill. A large deer, slowed by its considerable bulk as he did the “dust to dust” thing, was present for three consecutive six-month check-ups, and I was relieved to see it gone this spring.

Last week, returning from another successful cleaning, I came first across the body of a squirrel whose speed did not live up to its optimism, and then something else. Lying by the roadside was the body of a dead mink — small, brown and sleek. I am finding it hard to convince friends that people of modest means can and do live in Skaneateles when even our roadkill is upscale.