Steve Emmons

As One With The Land

 

 

For nearly twenty years the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust had been working to preserve the beauty and character of their community. But by 1992, the pace of that protection had begun to slow, the resolve of the organization to falter. Another round of intense development was sweeping southern Maine. Land prices were soaring and new roads seemed to appear weekly, cutting paths deeper and deeper into the countryside. The task of the Trust had never been to stop the town’s growth. New residents were adding their own vitality, experience and contributions to town government and local organizations, and all wanted a place for their children to live and raise families of their own. Still, if the town was to maintain its special feel for all, then those places that made it special had to be set aside. The islands, our lighthouse and downtown parks, the beach, those inland parcels which had for generations provided beauty, recreational opportunities and valuable wildlife habitat, those strategic pieces that allowed access to our shoreline, what would our community be like if they were no longer available? But as development pressures increased and prices rose, the organization was left with a stark reality. How would an all volunteer, local non-profit ever be able to raise enough money to compete?

It was then that Steve Emmons called. He wanted to talk, he said, about protecting his land. He had come to love his farm and all the creatures that shared it with him. As he planned for the future he wanted to know that the trees, plants and animals that had brought him so much joy would always be protected. In his own words…

“Rural land was relatively cheap when I was young. Just married, and having little money, my wife and I purchased a worn out farm with a fix-it-up house. One property line was mid stream of the Batson’s river which was the draining watershed for the northern end of Kennebunkport. The river could go from barely a trickle in a dry summer to a raging torrent in the spring snowmelt with rainfall. The house was the only dwelling on a half-mile of country dirt road that wound through fields and woods. The nearest human neighbor was a quarter mile away. The isolation proved to be a wonderful asset. We found ourselves ‘smack dab’ in the middle of a very active wildlife community that often went about its business as if we were non existent. Old timers familiar with the area often called it God’s country.  

During the past forty-four years I have found this wildlife community to be diverse and ever changing. Because of the forty-seven fire, new plant growth was lush in the sixties, perfect habitat for coony rabbits. They were everywhere. As the habitat outgrew their needs the snowshoe hare population increased. During these years the coyote was becoming well entrenched in southern Maine. Now the fisher is a common resident. Some species of birds were unknown in my early years here. The tufted titmouse, cardinal, mourning dove, house finch, wild turkey, turkey vulture and barred owls are all common residents or migrating visitors now.

Habitat changes produced two areas below the house and near the river that have perfect cover and escape routes for does to give birth and they return for just that purpose year after year. Beavers have now tamed a half-mile of the Batson’s river, greatly improving the habitat for fish, ducks and other aquatic-seeking residents. Watching all the activity, my wife and I grew to appreciate and admire the intelligence of our wildlife neighbors.

Aldo Leopold said, ‘when we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.’ The land is still as my wife and I found it, a very active, wonderful wildlife community.”

On the day that we met, Steve offered to give us a tour of his property. He led us along the only remaining unpaved public road in town, which wound its way just a few feet past the front door of his home, an antique cape with windows trimmed by fading red shutters and a front door nearly covered over by the surrounding lilacs. It seemed to have changed little since it was built just before the turn of the 19^th century. Across the lane was a larger, more modern barn in which he kept his truck and tractor. His firewood was stacked there too, on top of which were a pile of signs on rough wooden stakes, asking people to please respect the nesting areas of the piping plover. In one bay rested the wooden boat he had built and named the “Natalie June” in honor of his wife. He had constructed other vessels over the years, spending countless hours varnishing the hulls, hewing the spars and hand sewing the sails each night in the comfort of the family living room. In another corner of the barn rested a canoe, used to take him to those other quiet spots where he came in touch with nature. Above the barn, in a large open room, were rows of bookshelves, all of them lined with volumes with topics ranging from evolution to micro-biology. Field guides for flowers, birds, trees and tracking were there as were works by Thoreau, Audubon and Rachel Carson. There were hundreds of books, all neatly arranged and all protected by a Plexiglas front from the dozens of mice, chipmunks, squirrels and birds who called the barn home. “They have as much right to be here as we do,” Steve said as he saw a red squirrel scamper away at our approach. In the center of the room, a piece of plywood was laid across two supporting file cabinets. A four foot section of fluorescent light hung down from the rafters above the homemade table. The light was needed when Steve brought out one of his many microscopes in order to study a seed, an insect, or a water sample taken from a nearby pond. In a nearby corner were boxes filled with specimens he had collected in his property’s woods and fields, pinecones, toadstools and rocks, whatever triggered his seemingly limitless imagination. Finally, on the side of the building was an attractive attached room with small pane windows and a small solar panel on the roof which had been brought to the farm from the Emmons homestead in Kennebunk. It was Steve’s workshop, and benches on each end of the room were lined with tools. Used bird feeders were hanging everywhere from nails pounded into the walls and ceilings. Amidst it all were the ropes, buoys and trap parts which marked his former profession, a Kennebunkport lobsterman. As we were to learn, the barn was much like Steve, large, weather beaten and rustic. But hidden within was a vast array of treasures, each representing interests which required a great depth of knowledge, ability and experience, each interconnected with an overarching philosophy of how man should interact with his environment.

The road upon which we walked is known as the Gravelly Brook Road, a name well suited to this piece of the past and the many that lived by it. Steve spoke with a deep and gravelly voice, the result of a bout with cancer in an earlier part of his life. For some it would have been a drawback. For him, it created the effect of having people wanting to pause and listen. When he spoke, those around him, especially children, quieted down in anticipation. Generally his thoughts and comments warranted the attention he was granted. He carried with him a hand carved walking stick with which he’d point out important sites along the way. That stick was often in use. Just outside the bay window of his sitting room were a half dozen bird feeders which he religiously kept filled and to which dozens of different species in large numbers flocked. Much of his time was spent in quiet and appreciative observation of the comings and goings there. As we passed by, he told the story of a hawk he had recently seen, a story he later put to paper.

“Red-tailed hawks have nested and raised their young along the Batson’s river for decades. Sometimes one would stay the winter instead of migrating further south. I assume their stay was because they found the hunting good. They minded their own business and seldom came very close to human habitation.

One January there was eight or ten inches of snow on the ground. A front moved in with a hard, daylong rain followed immediately by a sharp drop in the temperature. The snow cover was transformed overnight into a solid, hard ice covering about six inches thick. This covering probably increased the safety factor greatly for voles, mice and other small mammals. However, the hunting situation for the red-tailed hawk now became extremely difficult; to the point of being critical for survival.

I have always hung four or five suet bags in my winter bird-feeding yard. One day, perhaps a week after the snow had frozen solid, there was the red-tailed hawk trying to get positioned so it could feed on a bag of suet. The small brushy branches sagged under the weight and its large size in amongst all the twig stems prevented the hawk from getting to the food. It gave up after considerable effort, and flew to the limb on an ash tree that overhung the road. From my back door I practically step directly onto the road. I got a fist-sized chunk of suet out of the refrigerator. Stepped out the back door, and tossed the suet up the road underhanded. The starving hawk lit on the suet ball and devoured it right there in the road, then flew off. The following day the red-tail was back and perched on the same limb. Again, I got out a big ball of suet and pitched it up the road past the hawk. This time the hawk picked it off the ground and flew away in the direction of the red maple swamp. On the third day it was on the same limb waiting. When I drew back my arm to toss the suet the red-tail left the limb. It picked that suet out of the air when it was about two feet from the ground. The hawk kept right on flying toward the swamp.

About three or four days later I saw the red-tail perched in some tall aspens beyond one of the fields. Life was getting into a more normal routine for the hunter apparently. The crisis was over.”

In a short while Steve veered off the road and began following a wooded path. The large red oak trees that had lined the street soon gave way to maple, birch and the remnants of ancient apple trees which now struggled for light and life in the thickening forest. Drainage ditches were crossed at regular intervals, some long and deep, evidencing the great abundance of water which must have once flowed toward the river. Others, man made, suggested that the area had once been largely field. Soon we were on the bank of the Batson. Two giant red oaks which had survived the great fire of 1947 towered above the small round ponds into which water steadily flowed, following its path across rounded rocks and between boulder outcrops through the gentle descent of a waterfall. At the top of the falls was another small pond, its ongoing rush to the sea slowed as it filtered through a narrow outlet in the rocks. A mill had stood here in earlier days, Steve said, catching the rush of the spring runoff, and using that power to turn logs to lumber. No trace remained of those days, though the mood of the river remained forever consistent. The great surge of water as the snow melted caused the roar over the falls to be heard back at the house. But, as the warmth of July turned into the heat of August, the river gradually disappeared, only the steep banks, deeper pools and the water held back by the nearby beaver dam showing that there had been a river there at all. Despite the season, it was a beautiful place, one seldom imagined in such a coastal community. Steve looked at it with a mixture of pride and concern. For, he told us, we were no longer on his property. We had passed on to the land of another owner, one which was currently on the market and slated to be divided into ten house lots. “We were discouraged and angry when an adjacent piece of land was put up for development,” Steve later wrote. “The realization came that we had to fight for our own way of life, as well as that of our wildlife neighbors.”

 

That’s the case that was laid out when we returned to Steve’s living room. He wanted the Trust to attempt to buy the abutting land. Having lived by it and studied it for most of his adult life, he found it unique and worthy of protection. In addition, he expressed his and his wife’s intention to will their 108 acres, house and barn to conservation. What’s right for one is right for another, he suggested. Thus, in the course of one conversation, the Trust’s next direction had been set. An attempt would be made to purchase the abutting land. Along with that effort came a rekindled enthusiasm and a heightened public awareness of the benefits and need for preservation. Best of all was the realization that, even in the midst of a development boom, there were still those who felt the calling of the land, who’d put their love of place above financial gain, who wanted to be good stewards and allow future generations to enjoy this place as they had. They believed, as Audubon had stated, “A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers but borrowed from his children.” Steve and Natalie Emmons were such people.

In the years to come, others followed Steve’s and Natalie’s example. Some of the community’s most prominent lands were donated to the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust. Others were offered through bargain sales. The Trust grew.

It is often said that the greatest gift comes in the giving. That was certainly the case with Steve. Natalie passed away in 1996. Steve retired from his job with the local water district. Many friends, the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust, and the land that he had always loved helped fill the void. While many of his generation had cashed in their assets and re-located to a warmer climate for the next chapter of their lives, Steve remained in his homestead, sharing his gift of self as well as of place. He blazed trails, made bridges to cross areas too wet to travel and created benches that could be converted to picnic tables with just the pull of a pin. He surrounded the property’s large anthills with protective fencing to guard them against straying feet and mowed the fields, carefully waiting until all of the season’s final seeds had been sown. He showed children the discoveries he had made under the microscope and in the forest, happily leading class fieldtrips into the woods. With the strong muscled hands of a former lobsterman, he’d gently open the pods of a delicate flower to expose the enclosed seeds, delighting in the wonder in their eyes and cherishing the crayon colored cards they would later send in thanks. “Nature is our life support system,” he would declare, “too often children are involved in just human activities. It’s important for them to realize the value of nature.”

Steve joined the board of the Trust. Taking an old wooden captain’s chair from his barn, he proudly wrote “curmudgeons only” across its back, declaring that it would be his seat for each meeting, from which he would take his stance on the important issues facing the organization. Like many native Mainers, sometimes his opinion on a given subject was forthright, even emphatic. Then he would sit back and reflect. A sly grin would come to his face and his features would soften as the no nonsense personality from his days at sea gradually gave way to the English major and SAE fraternity president of the University of Maine. Initial opinions would give way to debate, and debate to resolution. Sometimes it would take him longer to soften his view, as it did when it was proposed to name this land in the heart of our community the “Emmons Preserve”. “There’s no need or reason for that!” he first declared. When out voted 11 to 1 (his being the desenting voice), it took a little while before acceptance, then gratitude, arrived.

It took even l   It took longer for him to come to terms with another request. He had not hesitated to accept the responsibility of steward of the Emmons Preserve, overseeing trails and monitoring the health and use of the land. It was a continuation of something that he had been doing for most of his life. However, when he was informed that the job also required documenting the property, and that he would need to use a camera, that was another story. “I’m not taking any God damned pictures!” he declared mater-of-factly. “Well,” replied the board’s president, “I guess we’ll have to put that down as a maybe.” Tentatively stated future suggestions were greeted with the same response until, one day, Steve arrived at a meeting with several pages of photographs, all taken with a small Kodak instamatic cameral, but all neatly labeled and all protected in vinyl pages. “There,” he said, pushing them before him, “you’ve got your pictures!” But a new seed had been planted, and Steve’s passion for all things wild quickly grew into a desire to share and record their beauty through film. He bought a new camera, sets of lenses and read the books and manuals needed to improve his art. Through his photography he began capturing the tiny miracles of nature so that, like his land, he could share them with others. His naturally artistic eye led him to dewdrops on an emerging bud, or a spider’s web, the ice crystals on a branch, or the wings of a bird, those things which so often escape the notice of most. As his collection grew, and with the urging of friends and family, his photographs were enlarged or made into greeting cards and sold with all profits directed to the Trust.

When it came time for the organization to construct a headquarters, Steve facilitated the action by donating his land, resources and energy, and took a great pride in the resulting structure and what it represented to the future of the preserve he had created. His only condition was that no recognition be made of him in the process. One day, a small framed B. A. King picture of him sailing in one of his homemade crafts, pipe in mouth, adjusting the sail, appeared on the wall. Steve simply looked it over for some time, nodded his head in approval, and moved on, not saying a word. Perhaps his acceptance was due to his accompanying quote which spoke more to his motivation then to his modesty. “It is important for children to realize the value of nature,” it said. His actions would allow countless thousands of children in the generations to come to do just that. The vegetation and wildlife which had been a part of this place since the dawn of time would remain. By giving he had received. By following his heart he had created a legacy.

Steve Emmons died on January 28, 2005, the result of his ongoing battle with cancer. One of his unfulfilled dreams was to someday publish a book of his photographs along with the appropriate quotes which would inspire others in their love and respect for nature. We therefore present this collection of his works, not simply to honor him, for he would have been opposed to that, but to let others share in the beauty which he saw so well and which surrounds each of us. All photos were taken on or of properties owned by the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust.

Steve, we hope you approve. If not, you’re outvoted once again 11 to 1.