Al’s Ingulli Story
Deer Hunting With Bernie At “The Cabin”
Have you ever been deer hunting with Bernie? It’s quite an experience. The venue is 200 bucolic acres nestled in the hills of New Fairfield, Connecticut near Candlewood Lake. The approach to the home that Bernie calls “the cabin” is via a shale covered road that winds through a heavily wooded area with beautiful granite outcroppings and past a pristine mountain lake. Finally, you are at “the cabin”. It’s just what one might expect if you have experienced Susan and Bernie’s magnificent Stamford home and of a place occupied by someone as fastidious as Bernie. Except it’s not!
Yes it has a beautiful view of the lake, but a driveway that has sand bags across it to prevent rain water from running under the front door. Because “the cabin” is completely surrounded by enormous oak trees, the screen door that guards its entrance just loves to sweep leaves inside, and it’s like the leaves have little legs as they march throughout “the cabin”. This presents a real problem as once the leaves find a spot they like, the legs disappear and they cling tenaciously to the carpet making them almost impossible to remove.
Except for the nasty leaves, the place is pretty nice with many of the comforts of home. For instance it has a single propane heater that offers a range of temperatures throughout “the cabin” from sweltering in the family room where it is located to wonderful Arctic like temperatures in the kitchen and bedrooms. Just a minus twenty degree goose down sleeping bag is all that is need for a perfect night’s sleep.
The kitchen is quite modern except for the 1950’s refrigerator that always needs defrosting. If you like ice in your drink, this gives you choices. You can chip off a chunk of frost for your drink or depending on your strength, stamina and determination, really chip away at the frost to free an ice cube tray from its frozen tomb. As you know, Bernie is in the microwave business so of course “the cabin” has a microwave oven. I forget when residential microwave ovens were introduced, but I’m sure that “the cabin’s” oven is even older than that, probably an early prototype. So the kitchen is very well equipped except for the absence of running water in the sink. It’s really easy to carry five gallon carboys of water down the driveway being careful not to trip over the sandbags and on into the kitchen. The stove works perfectly despite its similar 1950’s vintage and comes in handy to heat the bath water.
The family room has every modern convenience like electricity but no cable TV to disturb the peace and tranquility. This encourages you to hit the goose down sleeping bag early in the evening zipping it up snugly and pulling the hood over your head as it’s never more that forty degrees in the bedrooms, except for Bernie’s bedroom which has its own electric heater. The guest bedroom has no heater because the electric panel is only rated for twenty amps.
Actually, there is no need for a TV because the mice provide plenty of entertainment. You hardly ever see them which is amazing because the noise they make running along the roof rafters and scratching in the walls is quite loud. In a way though it’s sort of a mouse lullaby that lulls you to sleep.
The only thing I don’t like about ‘the cabin” is the bathroom facilities because there are none, at least not indoors. The outhouse is pretty clean, and the toilet paper is secured from the mice in its own wooden container. However, it’s a long walk from “the cabin” especially on a cold night. And then after you are done, you have to look at it!
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