The Property

Down a half-mile dirt road sits our 1.1 acre of semi-tamed wilderness. Thirteen years ago, before the chainsaw and wood splitter began their work, our lot on Little Clear Pond was a poplar and pine jungle of scraggly trees. When my husband, David, drove me to see it for the first time, my apprehension was obvious. The mosquitoes instantly swarmed our car. I didn’t want to get out.

“Really?” I questioned, as I looked out the car’s windshield.

“Yes, really,” David replied.

My husband was desperate to own a piece of land. Living in a neighborhood inside the village of Lake Placid had begun to feel too urban for him—a sentiment our non-Adirondack family and friends just couldn’t understand. “You already live in the wilderness!” his mother declared on