Jackson The Weather Dog, Faithful Companion For 14 Years, Passes Away, Leaves Loving, Joyful Legacy

Jackson as a puppy, spending his first full day living
with his dads in St. Albans, Vermont, July, 2011.

Jackson Ebenezer Modereger Sutkoski, loving companion, best friend, terrorizer of lawn mowers connoisseur of carrots and an all around Good Boy, passed away Monday, April 21 at the age of 14. 

Also known as Jackson the Weather Dog, he was instrumental at helping me with morning weather observations and supervising the work.
  

Born in southeastern Vermont in the spring of 2011, he came to live with us in St. Albans on July 26, 2011, quickly becoming our happy go lucky partner in crime.

Jackson's likes and dislikes quickly became apparent, though his likes far outweighed everything else.  His super power was finding absolute joy in the simplest of thing, and encouraging us humans to do the same.

Even though Jackson didn't love cold winter weather,
he was willing to ignore the chill if it meant
playing games with sticks he found in the yard. 

His joys included rolling in the cool grass during the summer, or, in the winter, rolling in the snow, eating the snow, or chasing snowballs around the yard. 

However, he hated snowmen, and demanded they be knocked over if one should appear. 

Jackson also loved taking walks around the property with his dad Jeff, as they checked out the plants, the trees, and what animals have bee around. 

Jackson also always looked forward to his daily excursions outside with Jeff to go get the mail. 

He also loved hanging close by his sister Tonks, who came to live with us in 2014 until her passing in May, 2023. 

In the evenings, Jackson would watch TV with us,  getting his well-deserved neck scratches and scrounging for any crumbs on the floor Matt or Jeff happened to drop.  Later at night, he'd sleep peacefully on our bed, safe between his two dads. 

He loved to eat, and the big events for Jackson each day was when Jeff fed him his breakfast and dinner.

Jackson always encouraged us all to roll in the grass
under shade trees on hot summer days. 

His favorite food was carrots. One of Jackson's most thrilling tasks was helping his dad Matt thin the carrot crop growing in the raised beds during the summer. 

He'd quickly dispose of the too-small carrots that Matt pulled out by quickly eating them. 

Jackson also helped Matt with various garden work, like planting zinnias, weeding garden beds and warding off hungry rabbits. 

With a low, menacing growl and a quick chase, Jackson would scatter the rabbits, forcing them to flee into the woods,    thus saving Matt's perennials from being eaten away. 

The rabbit thing was part of Jackson's efforts to make sure everything was in the proper place in his world.   He'd bark his disapproval if dad Matt parked his truck in the "wrong" place or untidily left a pile of sticks or brush in the yard, or some errant birds trespassed on his lawn. 

A boy's boy, Jackson was fascinated by trucks and lawn mowers. Especially lawn mowers. In one dangerous incident, he crossed a busy highway to guard a lawn mower a neighbor had left near his front stoop. (We installed invisible dog fencing right after that incident).

Jackson on patrol, keeping hungry rabbits out of the
gardens around his St. Albans, home, as seen here
in July, 2021. 

One of his favorite pastimes was having Matt repeatedly push a lawnmower (with its engine off) down a hill so he could chase and bark at it. 

He loved people, especially children, and could always melt the coldest of hearts with his soulful brown eyes and furiously wagging tail.  

He didn't like being alone. Jackson  howled in disapproval if we had to leave him only for a short time. 

When Jeff or Matt returned, it was all kisses and hugs and neck rubs. He would even make his dad Matt lie down on the floor when he returned home so he could rub against him, and the canvas bag that Matt always carried. The canvas bag was Jackson's "girlfriend." 

Jackson was always helpful and patient as dad Matt went outside to check the morning weather. Jackson hated being rained on, but tolerated it for the few minutes he had to go outside. Like his dads, Jackson was also not a fan of winter cold, and liked to stay in his warm and cozy house. 

He was always an optimistic dog, bouncing back from injuries and health crises with aplomb. In his older years, he couldn't run and jump like he used to, so he'd go out on the deck to watch the world around him, like his late sister Tonks taught him to do. 

Jackson doing his best to try and melt an unseasonable
late season snowfall in April, 2022. 

He was still a happy pup to the end.  This morning, Jackson told us it was time to say goodbye.  He died peacefully, painlessly and quietly, with his dads by his side, bidding him a loving farewell.

Jackson is survived by his dads, Jeff Modereger and Matt Sutkoski of St. Albans, Vermont; aunts and uncles Lynn and David Jenne of West Rutland, Vermont; Laurie and Bennie Carrara of Shrewsbury, Vermont; and Brian and Michelle Modereger of DeSoto, Kansas. 

Jackson was pre-deceased by his sister Tonks back in 2013. He was also pre-deceased by his grandparents,  Red and Pauline Sutkoski of West Rutland, Vermont; Don and Lois Modereger of Yankton, South Dakota and aunt Donna Stengle of Yankton, South Dakota.

In lieu of flowers, Jackson asked that, if possible, consider adopting a pet from your local shelter.  Or if adopting is not possible,  he suggested donating money, material or time to your favorite animal shelter. 

Jackson also asked that you do what he did in life: Just find joy and friendship anywhere you can find it, and always be friendly and gentle. 

A Year After Cataclysmic Vermont Flood, We Get Another One As Climate Gangs Up On Us.

Now that the weather has finally settled down, I've had a chance to think about the two big July flood disasters Vermont experienced on the same date two years in a row.  

Somebody's little piece of Vermont heaven was trashed by
the raging Huntington River on July 11. Similar scenes -
many much worse than this, were once again
common across Vermont this month. 

 We spent the day this July 11 marking the first anniversary of one of the worst flood on record in Vermont by....... picking up the pieces after another deadly Vermont flood.  

It does seem like it's harder and harder to catch one's breath between new weather extremes.  Flooding after July 10, 2023 continued sporadically through the rest of that month and on into August. 

Last year's summer disaster was followed by more rough, scary, disheartening weather. We had another destructive flood in December, twin windstorms that spread further damage in January, and severe thunderstorms and flash flooding in central Vermont just on June 23 -less than month ago.

And never mind the other extremes that didn't cause so much harm but had us weirded out: The hottest October day on record, the warmest winter on record, and damaging wet snowstorms in December and April. It goes on and on.  

This year, the subsequent series of storms following July 10 haven't been as damaging as last year's.

So far, anyway. 

A RECKONING

A year after the July, 2023, and just before the torrents hit again earlier this month, Vermont looked largely tidied up. 

A snippet of a Carly Simon lyric pops into my head here, "Close the wound, hide the scar."  The line from the song is about emotionally wounded people putting on a brave face.  

Which is where I think Vermont was on July 9.  And maybe will be again this time next year.  

Behind closed doors, people were still  still living in homes whose insides are still had not been repaired.  Business owners and home owners teeter on the edge of financial ruin from the flood's cost.  Farmers, always on the edge and at the mercy of the weather more than pretty much all of us, wonder if they will make it.   

A sign outside a church in flood-ravaged Johnson,
Vermont in July, 2023

People like this are out of the headlines, except of course when we're marking the anniversary of the disaster. 

The Associated Press's profile of one woman's current life a year after the flood is pretty harrowing. I'm stressed out just reading it. 

"Lisa Edson Neveu and her two teenage sons still live in their flood-wracked home, despite unrepaired damage that festers like an open wound: Torn-out walls and floors, a missing ceiling in one room and a downstairs bathroom that is no more. The family's kitchen was destroyed, so they cook meals on an outdoor grill, an electric frying pan and an air fryer."

The immediate aftermath wasn't the real problem. Neighbors helped neighbors, the National Guard really stepped up to the plate. But then that was it. 

They were on their own to fight insurance companies, the adjusters, FEMA, state and local regulations, you name it.  A Vermont flood typically comes and goes in a day. The aftermath lasts forever. 

At least Neveu didn't have to start from square one with murky water in her house again. Montpelier avoided another calamity this time. 

 Not so in Barre. Or Waterbury. Or other towns victimized again the night of July 10-11.  I heard one clip on the radio of somebody in Barre saying they hadn't finished cleaning up the debris from the July 2023 flood when this one hit. 

The sudden transition from Vermonter living in a paradise to a climate victim has to be one of the most disorienting things out there. 

VTDigger told us about Sequin Skye, a hospice nurse who lives - or at least lived - in an apartment building on Great Brook in Plainfield. 

The flooding covered her floor in silt. She didn't know which belongings she'd be able to save. A porch she loved sitting out on was in ruins. It was a piece of paradise before Wednesday night.

"I swear to you, it was like a babbling brook. And I sat and drank coffee yesterday on my little porch, listening to the brook and being so happy."  Now, everything was covered with dirt and mud, and it now "looks like some kind of desert."

The joy Skye experienced before the flood is shared by most Vermonters. For me, there's nothing better than sitting in this deep tub we put out on our lower deck. I fill it with cool water. On muggy evenings, I just sit there, watching the flowers bloom, absorb the deep, deep green of a Vermont summer, and wonder what all the birds are gossiping about. 

It's a moment of calm and respite for my chaotic brain.  But now, other thoughts intrude on the peace.

 I wonder, when will the other shoe drop? When will climate change directly intrude into this placid life?  

Of course, it already has intruded. You can't escape thinking about the plight of your neighbors who have been hit hard, nor should you. Storm warnings seem to carry more weight now. Will the next storm be the literal homewrecker? It seems you never know nowadays. 

BARRE

Speaking of homewreckers, what about the fate of communities that have been hit hard over and over again. Places like Barre.

Can a town like that survive after two big flood disasters in a year?  Plus having endured flooding last December?  I'm also not sure everyone in Barre recovered from two big floods in 2011.

Visitors flock to the picture perfect Instagram ready villages in Vermont, but the Green Mountain State is also home to a lot of working class towns. Ones with even less money to throw around than the pretty but still cash-strapped tourist destination towns.  

Like Barre.

I can't be the only thinking along these lines. Heck, even the Washington Post quoted me when I wrote last week, "I honestly don't know how Barre will recover from two devastating floods in one  year."

The city is losing housing and population from the flooding, yet other people are trapped in flood-prone houses, because they are not eligible for buyouts. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has a program that provided money to towns so they can buy up properties in flood prone areas. In many cases, those purchased homes are torn down and the area they once occupied becomes green space such as parks.   

Rain pours down in Montpelier, Vermont and flooding
shown just beginning on July 10, 2023. About 90
minutes after this photo was taken, virtually all
of downtown Montpelier was under water. With
all of our disasters in mind, we now get
nervous with every torrential downpour.

Barre received 62 applications for buyouts, but could only approve 20, because that's all the money that was available 

It almost seems as if Barre won't entire die from all these floods because some people have nowhere else to go. 

It's not as if Barre is full of millionaires.  VTDigger profiled one family whose Barre home was damaged three times by flooding in the past year. Each time, their basement filled up with water and pollutants. They applied for a buyout, but were denied. For now, anyway, Barre is only accepting buyouts for houses nearest the flood prone Stevens Brook. 

Everybody in Barre, whether they suffered flood damage or not, is in a bind because of these repeated climate related disasters.

Reports VTDigger: 

"Barre 'can't afford to buy houses for people not along the river,' according to (City Manager Nick Storellicastro, because property bought out with FEMA funds must become permanent green spaces. The city simply can't lose more housing space, according to Storellicastro, nor can the city's budget - already 'in dire straits' from last summer's flood - absorb any further loss of property tax revenue."

So where does that leave Kate O'Day, her husband Nick Roos and their baby daughter, the family profiled in VTDigger?

On top of not qualifying for a buyout, around last Christmas they also received notices from the city that they must elevate their house somehow, and also bring utilities up from the basement to meet fresh city codes. 

VTDigger again:

"And the couple wonders: Who's going to want to rent or buy a house in a floodway, with an unusable basement that you still pay taxes on, and all the utilities taking up square footage in the living area upstairs?"

Roos and O'Day said they would probably sell the house, accept their financial losses and start over somewhere else. 

For many others, though, there is no somewhere else. Either because people can't afford to move, or they have such deep ties to their town that they simply can't let go. 

Which now leaves our happy rural town life tinged with sadness and worry. There's an excellent YouTube flood fundraising video from Gold Shaw Farm in hard-hit Peacham where the narrator describes how the flood physically and emotionally affected the close-knit town. 

What made Peacham especially tragic is that the flood claimed the life of Peacham resident Dylan Kempton, 33, a married father of young children and a man that everybody in town knew and loved. 

All these climate change disasters in Vermont make me think of another song, "Our Town," by the wonderful Iris Dement. It's about a woman who lived her entire life in one small town, and now the town has died, and she has to move away. Somewhere.

The vast majority of us in Vermont are not at that point yet.  But it makes me wonder if we will see a few of our towns die away.  

It would be such a shame to lose places like Peacham, Plainfield, Barre.   People in those communities are banding together, and Vermonters are pretty awesome at finding creative solutions to some of our deepest problems. 

But some of us might well have to abandon our dreams of living out our days in our small towns, driven out by climate change. I guess Vermont is one microcosm of what's going on everywhere else in the world. 

Those lyrics from Dement's "Our Town" haunt me, given what we've been through with climate disasters in recent years:

"And you know the sun's settin' fast

And just like they say nothing good ever lasts.

Well, go on now and kiss it goodbye,

 But hold on to your lover 

'Cause your heart's bound to die.

Go on now and say goodbye to our town, to our town.

Can't you see the sun's settin' fast down on our town, on our town

Goodnight."

 

 

Tonks, Our Gracious, Zen-Like Loyal Companion And Weather Watching Dog, Dies At 16

The late, great Tonks in her St. Albans, Vermont yard on
a breezy winter day in 2017, enjoying the scents in the air.

Tonks Modereger Sutkoski, our gorgeous furry sweetheart, crossed the Rainbow Bridge today, May 31, 2023. She was 16.   

Tonks was a gracious, zen-like presence who taught us all to savor the simple things in life, like a comfortable bed and the smells and sounds of nature outdoors. And meal time. Don't forget that. 

She was the beneficiary of great genes, making her a stunningly beautiful pup.  She was a Golden Retriever and Cocker Spaniel mix.  That gave her luscious blonde hair, soulful eyes, fun floppy ears and a cute button nose. 

Tonks came into our lives when she was seven years old. In the first chapter of her life, she lived with a Vermont couple, who eventually formed a family that included two very active, very young children. The couple knew the kids were probably too much for Tonk's gentle, calm nature. 

The family generously and selflessly let us adopt Tonks, who quickly settled into a new life with goofy brother Jackson and her new parents Jeff and Matt. 

Tonks in the foreground enjoys a laugh while her 
brother Jackson in the background not getting the
joke on a sunny autumn day in 2015. 

Tonk's new household had gardens, lawns and decks where she was free to roam. She quickly got in the habit of sitting down, facing the wind, closing her eyes and enjoying all the aromas that passed her way. Sometimes Jeff or Matt would join her in this activity.  

 She also enjoyed laying down on the deck and watching the cars on the road zip by, and the birds flutter around overhead. 

Tonks was no loner, though. She loved visiting people when they stopped by, accepting with pleasure a little neck scratch and just the companionship she enjoyed when human friends were around. 

 Every day, breakfast and dinner were cause for big celebration. After these daily feasts, she'd settle down in the soft bed she loved for comfortable naps. 

Another particular joy for Tonks came in the summer, when it was time for dad Matt to thin the carrot crop in the raised beds. She and brother Jackson would safely dispose of the delicious mini-carrots Matt would dig up by immediately chowing them down. The carrots were her favorite food.

Tonks enjoying a rest on her comfortable bed, 2019.

She, accompanied by her brother, would also always help Matt measure whichever weather event came our way, so that Matt could do a more accurate write-up in this blog. 

She especially loved weather watching with Matt on sunny, windy days.  However, Tonks was not a particular fan of snow, especially if it was deep.  

Tonks, always the helpful pup, was our early warning system for any truck deliveries that appeared in our driveway. She'd hear the beep-beep-beep of the truck backing up, and start barking loudly to announce the delivery arrival.  

She was also a  bit of a prankster. As her dad Jeff settled into his easy chair to watch TV in the evenings, Tonks would quietly slip into the hallway behind him. After awhile, she'd let out a single loud bark, propelling Jeff to the ceiling.

In Tonks' later years, her hearing diminished and her hind legs grew weak and unstable. But she never gave up her curiosity, and that zen-like life of smelling the aromas in the air continued until the end. 

Tonks, left, and her brother Jackson, help dad Matt
with his weather blog by sniffing the air for clues as to
when the snow would stop during a
large 2018 winter storm

Tonks is survived her her brother Jackson, dads Jeff Modereger and Matt Sutkoski of St. Albans, and many aunts, uncles and cousins. 

She was predeceased by her loving grandparents Don and Lois Modereger of Yankton, South Dakota and Henry and Pauline Sutkoski of West Rutland, Vermont. 

In lieu of flowers, Tonks asked that you make a contribution or volunteer at your local Humane Society. She also said that if you want to add another doggo to your family, please consider adoption. 

Tonks passed away in late spring, probably the most fragrant time of year for many of us. She asks that you go outside, sit down facing the wind, close your eyes and breathe in the wonderful aromas of nature.

 It was Tonks' way of doing things and being happy, and this works for humans, too.