Summer?

S portages with me to the Harrison put in. It is a summery day, warm and calm, and as a Sunday, it has brought the toy ships to the water more than any other day this year. But, we expected that. So, we bob on rounded dying wakes as we paddle our way north.


It was a late start, so the time has come when the wildlife lays a little low. I take S into the beaver forest behind the big lodge for the first time. She gets a kick out of ducking as flat as possible to pass under two low trees, her pfd clearing them by no more than a half inch. Irises are in bloom, cattails are up but not producing the signature seed pod, yet. A pair of woodpeckers, black, red and white, flit in and flit out. A few herons rise up out of the brush. I tell her that I need to come in here someday for dawn. Dawn is when the marsh explodes with life.


We explore the east marsh for awhile and then cut straight north across the bay, where the waters are always a bit less crowded. We find a cinnamon teal. I show her the marsh wren nests near the osprey tree. I watch a heron eat a small bluegill and S misses that.