June, Second Week

Summer mornings arrive early in a mild and gentle garb that disguises the heat that will surely arrive by noon. If I am going to enjoy nature, I have to do it early. Often I pack my thermos and a bag of almonds and fruit for a breakfast in my favorite grove beside the pond meadow. The sun’s mild rays spotlight several grassy nooks with a warm glow. These fairy stages invite me to sit under a tree on green mossy cushions and enjoy the fresh air. Small birds twitter and chirp as they search for their breakfast. A slight breeze hums through the treetops.

I always feel as if I am participating in a magical moment. So many mornings must be like these, but they come and go without anyone noticing them. I love having time to spend this hour to welcome the day. I feel so good letting my mind and body stretch out over this tiny glade, lined with bright green grasses. Watching the patterns made by the shadows, I remember other times I have sat and watched shadows waltz across the earth—under spreading mango trees in the Himalayas, sugar maples in Vermont, giant gnarled oaks in California and palm tree fronds beside the Kauveri River in south India. Sometimes, I reminisce with these vivid memories, but usually I just sit in silence.

Since it’s now the middle of June, I continue to be grateful that every time it gets so hot that I think I won’t be able to bear it another moment, the skies cloud up and send showers. Fortunately, the night air has remained cool and fresh, so I can sleep with the windows wide open. Every day, I express my appreciation verbally to the weather god: “Thank you, thank you, thank you... for this lovely shady day, so that my flowers and I can smile and not have to hang our heads to avoid the glaring sun.”

I’ve always wanted to arrive at the pond early to see try to see a deer. When my niece Michelle spent a couple of days here, she spotted several drinking from the western shore early one morning. After I finish my breakfast in the comfort of a shady grove, it’s already 8:30, so I'm probably too late. I decide to try my luck anyway because I can also catch a fish for lunch. The worst part of arriving late at the pond is the sun is that already beaming brightly on the water.

Then I am delayed with my fishing idea because I have to trap some bait. Using bread crumbs in a jar, I finally catch five minnows for my bucket, so I am ready. Just as I am pushing off in the canoe, I am pleasantly surprised when some white fluffy clouds blot out the sunrays—but not for long. I gracefully glide across the pond to the most promising fishing spot where a dead tree stretches out to provide a little ecosphere that the fish favor. I throw in my line, pour a cup of tea, and then sit back to relax under the wide sapphire sky.

Just as I settle, a bird I have never seen before glides across the water and swoops up a minnow. While I am distracted, the breeze rushes just enough to turn the canoe so that it gets tangled in some dead brush. As I am whipped about, my fishing line goes under the canoe. By pulling on the branches, I manage to untangle the canoe. Then I tug on my line, but it’s caught on a branch. I expect just to pull it so that the canoe will take me to the branch that it’s caught on, but the hook seems tightly stuck and uncooperative. Actually, the spot seems to be changing directions. One time when I pull the line, it’s tight, then it pulls easily, and then it’s stuck again. I finally pull in a thirteen-inch bass. So that's how I caught my fish for lunch within five minutes—using only one minnow. It worked today, but I’m not sure it is repeatable. I would guess that it is about the maximum amount of exercise one could expect to get out of the catching of one fish.

With my lunch swimming on the stringer beside the canoe , I row down to the cove to float around in the shady area of the pond. The breeze increases enough to move me along the shore. I keep thinking I’m going to ground out, but somehow the water, canoe and breeze have an intelligence of their own. Drifting along, I pause to admire a bush with flowers of fuzzy white orbs that have attracted at least a dozen Spicebush butterflies.

As I pass the low end of the dam I see that the “angel hair” grass has disappeared. I am continually amazed at the number of unique grasses that grow here. I have given them names like angel hair, stardust, starburst, spear grass and fox tail. Like the wild flowers, they appear for a limited season, then dry up to send their winged seeds flying across the meadow. If I had known I was going to encounter so many varieties, I would have started a scrapbook of samples. But it’s too late, many of my favorites have all disappeared.

After drifting around a while longer, I row over to the corner of the dam where the spring peepers hang out. I want to see whether I can actually find one of these illusive frogs. When I’m walking, they always sense my approach and hush their peeping. I can’t spot one from the water either. Did they hear the peddling of the oars?

Life seems so natural and peaceful here. There must have been a myriad of directions life could have unraveled on the planet whereby we would be living completely different lives today. Somehow we got convinced that somebody else owned the land, which meant that we had to pay them to use it, which meant that we had to work in their offices and factories. Somehow it just doesn’t seem like this is the only way we could have arranged things. I know that so many people have potential that they will never have an opportunity to develop in this particular structure. The hardest part is knowing there is nothing I can do about it.