Rowing in the bay.

The island is awash in birdsong. From the first sliver of light filtering through the cracks in the window shade to the last scarlet flame bowing behind the horizon there is continuous sound: tweeting, hooting, squawking, honking, trilling. Thirty years ago this was an open field, grazed bare by cattle and still dotted with their droppings. Dad started planting trees. The mice ate the bark from around the bases of most of them. Undeterred, he planted more: Pines, tamarak, cedar, poplar, oak, maple, spruce. Josh and I helped. Mostly Josh. Dad would dig a deep slit in the earth, we’d quickly tuck a little slip of a tree into the crack, he’d stomp it shut and we’d water it good. He talked to us about trees, forests and how this place would one day look and sound when the birds had come to fill the trees. I wonder if he foresaw the grandchildren as well as the birds hooting in his trees? I suspect he did.

This place is the fairy-tale of childhood for my kids. A place full of mystery; enchanting hollows with gnomes living under mushrooms and pine trees inhabited by sprites. They play hide and seek with the river naiads in the cattails and row to their secret coves where the sounds of pirates singing while they hide their treasures echo in the wind. While last night’s hot dog fire burned low and the children had retired to their tent down in the field Gramps and I discussed the joy of this property and the privilege he enjoys of providing a “park” for the children to grow in. It is a place of joyful freedom for them, where they can roam and run and row to their heart’s content. A place where they can get on their bikes and ride the 14 km loop into the village for candy, or disappear with any one of the selection of boats into the canals for a couple of hours before breakfast with fishing poles and pockets full of gummy worms without anyone worrying for so much as a second about their safety. It is a place stocked with boats, bikes, hiking trails, walking sticks, baskets for collecting things, salt blocks hidden in the field to be surreptitiously licked, shelves full of interesting books and a house full of adventurous, interested adults who are ready at any moment to drop a paint brush to check out a new discovery. Someday they’ll grow up but I hope that here, at least, they’ll still see the gnomes and whisper to the sprites.

The boys left this morning with bellies full of pancakes and pockets stuffed with treats wearing life jackets and gum boots. Gramps had showed Gabe how to tie a new bait to his fishing pole: a Mr. Twister, and hopes were high that something bigger than the 20 or so perch and rock bass of the previous days would nibble at the bright green rubber tail. Ez, the self appointed Roman Galley Slave, was keen to be chained to his post at the back of their little blue and white rowboat and was talking up the importance of the “rower” in the fish catching process. Hannah curled up with a good book to enjoy the quiet. Elisha, self appointed assistant to his new friend Miss Johanna, headed for the window cleaner, knowing that today was the day to clean the paint spots off of the newly installed windows. The house was suddenly, blissfully, quiet.

Good things never last. An hour or so later screaming is heard from the dock. Ezra, naturally. Not just a little screaming, a LOT of screaming, the kind that actually makes me hurry a little. The kind that even got Grammy and Johanna off of the scaffolding and trotting down the toward the water. Weaving through the branches, over the field, down the path, past the japanese iris dotting the lower field I rounded the corner to the dock to see Ez bouncing and still screaming: “WE GOT A FISH!!! IT’S A BIG ONE AND I HOPE IT’S NOT A CARP!!” (We’d already told them we weren’t eating any carp regardless of how big and wonderful they were.) Gabe was hunched over the live trap, hauling up his catch: A nice 15” bass. Definitely not a carp. “We forgot the bucket, Mom, and we caught it way out in the canal so we had to throw it into the bottom of the boat and row real fast before it got out of air.” Gabe announced. The bass looks little worse for the wear. Gabe, now fully motivated and with great confidence in his Mr. Twister assured me he’d catch ten more to make enough for dinner tomorrow night. Gramps is hunting around the garage for a stringer, to ease the next fish’s trip back to the dock and is sharpening a filet knife for the next round of lessons. Hannah may not need to dissect that fish for biology next week after all!

The house is quiet again. Uncle Josh is plugging away at replacing the windows in the art studio. Johanna and Elisha are back on the scaffolding scraping minute pieces of stain off of the shiny glass windows. I’m listening to the birds and trying to find the energy to write but secretly hoping for the distraction of another bass and the excuse to run barefoot down the path one more time.