The inky waters of early morning on the last day of winter promised a good day. It came.
For the first time since I took a rotten fall that tore a hole out of my right shin in December, I went for a walk and spent a little time at the swamp I think of as my swamp. Soon the turtles will be out and the geese and the beaver.
This lodge built pretty close to the road filled me with enough joy for a long while. Last year, the biggest and most incredible beaver I had ever seen was killed by a motorist and left in the road. After that, I had seen no beaver activity. The odd (he is very odd) muskrat would appear and disappear like the clockwork of an erratic timepiece, but that was about it. This creation fills me with hope.
Out for a walk down a familiar path with the family on Sunday, I decided to photograph a log I have passed many times. The demise of this tree is clearly the work of a beaver. Every time I pass it, I think it is likely the self-portait of my friend who met an unfortunate end in the road. (I see a beaver when I look at this fallen tree. Do you?)
On the first day of spring, there was plenty of skunk cabbage opening to the warmth of the sun. When we came across these wonderful plants, I thought again of the snow and how the crushing weight of the stuff was formidable. The manager of our condo association hired a squad of brave and carefree Albanian men to move the icebergs off our roofs lest they collapse as so many others had. Plows moved snow and moved it again and melted it for good measure. Snow and the dread of more of it consumed our thoughts. Yet, in those places where neurotically self-important humans did not extend their reach, the white stuff melted and life went on. Looking out my back window later in the day, I thought how the very leaves that had not been raked or blown away in the autumn were exactly where they had been way back then. The crushing weight of so many tons of snow and the tread of my daughter, dog, and I did not displace them. Life went on. We and the weathermen merely imagined the drama.
My World Tuesday
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