The delights of my new locale at my friend’s house are unfolding each day. Last week I discovered a wonderfully secure Tarzan-style rope swing that soars you out over the pond that accompanies the cranberry bog. It’s attached to a huge tree, and by skittering down a sandy slope you can hop on the equally secure knot and just sail out over the water. Wonderful beyond words, so now my daily walk is enhanced by a daily swing. I took my ladies there last week and bless them; some were game enough to try it.
Last night, after an entire day at a Wildlife Fair letting children try a snake on their lap, around their neck etc. and talking and talking and talking, I needed a break. So as soon as I got back home, I took my, more-than-anxious-to-get-out, dog, to the bog and as the sun faded I just let myself swing and swing. First pass and two huge herons lifted off from nearby, croaking as they went. Perhaps my swinging was less relaxing to them then it was to me.
Second swing and a kingfisher rattled across the pond. Third swing and a hawk lifted off. Amazing, each new swing, a new fly-by. I loved it!Earlier that morning, knowing I would be gone all day, I had gone to the same place. The sun was just rising and mist was hovering over the pond. Clearly I had arrived just as the robins wake-up alarm had gone off and they were flying from the trees and alighting on the path in large numbers. And, as often is the case in the fall, they were accompanied by flocks of Flickers.
A deluxe treat had no doubt brought them all to this site. The bog owner had just recently dredged his ditches around the bog and had spread this black, full of possibility, muck all over the paths where they were now dining. A breakfast bar of isopods and leeches and all sorts of insect larvae delights-yum! Speaking of flocks, today after church when I was in my old neighborhood, a friend and I went questing for Tree swallows, and this time, there they were, by the thousands, swooping and swirling around the dunes.
It’s a fantastic site that I have written about before, but leaves me slack-jawed every time. A river of swallows, a tornado of swallows as they get into a funnel-like formation, than head off over the dunes, sometimes flying low just skimming the sand, other times going to giddy heights. Like whale watching I simply never tire of the experience. It was glorious and will only last a few more weeks, so, anyone on the Cape reading this, “get thee to a dunnery”, any barrier beach sporting bayberries will probably do but the one I see them at is Sandy Neck in West Barnstable. Try not to miss it. I had to go today, for by this time next week I will be with my husband and daughter in Germany and Italy. Lucky me. Then returning from seeing that daughter, I will leave for a few weeks of travel to see my other daughters and grandchildren. With a husband in Texas, all household goods in some limbo-like place and people coming to stay at this cottage, I am free to embrace the nomadic life for a while and so I shall. Internet fixes will perhaps be few and far between. But when I can, I shall write of what I see as we skip about the globe.
And what I see right now, is that during that week I was with my daughter in Baltimore, my lone lady swan took up with a handsome male. Another pond no longer safe for Wood ducks, I saw them chase one away the very morning I returned, but still, there they are looking so lovely as they glide through the sunrise light of the morning, or catch this golden light of sunset that is out the panorama of windows right now. I can’t say enough of how unspeakably beautiful life is at the moment, and how amazingly grateful I am for the friend that is letting me stay here. May golden light be gracing the end of your day too, wherever you are.
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