Friday, July 3, 2009

July 3, 6 p.m., Hwy 2 West of Tioga (3rd entry)

Dave returned from a heroic (his characterization) successful search for water. Battling tall grass and ticks (one), he ventured one and a half miles a field trespassing in the spirit of community contribution and returned with a bag of lake water - said to be clean, cool and chemical-free. Proud was he and deservedly so, hence this special late edition entry in the journal done willingly in spite of writer’s cramp. He reported other life forms in addition to the much talked about tick attack - a duck with blue cheeks, a straight-up tail, bouncing and bouncing around a similar duck - presumably in a mating ritual or some less useful male attention calling behavior. That would be a Ruddy Duck. They winter - many, maybe not that one, in Louisiana on Lake Bistineau. He did not band it, so we will never know if that one does, but hey - no harm done on a mission accomplished.

Pumped up by this water-finding success, he edged me out in the Frisbee bocce ball chase game, his first victory in such. He now likes the game. Go figure. My clothing was binding my throws and it went unrecognized until too late.

We know these lands now by their wind
And think well of them and these winds their kin
The hummock, hillocks, crinkled sky, the waving grass
A stretched land, a folded land, nurturingly vast.
Lie low in these hollows, be with the grass and sky
Wind tossed be it all and yet nothing be awry
These lands know this wind, as now do we
Such as it is, devoid of tree and deaf to plea.


Pat Sewell

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