Category Archives: Lake Matinenda

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merganser blessing

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: bird.

This is the second time that I have been blessed by mergansers! I am sitting on the front rocks, which face east, with P in the early morning. Tea, journal and camera. Camera just in case. The family of mergansers swam around the point and we froze. They came up on the rocks, about 15 feet from us. I took pictures and otherwise we held very still. The family groomed themselves. One settled facing the woods and the others slowly settled, the parent bird still on the alert. After they rested enjoying the early sun, the parent led them back in the water and they swam along the rocks in front of us.

I read an article about productivity yesterday. It talked about taking breaks and more importantly breaks outdoors. A study of work after breaks showed that people thought an outdoor break was better than an indoor one for relaxation, but the measured effect was even greater than expected.

I can only be blessed by mergansers if I go outside and wait and am quiet. I feel so blessed.

 

 

 

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slow deep

on the rocks, the canadian shield, old rock
rock that extends for miles and miles
water cupped in the rock
cupped like a hand, holding a lake

you say
You seem so deeply at peace

I say
No, I am not at peace at all

then I say
Yes, in the depths I am at peace

like the lake

the surface is all weather
glassy sometimes
then surface chop
then rain singing and bouncing
then waves crashing on the shore
reflecting the sky
light, dark, blue, the green of trees
pale pink in the morning
or orange and blue with the setting sun

the depths change slowly
not that slowly
in the fall the water temperature drops
to 4 degrees
and the lake turns over
all the 4 degree water dropping into the depths
and the warmer water rises
until the whole lake is 4 degrees and most dense
and then the surface freezes
the ice is lighter and floats on top
until it is solid and deep
and the lake winters over

in the spring the ice melts
and the ice breaks up
and the lake rolls over again

my surface is choppy with emotion
memories
grief and joy

my slow depths turn over

and there is deep peace

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the funny pine

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: bark.

Oh, I don’t think tree bark is the bark the prompt is asking for, but…. well, dogs like trees too.

I have grown with this tree, meeting it first when I was 5 months old. The white pine fell or was hit by lightning, in the past, and the main trunk is in the water. Dead and ghostly, but the Lake Matinenda fishing community visits the dead tree. Not just humans, but I have also seen three otters fishing there and a snapping turtle the size of a platter. Meanwhile, a branch of the tree took over trunk duty and the tree held on.

This is the Canadian Shield, in Ontario. Imagine growing on that rock. The roots travel into the woods searching for whatever soil they can find. The root/trunk that sticks up is higher than ever this year. Three branches have matured and all stick up like a row of trunks.

From the other side:

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When I was a kid, we played sardines. Once when I was “it”, I climbed out the trunk a little and settled shielded by the branches. It took forever for my cousins to find me, my best hiding place ever. We finally started doing loon calls as hints, to get the last few people in.

I love this tree, bark, branches, survival in adverse circumstances, holding on and the lovely soft white pine needles.

 

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Matinenda doors

For Norm2.0’s Thursday doors, these are my family’s cabins in Ontario, on Lake Matinenda.

First, the log cabin. Built in the early 1940s. I wish I knew the names of the builders. My grandparents hired two men. They built a fireplace and chimney, too.

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The Little Cabin is smaller and was built somewhere between 1936 and 1938 by my grandparents, with a smaller room and porch added later.

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We sleep in tents, mostly.

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And the boat house has doors too:

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A lovely trip, with layers and layers of memory for me.

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loon

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: sobriquet.

Are loons loony?

The lonesome call of the loon in breeding plumage on lakes turns out to be long distance communication: calling for one’s mate or for relief on the nest or staying in touch feeding.

The laughing call of the loon is anxious. It is done to lure predators and dangerous others away from the nest or away from the young. The young are in the water, riding on the parents’ backs when tired, by about 48 hours after hatching.

The sobriquet loon mean something very different to me than the usual meaning of loon, beloved and sober.

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water

For Raynotbradbury’s “my life in percentage” challenge.

I have just returned from a vacation, a trip, a pilgrimage where I was unplugged. No list. No goals. No internet. No outlets. Just a lake and old cabins and meals and weather and quiet. Percentage, I wonder, of what? Happiness? Efficiency? Joy? Gratitude? Percentage genuine? Percentage genuine and present. What percentage is a loon at?Β  Either 0 or 100 percent and they are both the same.

We travel to the lake. It’s hard to get to from my home. We drive to a Seattle hotel for a park and fly. Stay the night. 6:08 flight Seattle to Detroit. Short layover but I know the airport, we make the gate with 120 seconds to spare. Our checked bags make it too. Flight Detroit to Sault St Marie, MI. I did not reserve a rental car soon enough to get one in Michigan, so we have a limo reserved. It’s a van. The van takes us across the border into Canada and to the Sault St Marie, ON airport, where we get a rental car. We drive to a grocery store and get a few groceries. The plane landed at 3:08, and I would like to get to the lake before dark. We drive from Sault St Marie to Blind River, and the 17 miles to the lake. We find the old boat, load in our stuff and get the four stroke started, one hour before sunset. The cabins can be reached by boat, no road. The dock was destroyed by ice so I have to pull the motor up as we come in to the pebble beach. I am just big enough to do yank the motor up. We are here. We unload.

Crazy, right? I have been describing it as “shacks on a lake”. No electricity. Propane stove and refrigerator. We used to use candles, but the fire risk is high this year. LEDs now. One cabin was built by my grandparents somewhere between 1936 and 1938. The other is a log cabin, built in the war years by a pair of French Canadians, logs chinked like tinker toys. Not quite though. It’s the log above chinked to the log below.

We set up tents and are unplugged. I have two phones. My t-mobile won’t work at all. The old I-phone will work sort of sometimes on the front rocks. I have camera batteries and take a lot of photographs.

I open my computer once at the library in two weeks.

We sleep in tents except for the two nights with major thunderstorms. It’s really the outdoors I want. The lake changes color and mood from moment to moment. I swim this year: I am way stronger than in 2015 or it’s warmer or both. We are in the cabin to eat and do dishes, but otherwise we are nearly always outside. The loons call. A family of mergansers comes up on the rock with us, 10 or 11. Otter sliding through the water. A pair of raccoons. A snapping turtle the size of a platter. Three pileated woodpeckers come to check out my flute. Three sandhill cranes by the road on the way into town. My cousins report a moose on the way into town.

The loons answer when my daughter plays violin: every time she plays the E string, they reply.

I’ve been visiting that lake since I was 5 months old. The lake, the rocks, the trees. The lake changes color every moment, changes surface mood, change. But the depths change slowly and are present, a turnover when the lake thaws in the spring and freezes in the fall.

I am the lake and the lake is me. Unplugged and being. Minimal doing. No list. Eat when hungry. Sleep so deep and swim and canoe around the lake.

I canoe and there is a woman, way across the bay. We talk. I know her last name, she knows mine. She remembers playing at our cabin with me and my sister, our long hair, running around while the adults talked about Watergate. About 1970. Her father just died in his upper 80s. He defied the doctors after a stroke a decade before, walked again and she kept bringing him to the lake. Now they are trying to maintain an old cabin, as we are.

Home again.

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My sister’s writing about the lake from 2009: Rain on water.