Sunday, November 01, 2009

DOWN AT THE SHORE


















There are lots and lots of beaver-gnawed sticks strewn along the shore. Many of the sticks we incorporated into our bon fire had been donated by the beavers.












Here's the bon fire.


























It gave me a queer feeling in my tummy to see another generation playing and making believe on Rock Dundar.




































Wah-wah-Taysee. Don't worry we took her out before we lit the fire.



My camera was not equal to the task of photographing a bon fire at night.
Pardon the depressingly poor quality of these photos. I love the firelight reflecting off the surface of the still lake and the sqeals of kids that bonfires and marshmallows always incite. It was kind of a perfect night too. Cool enough that a bon fire felt good but warm enough that it was nice to be out. I did wish that after the kids had gone to bed it would have been possible to remain and hang out around the fire, but alas there were too many wired kids and too many sleepy adults.
Speaking of wired kids.
This rock, which is just a few hundred feet north of the house along the shore is pockmarked by indian pot holes. There is a lot of evidence that the area was used by indians, probably because of the numerous springs in the area. Down through the years a number of arrowheads have been found down at the shore too. Sarah and I found one while we were fishing just below the house back in 2000. It made the hair stand up on the back of my neck to think that I was the first person to touch the arrowhead in hundreds of years, and to imagine what the last person to hold the arrowhead must have been like.




Playing at the falls where Munger Brook tumbles over a limestone ledge before flowing out into the lake. I once followed Munger Brook back up to its marshy source and found a place where a beaver damn had made a nice little pond back up there in the woods. In the above photos you can see that the brook is calmly picking its way around mossy boulders, but after a day of rain I could hear it pounding away. The kids and I took the boat back up to where the brook issues into the lake with Steve Maxon for a nocturnal visit to the spot, and there was quite a bit more water. I was surprised by how quickly the brook had changed. This might even qualify as a flash flood. I'm not sure though.


Jack don't run!!! That kid is so wobbly. No mountain goat is he, and I was certain that one wrong step would send him tumble-bumble into the drink. It was no small miracle that he never fell into the lake during the whole time we were there. Your's truly, Old Eagle Eye, kept pretty close tabs on him.

Bowden with a random corn stalk he found floating in the lake.





This is what is left of Fort Independence, which my Dad built with us kids back when I was a wee lad. It is a bit fallen in, but it was still nostalgic to revisit the site with my kids.

1 comment:

The Fredricksons: Brian, Britney, Salty, and Benji said...

Hey! Gimme back my arrowhead! I left it there on my last trip out back in late 1999!