Diamonds in the Rough

We all have our reasons why.

Why we like  red instead of blue, sweet instead of sour, tuba instead of bagpipes.  Perhaps it's genetically coded in and we have no one to blame but our forefathers and mothers who were either hunters or gatherers

back when it all began.

I'm pretty sure I'm from the gathering clan.

There's a body of evidence that would seem to indicate that this is true.

 I like nuts.

And berries.

Salads I sometimes crave.

Coleslaw? Yum.

And tender green shoots in spring? Heaven.

I am NOT a hunter.

Although some of the clan have tried on occaision to convert me.

Once I actually went hunting for partridge with two of the members of the  Hunting Clan. They put a shotgun in my hands, showed me how to load a shell in it, aim, and fire. Then left me standing amidst a bramble of raspberry canes

and told me to shoot when they flushed out a bird.

So, there I was licking raspberry juice off my fingers, admiring all the butterflies flitting about when this gray fluffy bird came streaking 

right over my head!

I ducked and yelled, dropped the gun which fired off into the bushes, hopefully not hitting anything, and sat down and started shaking and babbling away,

apologizing profoundly to all creatures great and small for even contemplating shooting one of them.

Never again.

That the was the moment when I knew I was a gatherer.

But it's no a simple thing. There's much more to being a gatherer than just picking berries and eating candied pralines.

Over the years, I have come to realize that it impacts my lifestyle and the choices I make in dozens of subtle, and some not so subtle, ways.

I live on a beach. Beside a river.

This river abounds with wildlife -both the hunting and the gathering kind.

I 've seen bear, fox, deer, mink, beaver, porcupine, raccoon, rabbit, otter, mouse and moose; fish, frogs, snakes, newts, turtles and lizards.

Lots of birds and bugs and butterflies.

And I've come to realize that this beach is their home as much,

if not much more than, it is mine.

My neighbours, who only live here in the summer think I'm a little

wonky -or maybe a lot wonky. I love the reeds in front of our place.

It's not rocket science to figure out that this is an important part of the natural life around here. Why some would go so far as to recognize that it's Habitat.

And that it should be left alone.

My neighbour's disagree. They call it weeds, and every Sunday morning in the summer, they can be seen on the beach with their rakes, their ATV's and their rusty bedsprings, dragging through the weeds in front of their places.

They prefer desertscape to riparian area.

They have offered numerous times to kill the weeds out front of our place.

I have told them numerous times that those reeds and grasses serve a very special  function, providing food sources for some, cover for others, and protecting the entire beach from erosian. Meh!

They don't care.

Their rough patch is my diamond mine.

And so we have agreed to disagree.

And when they mention in passing that there doesn't seem to be as many swallows or butterflies as before, I just look at them, then invite them over

to our place to watch the river flow.

Down By the Old Mill Stream

My Mom and Dad were pretty "Hip to the Jive", as they used to say. And they had this huge collection of LP's (Ed. note: gentle reader born after 1980, you may have to look this one up) to prove it. There were the Mills Brothers,  Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, The Lemmon Sisters, and many other collections of albums, including some by the Langevin Symphonette Society- the precursor to elevator music....or Muzak, as it's known amidst the  mad men. Musak is actually a patented type of music delivery system for elevators, department and grocery stores. Shoppers, it has been proven, buy more when there is perky, cheerful music to shop by. And they fight less when a funeral dirge is droning in the background of the outdoor stadium as the losing hometeam exits. On the same note, it is also why municipalities often play opera outdoors and illuminate an area with zit highlighting black light to deter teenagers from hanging out late at night.
But, I digress.
Back to the old mills, brothers.
On a recent country drive, looking for signs of spring, we took the road less travelled, and followed a local area map to Burnt Bridge Road. It is always, to me, a bit of a shock to find a lovely, hidden little patch of nature, and one of the thoughts I find myself always thinking at these times is, "Has anyone else been here before? Am I the first? " I might add, that this is asked hopefully, as I am one of "those people" who will find secret places to sign my name, like on the inside of window frames in my childhood home the day we moved, so that years later, it would be discovered that I had lived there. I know. Sad. But true.
In this particular case, I most assuredly  wasn't the first...but I felt like no one had been here for  at least awhile...

I've lived in the Ottawa Valley for about 25 years, and have never seen this grinding stone, or heard of it's existence before. But indeed, here it sat. A round granite monolithe in the middle of sort of nowhere.

And it had a friend.

You know, when you're expecting something, like say, the Eiffel Tower to appear because you happen to be in Paris -when it appears, you're excited and slightly giddy, because it's smaller than you thought it would be, but exactly like it's supposed to look like. Only, uh, smaller.

Well. That's remotely what this was like.

"Well, lookie here!! Two grinding stones, in the middle of absolutely the bush in the middle of the  Sunday drive to nowhere!"

And they're big! Well, teeny mini stonehenges, but still -about 5 feet in diameter. They didn't roll here all by themselves, that's fer sure!

(We don't get out much you now know.)

So, the Burnt Bridge had actually been rebuilt and standing on it, I could pick out this year's now not so secret   picnic spot to which you're all invited.

(on the right..see? where the sunlight hits just right?)

And time was spent in that ponderous moment wondering "where does all that water come from? Where does it go?"

 Someone should have built a grist mill here a hundred years ago!

Oh. They did.

Clever, resiliant, reliable pioneers.

And while there were a few water watchers down by the old mill stream,

 it became apparent that they'd rather be left alone.

Out in the middle of somewhere.

Someone had already signed their name. So, of course,  I didn't.

Punk. Punky.Punkiest.

And then one night, I looked out the window and couldn't believe my eyes. 

A big old pink moon was rising, bringing with it a warm southern wind

that bid farewell to winter.

I kept watch and kept wondering. Within an hour, it had morphed into a brilliant white light, hanging high over the river.

Songs have been written about moons like this. "It's only a paper moon, hanging over a cardboard sea" and "when the moon hits your eyes like a big pizza pie that's amore" came to mind while I was watching.

Then I looked downwards, and saw what was finally happening at 500 feet above sea level. The ice was moving. Out of the bay. Into the air. Under the surface. It was alive and shifting.

And less than twelve hours later, it was no longer a skating rink, it was pure punk. As in the ice is punky. It's dangerous, soft, spongy, not to be trusted. Don't you dare go near it ice!

Unless of course you're a duck, with feathers for brains pretty much...

You can see the different densities of the ice. In this case, the darker the colour, the more water laden, the more dangerous and the more punky it is. We learn to stay clear of all things punkish...until one day, we think about the meaning of punk again...

This cute little  girl can come and look, but no way is she allowed  within a mile of anything as  punky as that ice!