Marshland Boardwalk & Mermaids

After welcome heavy rains overnight, the fields were too wet for planting this morning. After a session of weeding and watering the basil beds in the greenhouses, Gundi and I decided to have some time off. After a pleasant lunch at Dougall’s on the Bay in Brighton, we drove to the gem of a park on Lake Ontario that is  Presqu’Ile. Our favourite walk there is a gentle one along the recently-refashioned boardwalk through the expansive marshland, with vistas opening up to the bay and open water beyond. The variety of grasses, reeds, wild flowers, sedges, lilies, frogs, birdlife is marvellous. The strong breeze from the north clearing out the last of the rain weaved patterns through the long grasses as they danced with abandon.

After the boardwalk we headed to the grassy parkland and limestone-ledge beachfront of Lake Ontario. Sheltered from the north, all was calm, the lake a  mirror in shades of grey, dark at the horizon where it met the layers of lighter grey sky.  Gundi flipped off her sandals and waded out in the shallows to a rock on which to perch, thus becoming my mermaid.
 

 As she returned after a meditative spell on the rock, she bent down to pick up a beautiful treasure – Mermaid #2. We have encountered this serendipity before, where we are spellbound by the aura of the scene, resulting in a most beautiful, almost miraculous find. (On a beach on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state many moons ago, Gundi spent the day beachcombing, amassing a huge collection of elliptical grey stones. I frivolously requested a  round stone, at which prompting she bent down to pick up a perfect heavy charcoal grey sphere). Back to Mermaid #2… We like to fantasize that she came up from afar, in the deep, landing moreorless into our arms. She is not made of plastic, nor plaster, but porcelain. She has become the second mermaid in my world.
 

Skunk laid to rest

On return home from a warm market day in the city yesterday, Gundi said she had a touching story. The day before, an elderly skunk was wobbling around beside the house, weaving in and out of the lawn and bushes. He or she seemed too weary to spray and oblivious to human presence as I clapped my hands and shouted . This afternoon our visiting skunk had chosen to come back to us to lay down and fade away, curled up in the long grass.  As the sun was going down, he was already stiff. I carried him cradled on a pitchfork up the hill and laid him to rest in a hollow in the wild grasses by the field of wheat up the hill. The sun’s sinking rays bathed him in light. We figure that coyotes or wolves will come to pick him clean in the coming days.

As I left his resting place, a raven came to carry him over to the other side, cawing and then wheeling off from the tall elm tree into the blue sky, just as he did with our dear black cat Negra when she left us last September.  The sinking sun cast a warm golden glow over the  wheat field. Another life passes.