Monday, the last night Luke and I were at Anne’s cabin on the Priest River, a Moose and her calf appeared on the path between the river and the deck.  I’ll never forget the muscles around her shoulder blades, the way she moved quickly to protect her calf when Gus barked.

Osprey were daily visitors, flying over the river’s curves and rapids as tight as stitching a quilt. 

Luke and I rafted down the river and saw two ruby-necked turtles on opposite ends of a tree limb, the tree felled by beavers.  Keith caught six trout early in the morning and we ate them for breakfast three hours later.  Two Bald Eagles soared over the river pines as proud as severe Inca carvings.  Bats careened over our heads on the nights we sat on the deck late.  

Two fawns splayed their legs then jumped on the rocky banks of the river like modern dancers as their watchful parent stood guard and grazed on the grassy patch next to the water.    

A wild turkey family landed in the branches of the pine and poplar trees next to the cabin after the moon rose one evening.  They
were surprisingly patient as we crept beneath them, watching and listening even though the tom was a looming presence, as high in the tree as his width and girth could be held, ready to attack if he sensed aggression toward his chicks.

Next morning in bed, I heard the wild turkey family wake up, stretch their wings, speak to one another and fly off, all before I could get to the window.

Canadian and other geese and ducks quacked up and down the river but as geometrical as their V-shaped flying patterns can be, I quickly learned that on the river where people have homes, geese have few friends.  They shit more per square inch of their body weight than any bird I’ve ever encountered.  (A hummingbird shit on my arm this afternoon after I refilled its feeder and its shit was smaller than half of half a tear.)  Geese and ducks shit as much as a cow.  

Oh, I almost forgot the dragonflies.  Along about four in the afternoon, if I found myself on the deck reading, here would come a dragonfly or two, long as my thumb and high as my forefinger, black and silver in the sun’s shade, as if wearing a cocktail dress, flying in a pattern from one end of the deck to the other, an arm’s reach from me but never closer.  One afternoon Luke and I decided to wait them out, watch them fly back and forth in front of us like a rhythmic pendulum on a Grandmother Clock.  We were hypnotized long before the dragonflies flew toward the river. Or did they fly toward the sun?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 31st, 2011 at 6:28 pm and is filed under David's Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.