lake days

We spent the evening at the lake, for the first time since early fall. Hauling fishing poles and knitting baskets and digging buckets and blankets and dinner down to the shore. It's funny, its such a small lake, almost a big pond really. If we wanted we could drive to Lake Champlain or the Green Mountain Reservoir, bigger, fancier lakes. But we don't, at least not often. We come here. To this little lake we love.

Briton, who has a hard time sitting still for much of anything, can fish for hours, standing silently on the edge of the water, watching his bobber for the slightest twitch. He and Will wander down the paths, through the tall grass, to the quite spots they know the fish like. I sit on the bank, knitting, reading, watching the ducks and geese and hawks. Evelyn traipses back and forth between. Fishing for a moment, and then back to the beachy edge to look for tadpoles. Last night she discovered a rock just a few feet into the water, just the right size for her feet and nothing else. It wasn't there last summer. It might not be there next week. Who knows. She waded out to it ans stood there, watching the waves, dancing, singing her new favorite song - "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" It looked a little like she was standing on water. My little nymph.

For a long time we were the only ones there, which is my favorite way to find our lake. Quiet and still. The kids like it when there is a crowd. Dogs and kids and canoes and people. But I love it when it's just us. It feels like the most beautiful place in the world. The lake. The sky. The tress. The four of us.