Life and Times at Cranberry Lake

This blog is about the life, wild and otherwise, in this immediate area of Northeast Pennsylvania. I hope you can join me and hopefully realize and value that common bond we share with all living things... from the insect, spider, to the birds and the bears... as well as that part of our spirit that wishes to be wild and free.

Saturday, October 09, 2010

We Have the Sun Again:

It seems so nice to have the sun beating down on the earth drying up all that moisture left after two weather fronts that came through leaving a total of seven inches of rain. The mornings are chilly, and we have to wear our jackets to walk in the woods. I even would put on my cotton work gloves under the pretense of wanting to move logs or rocks along the trail, but it was because my fingers were cold. It's that between time when it's too chilly to just wear a shirt, but not cold enough to wear a really warm jacket, or your peeling off a layer coming home through the field in the sunshine.

After a quick cool walk yesterday morning, and staying inside until near noon, the dogs were getting antsy, so I went up to the little pond just yards from the back steps to the back deck. As soon as I cast a shadow on the water, something leaped in, and I could see something hiding in leaves under the water where it was dry before we got all the rain. I lay on my belly with just my head casting a very still shadow on the water, hoping that whatever it was would come up for air. It was a frog, of course. And sure enough, when I waited patiently, he surfaced, and stayed there floating with his head and shoulders above the water, but as still as a statue. He was a unique color of jade green and shades of off white under, with those copper eyes that can see what is in front of him as well as what is at his back... one of the few animals that can do that.

The sun was warm and toasty. Bear was busy digging around areas where perhaps moles sought higher ground... or maybe he could sense the frogs in the grass. I didn't really notice. I just lay there thinking how few times I ever do that... just lay out in the sun. Usually in the summer, there are flies or gnats bothering me... not many mosquitoes around here, thankfully. A few tiny insects lit on the surface of the water. I told the frog about that, like he'd say, "Gee, Thanks," and zap them up. Probably the reason we don't have mosquitoes is because the fish and the frogs eat them before they emerge from their larval state.

I don't know where Polly was. She's been busily nosing and digging after small animals that inhabit the grassy hill beside the garage and below the side yard's lawn, coming in with muddy black paws and nose. I like that she doesn't know how old she is. I don't like that I know how old I am. I sometimes wish I was like the dogs, and I think before I hit the landmark age of 70, I really hadn't confronted that weary fact that I'm becoming elderly. I find myself wanting to have a pity party with others to just complain and give and get insights on what it means to age. You see, I don't know HOW to be old. I got a glimpse of it when I went through menopause. I became forgetful. I had aches and pains. I remember telling my children that when I get old and helpless to just throw me into an old folks home... don't worry about me wanting to live with them, or their having to pay any attention to me. I'll probably become forgetful enough so I won't even know who they are anyway.

It's one thing to say how you're going to be when you get old. It's a totally different thing when you confront old age. I've decided that I don't like it at all. I'm going to be like my dogs. I'm not going to pay any God Damned attention to it. I'm just going to carry on within my abilities and enjoy watching frogs, walking in the rain, skiing in the snow, shoveling the balcony to the feeder to feed my fine feathered friends, and "To Hell With Growing Old." We are the ONLY animals on the face of this earth that make a big deal of it. It's just life. If we think of it and think ahead, we are just going to drive ourselves crazy.

So, I'm telling myself, "Enjoy each day as it comes, and suit up accordingly, and get outside and enjoy the sun, the rain, the snow--the warmth, the cool and the cold. Take a deep breath, and be glad you're alive. AND stop complaining," as turning 70 has really been a psychological downer. Depressing!!! Sorry if any of my readers are older. You must think I'm crazy. Sometimes I think so too. But maybe it's good to realize that life is not forever, and if we are getting into that last lap of a four or five score life, we better appraise our life and decide what we want to do for the rest of it. A bucket list of sorts.

I really have no goals, and maybe that's my problem. I've always seen the world in a grain of sand sort of speak, though sand doesn't quite express it. To me I see God in everything good in Nature. I feel a common bond with everything Living, and want to be a part of that Life.

Problem is, I do NOT see GOD in anything negative: Wars, Death, Bad news, Accidents, Problems, Disease and other unsettling things. I do not think those things have anything to do with God. Some have to do with bad luck... being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and some are just a part of the end of life or something to overcome. That last thing... something to overcome... is where God comes into the negative. The hero in the wars; the rescuers and healers to the bad news and accidents; the scientists and doctors that cure the illnesses; and, hopefully, the Other Side, when it comes to the end of this life. I'm more afraid of missing this earth than of death itself.

I love the world, but hate listening to the bad news. I love my friends, but don't like discussing politics or those problems that we cannot solve by looking at and discussing with disgust. I'm going to spend my final years pointing out the wonders of earth, not the destruction of mankind. I'm going to watch the magic of the turn of leaf: like in the comics today where the old guy in Pickles says they "turn into flowers." I'm going to catch a snowflake on my sleeve and observe it's perfection before it melts. I'm going to thank my feet, my eyes, my mind, my limbs, my joints my everything that still works... until it no longer does. Mostly, I'm going to FORGET MY AGE.

Age is something else that people invented to make damn sure you remember how old you are. Didn't WE make up Calendars, Time, Dates to Celebrate, and Clock things by the turn of the earth? What IS Age? What IS getting Old. We are just living on the same orb, and breathing the same atmosphere, and walking the same paths in a way that we walked on from the beginning of when we first got up and toddled our first steps. Why do we call one thing youth; and another thing middle age; and another thing being elderly? We are just another animal going through our stages of life, and in one way, it's all been one long day, as the sun is always shining somewhere on this same earth, under the same skies, and while breathing the same wondrous atmosphere. And while we trod this earth, we should try to keep it as pure, healthy and sane as possible for the next hatch.

And while I was thinking about all this... the dog spotted the frog I was watching, and as quick as a blink, the frog ducked under again.

Friday, October 01, 2010

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES:

A few days ago, this is what the beaver dam (which the beavers built on the Lake's dam) looked like:


Then we got 5 inches of rain. Here it is today from the opposite direction:



It turned out to be a beautiful day today. I found all the water exciting, as long as it didn't do any destruction locally. We had enough with the 100 year flood back in 2006.

Hope you all have a nice weekend.