Yet another cool, overcast day; Saturday, too, so only a short trip on the sand. No boats at all. The view downriver seems more clear perhaps because weekend traffic is less. Big cranes in the shipyard down there are pretty clear, but also stand out more against the gray sky.
A bunch of deer tracks are on the beach. This is the same location where the body of a White Tail buck washed up. No tracks around, then. These reach back to the thirty foot high bank. It has enough slope to be an easy path. It’s right in front of a house, but the house is normally unoccupied, not that discourages the deer. A couple times they’ve crossed our yard, too, at mid-day. Once an old dog living with one of the neighbors even escorted a doe to the river edge. Quite a sight..
The coolness and still air bring out the smells from the woods as we head up the access road. Three pink dogwood trees have lost their blossoms and a white one down the road, too. It smells like some honeysuckle may be in bloom. The greenness is intense now that most everything has leafed totally out and is newly fresh. Even some tree trunks are green from ivy winding its way upward. One spot of only a hundred feet is almost a tunnel of trees and is always noticeably cooler all year round. Again the cooler weather stops the biting flies from attacking us.
Down the road the blackberry bushes are in bloom. There should be plenty of berries judging from the amount of flowers, but the quality is still unknown and berries can be large or small, bland or tasty. A nieghbor couple we meet on this stretch report that local strawberries are ready for picking at a nearby farm. I mention that blueberries will be available in another month at another farm. They reply that last year the blueberries had very little flavor, like these local blackberries. I’ve only picked blueberries at the farm for two years and have to agree with the neighbors. Still, they are good in pies, smoothies, etc.
A good sized magnolia tree about thirty feet high and fifteen wide is covered with buds, some of which are starting to open. The tree seems to like this location and always produces many blossoms. We’ve one that sits on the riverbank and suffers some each year, I think, from salt in the river water blown ashore by stormy weather.
When we return we can reach the beach at the other end of the neighborhood and the tide is far enough out to allow passage along the river.
A few fresh deer tracks are visible just where we join the beach. Where we head up the bank for our house we find the next door neighbor moving pieces of a large dead pine tree he had cut down and sectioned. He’s assembling a pile that will be burned when weather permits. The felling process a week earlier provided great entertainment for our twenty month old grandson.—-
