daily

When we swam in Georgia Strait yesterday, seals followed us. When we sat against the warm stones to dry, a heron flew over us and no one but me noticed that it shat just beyond where we sat.

The tomatoes are ripening. The sweet peas continue. The cucumbers are climbing the shelves in the greenhouse and a lizard has been basking in a dry corner. We picked all the apples, 100 pounds, because there’s been bear scat on our lower driveway. I bought a juicer. A colander of Merton Beauties makes a litre of pulpy juice and I am drinking a glass as I write this.

Swimming this morning, Forrest and I saw a boat in the far distance and it looked like it was levitating about 4 feet from the surface of the lake. A Fata Morgana, Forrest exclaimed. And I told him I’d been loons gliding above the water last week. Levitating loons, Manon laughed. It sounds like a rock group.

I may have created a monster situation: chickadees, nuthatches, and the Steller’s jays won’t leave us alone because I’ve been letting the kids feed them whenever they arrive on the railings. But monsters that alight on the children’s hands as light as wishes (though the Steller’s jays won’t eat from our palms. Not yet. But coming….). Monsters that settle on my shoulders when I take plates to the table or go out to shake a mat. Monsters that wait in the trees.

Tonight, a harbour supper (as Edith Iglauer used to call it): spot prawns, baguette, garlic butter tart with lemons, corn, salad. We stopped at Amy’s for the prawns and she took them from a freezer filled to the brim. This is wealth I care about, not gold coins but rosy commas of prawn to dip in butter, to wash down with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. Maybe apples for dessert. Or blackberries.

This morning, salal pancakes on the ancient griddle given us 40 years by a woman then in her 80s, wanting it to be used. One pancake was embossed with BROCKVILLE ONTARIO and the mark of the maker: Smart.

Overheard: one boy as we drove to the lake: I know every bend in the road to get here. Another boy: I know this route by heart. And yesterday, the youngest, asking about our Honda Element, named Boxy in honour of the hero of Forrest’s childhood cartoon work, a box turtle who went on adventures all over the world, anyway, the youngest asking, How long will Boxy live? (Because they love riding in our Element, especially up our rocky driveway.)

Tonight I will suggest we lie on our backs on the deck to watch for the Perseids and that we should have our wishes ready should we see them.