9/11 and the cove

Planes from the west parallel Route 2 on their approach to Boston's Logan Airport. After sauna we sit on the bench by the shore and watch the planes as they travel diagonally over the lake.

On September 15^th 2001 we sat on the bench underneath a quiet and dark sky. Boston's Logan Airport was closed to commercial traffice. We saw just one plane on the far northern horizon, heading toward Manchester, New Hampshire.

An acorn in the room

Fall is coming. The swamp maples and some of the blueberry bushes are already bright red There are yellows and oranges on other maples, oaks, and birches around the woods. The acorn that I found on the floor in the porch room shows that the little critters making ready for the coming cold. They're clever and persistent, making us don our Elmer Fudd hats as we look for the places where they've set up their stores.

We have had a summer of cool and rainy. The lake is quiet this holiday weekend. The cool air is producing fog as it drifts across the relatively warmer waters. No one would accused the water of being warm, however. On Saturday night's sauna, it took an extra jump of courage to dive into the water.

I slept in the loft when I was a kid, as we do now. Back then, you could hear the rain on the roof, a fine sound. About 30 years ago, my father insulated the ceiling to make the camp more comfortable in the cooler weather. The insulation works which well, but at the expense of the sound of the rain.

A rainy day is a good time to catch up on reading. In addition to the stack of magazines, we bought the two local papers -- the Gardner News and the Athol Daily News. Both do a pretty good job of providing news. Overall, I give the edge to the Athol paper. It provides more in-depth coverage of local news, diminished only by running five-year-old Dear Abby columns on the editorial page.

What's on the lake

We went for a canoe ride this morning, hoping to visit with someone the other side. We saw her drive away as we neared her camp.

We didn't take it personally, contining with our ride, talking with folks along the shore as we went. One of the people, on the main part of the lake, said that he's seen a loon on his dock a short while before. None of us had seen a loon on this lake before.

The wind at your back is never as strong as the wind you paddle into.

We found that the dam was pluggeg up by a tarp that had floated in. We weren't able to get it into the canoe, so we dragged it to the shore of one of the dam inspectors.

The lilypads cover wide swaths of our boathouse area, but the milfoil is the most invasive. We'll get into the water soon and pull the evil stuff.

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Sauna night

On Saturday night I started the fire in the sauna stove right after we finished our supper. The kindling that I picked up in the woods on my way to the sauna was still wet, so the fire started slowly and was very smoky. The wind had calmed. The smoke rose straight up for 20 feet and then bent toward the lake, finally settling low over the water in the cover.

The kingfisher continues makes its rounds, even as darkness settles, mingling with the brown birds grazing among the mosquitoes. The kingfisher is a noisy fellow. In years past, he would follow us as we paddled our canoe around the lake.

We waited until the sun was down before having our sauna. The lake, however, was unexpectedly active. As we slipped quietly into the water, we were surprised by a kayaker gliding along, not four feet from our float. Further out in the lake, there were boats filled with people of good cheer. Across the lake, some campers set off fireworks, belatedly acknowledging independence day.

The water was cool for this time of year, but when you've some from a room that is between 180 and 220F, it felt right. The hottest sauna that I've had topped out at 230. It was, um, hot. At the other end of the dial, we've also been swimming through the ice after sauna. On New Year's Eve, 1999, I cut a hole in the ice, then about 6-8" thick, and we had ourselves a bracing dip. The lake was quiet. There were just a couple lights visible.

When I was growing up, Saturday night was sauna night. Company would arrive in the late afternoon. We'd have food, including the beet and herring salad that my mother called Silli Salad, silli being the Finnish word for herring. The sauna would be ready by seven or so. People would go off to sauna in twos (married couples) or more (all men, all women, or kids). The last sauna would be finished by 11:00.

Blueberries are in

Although the berries were starting to ripen several weeks ago, this is the first time the blue berries outnumbered the green ones.

We have a cluster of blueberry bushes near the boat house and more along the road. Áll are high bushes that didn't fare well in the deep cold of previous winters. This past winter was mild and the crop is good.

We have more bushes along the water's edge, accessible only by boat or by swimming. The rocks underwater are old friends - the one at the end of the dock, the even-bigger one where the old dock used to be. Lots of smaller ones that could scrape a boat or stub a toes if you don't know to expext them.

But, even the experienced can be surprised. When we for a moring swim today, I tripped over a log that had some during the off-season and settled below the surface in the corner of the cove.

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Welcome

This is the first in a series of occasional notes about life at Queen Lake.