Originally published in The Plain Talker, May 2006
It was a cool night in March, and the first time I'd spent a day at the new cabin not working. Every visit before that, whether it had been for an hour or a weekend, had involved labor of some sort, most of it unpleasant. Last summer and fall found us moving furniture, figuring out where to put things, and all of the other unpleasantries involved in moving… and that's not counting saying goodbye to the old place, knowing that no one would ever see it again; the bulldozers were going to make sure of that.
Summer also found us looking for large flat rocks, and digging up the rocks that had been our path between cabin and lake for more than four decades. The new place had no such path, so we were going to build one, using the rocks from the old one. Unfortunately, the new path was going to be about twice as long as the old one had been, which meant we had to find more rocks; the more we found, the heavier they got, and if that's not an actual Law of Physics, it should be.
Winter found us doing the inside work: removing, sanding and re-painting cabinet doors, re-sizing and installing a bookcase that was a couple of inches too big to fit where we wanted to put it, removing one kitchen cabinet and replacing it with a unit that had drawers, sanding and re-staining our old picnic table, and other little stuff that kept cropping up. What made many of these tasks extremely unpleasant was that we spent those weekends without running water; our old cabin had been on a well, but the new one is not, and when the lake drops to about nine feet below full pool, indoor plumbing becomes a luxury enjoyed by other people, but not us.
But the lake rose, like it always does, and Spring came knocking shortly after that, and our attention turned to an outside project: the path. We had gathered almost all of the rocks we needed; now we had to figure out exactly where to put them. Which meant I got to pick them up and carry them again; they were heavier the second time around. They were also varying degrees of thickness, which meant that the path would need to be leveled, unless we wanted a path that was nothing more than 100 feet of toe-stubbings. (At times, that sounded like a great idea, even if it was my toes that were going to wind up mangled and bleeding for the rest of my life.)
We had planned to finish the path during Spring Break, but I got an unexpected reprieve for a couple of mid-week days. I could have spent those days working on the path, but I didn't want to do it wrong, so I decided to just relax and enjoy the lake instead.
I was looking forward to going to bed, knowing that I wouldn't have to wake up and go straight to work. Knowing that I had a day of leisure to look forward to helped ease some of my aching muscles, and made me less tired, so I hauled the canoe to the water; the back of our new slough looked to be a great place for frogs and snakes, and I was eager to get back there and see what it had to offer.
I started paddling quietly towards the back of the slough; there was little moonlight and I didn't know the area like the back of my hand yet, so I had my headlight turned on; in its beam I saw the glowing eyes of two raccoons, one of which ran alongshore beside the canoe for a while.
When I got to the back of the slough I heard several Leopard Frogs and Spring Peepers; I might have stayed around and listened for more, but it was then that it started to rain. It wasn't a hard rain, just a little more than a mist, but it was enough to convince me to paddle home; the night was cool enough already, and getting soaking wet would just make it worse.
The next night, I took the canoe to the back of the slough again. It was a little cooler this time, though the sky was clear and there was no threat of rain (I checked.) I had my headlight with me, and I also had a hulking, 15-million candlepower spotlight that I had gotten for Christmas. It was big and bulky, but it could cut through the darkness like nothing I've ever seen.
A few hundred feet from my dock, the headlight once again picked up the eyes of another raccoon. I paddled slowly towards him, hoping to get close enough to get a really good look with the spotlight. When I was as close as I dared get, I turned on the spotlight… and saw not a raccoon, but a bobcat.
I've seen a lot of cool animals on the lake-- turtles so big I first thought they were dismembered human bodies, eagles back when they were nowhere near as common as they are today, a coyote back when no one knew we had coyotes-- but I had never seen a bobcat at the lake. It was beautiful, like a small mountain lion, and I could have spent all night just looking at it. It didn't feel the same way about me, though, so it ambled into the woods, and out of sight.
After it had disappeared, I continued paddling towards the back of the slough; I had planned to beach the canoe and do a little exploring on foot, but it was hard to think about that; all I could think about was the bobcat. "That was so cool," I thought to myself. "Even if I have to swim home, it will be worth it for getting to see the bobcat."
I probably shouldn't have thought that part about swimming home; you never know who might be psychically listening in. I beached the canoe and eased my way towards the bow, but as I tried to work my way around that hulking spotlight, I lost my balance. It all happened in slow motion, which was good, since it gave me a chance to assess my situation, and decide that stepping into the lake with one leg was a better option that falling into it with my whole body.
So I stepped in with one leg and tried to stabilize myself with that foot, which would have been easier if the ground under it hadn't given away completely. Now I had one leg dangling in the water, and the other in the canoe, and I had to do something before I flipped the canoe over, and onto my head; that would have hurt, but more importantly, it probably would have ruined my super-cool spotlight.
So I got my other leg out of the canoe, which kept the canoe upright, but got me wet up to my waist; suddenly I realized just how cool-- as in cold-- the night was. I tried to do some exploring on land, but the squishing sounds my soaked shoes were making were scaring all of the wildlife. So I got back in the canoe, and started the long, cold paddle home. As I shivered and shook, and tried to will my stiffening muscles to paddle just one more stroke, I remembered what I had thought about not been upset if I had had to swim home; though I wasn't swimming, I was about as wet as I would have been if I was.
Without a doubt, it was the best day I had spent at the new cabin; I'm looking forward to thousands more.