Day 212

Fanned clouds in the meadow

With Poison IVY all but gone, she ran 4.5 km in the beautiful morning meadow, a crisp blue day, her footsteps once more familiar on the worn path, with Queen Anne's Lace flowers and little Eastern tailed blue butterflies coming out to greet her.  Catbirds made their strange rasping calls at Refrigerator Corner, and purple vetch pleased her eye on Heartbreak Hill.

The black dog lay in the shade each circuit, waiting for her to appear parallel on the other side of the meadow, the dog's signal to bound across exuding dog happiness at seeing her again.  "Molly!" she exhaled encouragingly each time this happened.  Swathes of celandine have taken over the vegetable rows, and goldenrod everywhere is coming into blossom, visited by an assortment of insects, including her bees.

Friends for lunch, and then peaceful kayaking with the girls and their boyfriends in the afternoon and into early evening, out to Kettle Island and back.  It is the first time on a kayak for one of the boyfriends and he does a grand job, after turning in circles for a while at the beginning.

Near the pier, on clear glossy water, she encounters a cormorant which comes up out of the water close to her kayak. It is startled at her proximity and promptly loses its fish, but dives straight down again and comes up triumphantly, this time swallowing with success.  She is so close that she can see the bright orange of the soft skin around its throat, and its beautiful turquoise eye. 

She observes that it bathes in the same way as the little chickadees do in her birdbath, flapping its wings and fawning its neck back to get clean, only its birdbath is the entire deep sea.  She anchors her kayak on a buoy and watches as it clambers out on to a seaweed-covered rock, proceeds to preen its belly, then turns and flaps its wings a few times before hanging them out to dry in the late sun, frilling out its tail every now and then.  It is soaking up the last lovely warmth of the day.  It takes a fair amount of energy to manage this whole drying business, clambering out of the easy element, then flapping out all the water, then standing there for long periods of time, giving the occasional shake to the outstretched wings. 

Beautiful bird.  She memorises its shape, its stance, and then draws it late at night while she is waiting for the boys to come home from Nick's cast party.