Iris once sat here & told me to take a photo of her, just her alone.
I think of it every time I pass this spot in the woods.
Archive for the ‘Woods & Rivers’ Category
Camping du Pont Couvert
Camping du Pont Couvert is only 15 minutes from home.
Martin passes by each night for dinner on his way home from work.
* * *
Tabea, looking like the little girl she is.
Inside this little girl is a magnificent brain, re-inventing the future as she sucks her thumb.
Akiva, looking like the little boy he is.
Inside this little boy is endless charm and fledgling mastery. Women swoon. Strong men tremble.
The Piano Obsession.
There was an old woman tossed up in a basket
Seventeen times as high as the moon
And where she was going, I couldn’t help ask it
For under her arm, she carried a broom.
“Old woman, old woman, old woman,” quoth I,
“Where are you going, up so high?”
“To sweep the cobwebs off the sky—
And I’ll be with you, by and by.”
—M. Goose
We saw her yesterday in Compton. A woman— destined to be an old woman if all goes well— with a broom under her arm. Or over her head. Well, anyhow, she was making brooms. She remembered Iris from last year. She remembered the tiny veggie scrubber they had worked on together. She remembered how much of it they had made and she said to Iris, “This year, you are old enough to make your own broom.” She sat Iris in front of her on her broom-maker’s bench and made a broom with her. She was absolutely delightful and I didn’t say thank you nearly enough.
When we walked down to the school today, we took the broom so that I could carve Iris’s name & yesterday’s date on it, as Madame KeeVanne (a.k.a. Julie Jo) had said to do.
I took my camera with me, as you can tell. That’s becoming a rare event these days. I used to take it everywhere! I’m not sure what happened. Perhaps I got disgruntled with the quality of the lighting at the apartment. Perhaps I got distracted my a myriad of things to do. But I did take my camera. I like to document my children, to prove their youth and beauty.
On the way back, we stopped at the woods piano. These days, one has to hunt for piano keys on the ground if one wishes to play the piano with piano keys.
Akiva is my main piano player. He appreciates all pianos.
This was once an integral part of a once-beautiful upright grand piano.
Iris & Akiva play a duet.
Akiva bangs out a solo.
Keys. There once were keys.
Brief photographic timeline of the woods piano:
Broken Down Piano: September 11, 2017
How Fares the Piano? April 9, 2018
Val-Estrie Piano (again): May 30, 2018
Decline of the Woods Piano (Winter): January 1, 2019
Walk to the Island
We walk through the woods to the island for the first time in a very long time.
I have not been sleeping well lately, & I have no energy to go in the water.
Pink Lady’s Slipper (L’Ile Du Marais)
I am missing the spring with all this work I am doing on the house, so we took an emergency trip to L’Ile Du Marais. It’s been a while! The woods were positively overflowing with wildflowers. Being mainly a photographer of two very specific individuals (I really should branch out), I didn’t take many photos of the delicate blooms. It was an absolutely delightful trip! We should go more often.
How does this superior-type expression of self arise in isolated individuals? Akiva has never seen someone take this posture.
Portrait on the very very very abandoned car.
Another five-leaf trillium!
Iris inspects the labia of a lady’s slipper.
Where the Foot Bridge Used to Be (Akiva Turns 4)
There is a woodland path that begins across Rue Gosselin from the school. I have photographed here often. When there was a camp at Val Estrie, there was an obstacle course of sorts for the children to take part in. In the years since the camp’s closure, the games have fallen into disrepair. Some have ropes that are strangling trees. Some interesting components have been moved to new homes someplace by adventuresome hands. The tires are rotting. This spring, the tiny bridge washed out.
The bridge was integral in getting from one side of the river to the other— as bridges often are. Now one can cross by getting wet, which is fine if the weather is warm and one is prepared to get wet. In winter, the river freezes over eventually, and then it’s simple enough to get to the other side. But during the winter thaws, the long autumns and the chilly springs, the little river is impassible to all but the most intrepid of little children and the most long-legged of adults. Because there is no longer a camp and the new owner has no interest in entertaining trespassers, there is little hope that a new bridge will be put in place.
You can see the tiny bridge in the last photo of this post— https://barefootfool.com/the-river-children/ —and in the first photo of this post— https://barefootfool.com/tiny-bridge-tiny-river-little-boy/
At Meach Cove
Chloe and Neil brought us down to Meach Cove for the purpose of throwing sticks and rocks in the water. At this point, Neil and Akiva discovered that they have a lot more in common than previously thought. And the list was already long! Akiva’s interest was mainly in making big splashes. Neil’s interest was mainly in seeing how far across the water he can skip a stone. A rounded flat stone resembling a discus brought the two together as Neil twirled daintily down a large rock jutting into the lake and let go— The stone skipped! And splashed! Magnificent. Sadly, I was to intrigued by the action to photograph any of this, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.
Later, I did manage to take out my camera.
Neil clearly has issues with this tree. Iris sides with the tree as usual but keeps mum.
I like this picture because it looks like my friends have lost their heads.
Iris Turns Seven (LaPlatte Nature Park)
For Iris’s seventh birthday, I take my goofballs to one of our favorite old stomping grounds in Shelburne, Vermont.
Iris’s first winter, I carried her all over the LaPlatte Nature Park. Those were the days! Down at the river, someone had nailed a rudimentary handrail to a log. I crossed the log often, trusting the worn crampons on my old army surplus snowshoes to keep me from sliding off the log into the river as I gently touched the handrail to steady my balance, sleeping baby on my back.
The log was washed out with the spring floods, so the same someone decided he’d like to try his hand at building a suspension bridge. It was pretty good, but he got in trouble for doing so without a permit, so he had to dismantle it. I blogged about the incident on June 1st, 2014.
So the next winter, Joplin (that’s his name) built a bridge of sticks and posted a sign, “river crossing for squirrels foxes and other small mammals,” just to let people know that the bridge was NOT intended for them to use. Wink wink. Who has ever heard of needing a permit to build a squirrel bridge? I blogged about the incident on January 26, 2015.
I met Joplin the summer of 2016. He told me of his intentions to raise money and find some budding engineers to build a permissible suspension bridge. I stayed up to date with his goings-on, but did not partake in anything other than walking in the woods. The following year, he built a new small mammals bridge, as small bridges do have the habit of wandering downstream in spring floods.
We had sold the house by the time work begun on the bridge. For Iris’s seventh birthday, we visited Joplin’s suspension bridge for the first time. It is a troll bridge. I love it! I miss you sorely, LaPlatte Nature Park.
The sign reads (with some punctuation edits):
One day a troll who lived in a mountain shouted: “There’s a cow bellowing!”
Seven years later, the troll who lived across the valley answered: “Couldn’t it just as well be a bull as a cow?”
Another seven years passed before the troll in a third mountain, nearby, screamed, “If you two don’t keep quiet and stop this commotion, I’ll have to move!”
The End.
