Spring Has Settled into Camp, Finally

Spring has settled into camp finally. The snow has melted, mostly, except for a few shrinking patches sheltered under the trees. And the ice is “out,” the lake open, though it’s too cold for swimming, or even wading along the shallows. Too cold even to put the dock in properly, but we brought it over from the other lot where it’s sat all winter, buried under a foot of snow, and tied it to a couple of trees, readied it to anchor out from the shore – properly - when the water warms up a little more. I need to get waders for times like this, but never think of it, except when I need them, like now, of course, when the water's too cold. But Memorial Day is coming soon enough, plenty of time to get the dock secured for the summer and granddaughters, and the first swim of the season.

I did put the canoe back in the water, though - no dock needed for a canoe launching - and took a short trek out around the islands and back. Worked up a sweat in the rising temperatures, rising into the sixties and hovering there before cooling off after the sun goes down, cooling to the forties, spring weather requiring a sweatshirt, the winter coats now put away in the attic until November. It felt good to be out on the lake, alone and propelling myself across the cove, not having to share the lake with anyone else, the summer folks not due for a few more weeks. There was a slight breeze, but otherwise, the lake was calm for paddling about and avoiding the springtime chores I should have been doing, chores that will get done when I get to them, just not today.

The streams have slowed down now, quieted down, the mountain snows melted and migrating to the lake, a down-hill coursing carrying with it the detritus of last fall. The vernal pool, too, is open, refilled by springtime melt, and the frogs have returned to life, awakened from their winter hibernation, their chatter a-clatter all night with frog mating, the noise of procreation. Their spawning, filling the night air, is cacophonous, a noisy background behind the shrill peeping of peepers, those little tree-frogs unseen in the springtime air at dusk, short, shrill peeping mingling with new life beginning, new life begun in noise.

The loons, too, have returned to the lake, their warbling and hoots echoing down from the head of the lake, and their long, mournful wails echoing off the surrounding hills, low mountains ringing the lake. And in the silence between their calls and calling back, a branch snaps in the darkness of the woods, a fox most likely, but perhaps a deer crossing to the lake, or a moose looming unseen. Or just an unseen snap startling the dog and me out at night, our nightly ritual before bed, her, her business and me, an excuse to get out, one more time before tucking myself under the covers to stay warm in the cooling nighttime temperatures, one more time to listen to spring settling in around me.

Yes, spring has settled into camp here at Hebron, finally. The trees are sporting fresh buds, a little green forming, a greenish tint among the branches, and the forsythia is blooming yellow. Still a lot of open space under the trees separating us from our neighbors without fresh underbrush to hide us, but that’s okay; summer’s lushness has begun in the wetness of spring, those April showers late coming this year, after a longer and colder winter than we’d expected, a lot more snow than we’d planned on. But “spring has sprung,” as they say, and with it, the noise, the sounds of spring settling in, settling in here at camp.