Seasons. Changes.

Sunset on the non-river side of the road.

There's a moon dog tonight. I don't see them very often but it's the second one I've noticed since I moved here. As I turned toward home from my quick walk at sunset, that moon dog set me thinking about what has happened "in the valley" as my neighbor, Dave, calls our road, since I moved.  Many changes.

It was minus 12 degrees on January 30th, the day I moved. Blistering cold and blustering winds. My water pipes froze three times in that first month. It was cool inside but not much cooler than in my old house in the city. It was beautiful out the back windows.

I watched the black and white feral cat who lives somewhere, or maybe everywhere, around here cross and recross the frozen river, leaving paw prints in the constantly refreshed snow. Aside from the flood in December before I moved, the two most thrilling events of winter were both times when the dammed up ice broke free and the river, thrilled to have an escape route, pushed the ice dam out of the way and rushed downstream, shoving ice chunks the size of a tractor tire up onto the banks and skittering across yards as it went. The ice cracking was the best part of the winter. Otherwise, my general thought about a move to the river at that time was meh. It's fine. I'm not sorry I did it. But I'm not in ecstasy.

Then spring came. And I was. In ecstasy. And I have been ever since. The Canadian geese, who huddled up somewhere else in the bitterest part of winter began to appear again. A pair who were hanging out in my backyard had two yellow and brown goslings. A nest of bunnies across the street produced a couple of cottontails. A prodigious number of turtles appeared on the banks across the river, looking all drugged by the sunlight, until they caught a glimpse of a kayak floating by. Then, one by one, they'd slip into the water, keeping an eye out for when they could crawl back up into the warm. I recognized the softshell turtles, some the size of a hubcap, and I came to know on which log I'd see the one with the flanged shell. The one who looks like he's wearing a WWI doughboy helmet on his back.

The river's edge filled with swaths of Virginia Bluebells, and the wood's edge with Dutchman's britches. Then, when those had stopped blooming, pale-purple phlox put on a show. The birds, who actually sang all winter long here, broke out into springtime cacophony. Maple seed helicopters covered the ground, and my deck and sparkled as they floated along the river. Spring. Ah.

And now it's summer, or nearly. The heavy sweetness of the Alba rose has replaced the light floral notes of the phlox. White petals taking the place of lilac. The turtles continue to sun on the banks and the logs. Joined now, on the logs at least, by water snakes. I saw a pair making sweet snaky love one time as I paddled past in my kayak. He was shy and slithered off into the water when he finally noticed me. She lolled in the sun unworried.

I haven't put my window air conditioner (no central air here please) in yet. Like most of these river cabins (I mean cottages), mine is two storys on the rear/river side so I leave my second-story windows open at night even when it's a little cool, or a little hot. I'm not ready yet to give up the deep-throated galumphing of the bullfrogs who croon me to sleep or the chirpy, songful racket of the birds who wake me in the morning. I know I'll have to, but not yet.

On the human side of things, I have met few neighbors but Tim who lives south of me has finally walked over to say hello one evening as I was mowing my yard with my reel mower.  It takes 5,969 steps to finish that unmechanized job, according to my iphone Map my Walk app.  Tim said he was waiting to visit because he wasn't sure if I was going to just flip the house or live here. I guess he decided that if I'm willing to mow the yard with a reel mower, I'm a stayer. He's right.

In other neighbor news, Dave the plumber's dog died over the winter. He didn't tell me that but I see the little grave with the cross marker across the road from his house.

And the "summer people" are coming back to their places. That's what I call them, because I am now a "year rounder."

Two of the cabins haven't seen their people at all since I've owned this one. I see the name "McCardle" on the mailbox there. In my mind I've crafted a story behind their absence. In my story, widow or widower McCardle finally passed away a couple years ago. He/she left the vacation cabin on the Flatrock to the children. Those ungrateful McCardle kids aren't interested enough to take time out of their lives in the city somewhere to come down and spend a weekend, and they can't get it together enough to agree to put the place up for sale. So the A-frame with potential, that their parents built as a guest house for the kids, and the old-school 1940s concrete-block cabin beside it, where the McCardles took their morning coffee on deck over the river, sit empty, waiting. A big storm a few weeks ago uprooted two trees on the lot between the cabins. They lie there in the tall grass beside that little stream that runs across the property, down to the river.

Those McCardles don't know what they're missing. I wish I could call them up and tell them that the sycamore trees are dropping their pollen in the lightest of snowy dustings every day now and the day lilies are about to burst into bloom to add their pale orange to the Alba rose white. The woodpeckers are nesting and the bunnies are all grown up now. I saw the goslings tonight and they are almost gray and their tails have suddenly turned white. I've seen a snake cross the river faster than I can swim and there's a shell island just a bit upriver. Best to get down
here to your little cabins soon, McCardles, before the marsh plants grow up and hide all the shells.