About a month ago I spent an enjoyable afternoon out in the river looking for river glass. We've had a pretty odd year both last year and this year in terms of weather. A few weeks prior to my river glass expedition we had some nights of frost (thankfully I thought to bring my house plants in) that killed many plants. Gary had picked around 50lbs of fiddleheads the week before and after the frost hit he said their season was over. Happily for me, he did find about a grocery bag full and brought them home so I could make fiddlehead pickles.
But I'm getting off the track. The weather.
To be contrary to our frost, it warmed up a lot right after. The sun beat unyieldingly down over everything, pressing the grasses, flowers, and plants to the earth, drying and withering everything it touched. Fire has broken out in the beautiful province, clouding the skies and turning blue to grey. One night I watched the sun, like a circle of bloody fire, descend down through the cloudy screen of the sky. I could see it reflected in the river, the same lava-colored disk, burning the surface of the water until it disappeared completely, eaten by the smoke before it had the chance to slip below the horizon.
It is very dry here and the river is at its all-time low.
One scorching afternoon, I grabbed a bottle of sunscreen, a bottle of water, Toast, and a collecting basket and tumbled down a steep bank and into the bed of the river. It was another day of almost blinding sunlight and intense heat. A good day to wade in the water and look for river glass.
I know, some of you might think that all rivers are created equal and one is the same as another, but rivers are kind of like fingerprints. They all have a different look, pattern, and design. And they are all so mysterious and beautiful.
Now that we have had so much drought, the sandbars created by the grind and push of the giant ice floes that move with such an intense force in spring, have become exposed. These are mostly made up of the beautiful rocks that pebble the bottom of the river but parts of these beaches are sandy and smooth. Some years they become covered in plants. redwing blackbirds bob over the surface of the islands, their glossy sides reflecting back the sun as they scoop water with their beaks and cool themselves. All manner of plant life covers the steep banks and in the mud, you can often see the prints of a raccoon that came down in the night. Kingfishers creak and click, ducks, geese, and mergansers fly over or swim past in the currents that flow around rocks and islands. The river is a place of life. And what I just described to you is a very tiny part of the life and activity that goes on!
I slowly made my way up and down the rocky islands, scanning the ground for glass. Toast puffed and panted over the rocks, her eyes half shut to the almost blinding sun, her tongue very pink against the brilliance of the blue sky and green trees around her. When I grew tired of scanning the islands, I called to the dog and we waded out into the water. There was no shock that a person usually gets when they step out into a favourite swimming spot. It had been too hot for that, and the river water was warm enough to take a bath in and so shallow that Toast could find places to wade across to the other side without having to swim.
As I picked fragments of sparkly glass out of the water I noted the thousands upon thousands of caddis fly cocoons attached to so many of the rocks. I walked in and out amongst the houses of so many little creatures I could see, knowing there were that many and more that I could not see! The caddis fly cocoons are amazing, cunning little houses constructed out of tiny pebbles. Every little house is tailored to just the right size for each fly and will be its home until the day it hatches into a fly and leaves the water for the air.
I continued my probing into the water and noted the many neatly kept gardens of the crawfish that grace the river bottom. Industrious little lobster look-alikes, you can always find these funny-looking creatures because of their neat and tidy habits. They live under baseball-sized rocks, often in the company of the bottom-feeding fish who also live in the river. When the bottom feeders get in the way, the crawfish will wave a warning claw and send the fish scuttling aside. Upon choosing a home, a crawfish will immediately set to work cleaning up its "yard", removing scum and dirt from rocks nearby, and clearing a small neat space for itself. This makes them easy to find, even when you cannot see the actual crawfish.
Slowly the time wore away and the sun, like a glob of honey slowly travels down the side of a jar, began its leisurely descent down to the horizon. I had found several pieces of glass and had cooled down in the sparkling, bubbling, water. Time had stood still for me once again and the countryside and beauty of the world around me had worked its sweet healing spell on me.
What a glorious planet we live on. And what a blessing it is to us when we slow down and actually take the time to observe and enjoy the millions of free gifts that were designed for our pleasure. Time and again I wonder why I don't spend more time out in it when an hour outside does me more good than almost anything else.
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