day after day of hot, sun-filled mornings and afternoons--all people can talk about is the heat. this summer has been the clearest, the bluest, the hottest one that people can remember. i don't like air conditioners, but there have been a few sultry afternoons when i would have succumbed.
my cousin diane heard the loons last night, or so she thought. she said it was this beautiful call, a long melancholy calling, so marty grabbed his laptop and found loon calls on the internet and as he played them diane was so excited. "yes!" she kept saying, "that's exactly what i heard. i never heard a loon before."
the other big news on the marsh is the ducklings. on his morning walk with francie, marty came upon a mallard with five new hatchlings which he said were totally adorable. this is a late hatch but a most welcome one. when it came to naming them, i suggested the name needed to include the number five, like the jackson five. marty said, "or the dave clark five." but julia won the day with "the quackson five." welcome to the neighborhood, little quackers.
Life on the Salt Marsh is a journal of what i am learning and experiencing in this breathtakingly beautiful place, where the Dyer and Sheepscot, both tidal rivers, meet and merge.
Sweet Last Days of Summer
Author
- Rev. Mary
- Midcoast Maine
- Rev. Mary is a Unitarian Universalist minister who served congregations in San Francisco, Sonoma County, Houston, Marblehead and Winchester MA, and New Orleans, in a variety of ways. She is President and co-founder of Gulf Coast Volunteers for the Long Haul and has led 14 service trips to Louisiana and Mississippi since a few weeks post-Katrina. She has 3 children, Sam, 22, Julia, 26, and Jason, 41, and the best spouse in the universe, Marty. She was diagnosed with ALS/Lou Gehrig's disease in 2006. Rev. Mary can be reached at duckdreams at gmail.com. Due to her illness her ability to reply is unlikely but she would enjoy hearing from you if that's OK.
From Mary's Journal in December
after simple surgery turned into a nightmare: "the pain has been excruciating and for 3 days was unrelenting, even breathing was an agony. i tried to picture our mallard in maine who i studied one day when it was freezing cold, windy, pouring down rain and he was in his spot in the grass all tucked up and i tried to imagine how he could handle the elements. i decided he must go very deep inside and have duck dreams. so i tried to emulate him."