Larry, Louise, and Jeremiah

This is the Dunnevant Compound on Crawford Pond. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to take a photograph of anything out on this lake that doesn’t feature the increasingly forlorn Pink Flamingo lurking in the background. Nevertheless, I thought you might like to see where we spend most of our time here on sunny days. Yesterday was picture perfect in that regard, perfect in every way except for the item which appears in the extreme foreground of this photograph. Yes, my lucky lure has lost his luck. Still, I will persist, since the idea of fishing is nearly as much fun as catching actual fish. At least for me. The waiting, the anticipation, then the startling surprise when you feel a strike, it’s all part of a process that can be endearingly slow. In that slowness you find rest and joy. It’s a mystery that someone with my antsy temperament would find it so satisfying. Maybe its the things you see while fishing...

Meet Larry. Or maybe this is Louise. It’s maddeningly difficult to distinguish the sex of loons from a distance. It’s also difficult to get a high quality close up of these majestic creatures. They are camera shy and mercurial. As soon as your camera is ready they slip under water with one silky flick of their head, then they are gone for a minute or so before they pop up just as silky 25 yards away, having done God only knows down in the depths of the lake. Our cove is the domain of Larry and Louise who prowl this terrain with confident nobility. When we first arrived, on one of our first appearances on our dock, both of them rolled out of the deep just off the end of the swimming dock to inspect the new arrivals. After satisfying themselves that we were harmless and not from Massachusetts, they both went about their business. It may be the most comforting part of living on a Maine lake for a month, the fact that our presence is acknowledged by a pair of guardian loons who are keeping an eye on us.

Oh, one more character you all should meet. Unfortunately, I have no photographic evidence of his existence, but believe me, he’s here. He lives in the reeds and lily pads just off the the right of the walkway to our dock...Jeremiah the Bullfrog. This guy sings to us...LOUDLY...mostly in the evenings. We can hear him all the way in our upstairs bedroom 100 feet up the bank on the hill. He has a deep baritone and only knows one tune, one note, but he has that note down and sings with great enthusiasm. When his inelegant grunt intermingles with the the plaintive call of Larry and Louise, well...it is something else in this world.