Then off I paddle, looking for milfoil and scanning for my animal friends. This morning I watched the osprey snag weeds for the nest (pictures coming soon). Watched small birds chase a great blue heron for a few quick moments of brave flapping wings. Heard my red-winged blackbirds. Didn’t mind when a small pale spider with a pot belly crawled across my leg and damselflies landed on my head, arms, feet. Watched my muskrat buddy munching on lake weeds in his usual spot. And my loons. Always my loons. No chicks this year, from what the loon count and my observations tell us.

And oh, the turtles! Turtles on logs. Turtles on rocks. Turtles lazy-paddling through lake weeds; turtles wriggled into lake bottom mud. Snappers that may be closing in on 40 years old. Painted turtles new to the world, or tired from three decades of enduring. Along the way I found this darling baby painted turtle. About twenty feet away I spotted an adult painted sunning on a rock. Turtles startle easily, so I was thrilled to get a handful of pictures of this little fella. (Hooray for my zoom lens!)

“What Gorgeous Thing” by Mary Oliver

I do not know what gorgeous thing
the bluebird keeps saying,
his voice easing out of his throat,
beak, body into the pink air
of the early morning. I like it
whatever it is. Sometimes
it seems the only thing in the world
that is without dark thoughts.
Sometimes it seems the only thing
in the world that is without
questions that can’t and probably
never will be answered, the
only thing that is entirely content
with the pink, then clear white
morning and, gratefully, says so.

from Blue Horses
Copyright 2014 by Penguin Press

Female perched on top of our umbrella.