Tuesday Morning with Mike

I awoke very early this morning, my head full of thoughts about the month just past. I was missing my dear friend Dale, feeling that loss anew with the realization that her friends in New York City gathered to remember her yesterday. As tears fell again, I reminded myself that she would want me to be happy with those memories rather than sad. I could hear her voice once again, saying as she so often did: “Are you okay? Are you sure? I want to know you’re okay.”

When Mike woke up, we had that first cup of tea and headed to the park along the lake for our morning walk. That was what my soul needed. With few sounds other than the occasional honking of geese and the rattle of Mike’s cart on the boardwalk, I was enveloped in the peace of this place.

Above and around the lake, the lush green cloak that spring rains have brought to the mountains lends a softness to their rocky sides. The sun, still low in the sky, gleams and glistens on the lake’s surface. We pass a neighbor’s garden where deep blue hydrangea blossoms cascade down a slope.

As we follow the path through the park, we see a wood duck with her ducklings on the far side of the pond. She seems to be tucking them into the foliage along the bank, perhaps hiding them from our view until she is sure we aren’t there to harm them. A couple of mallards share the path with us briefly, keeping up an incessant quacking. We dub them “the bachelors in search of girlfriends” and leave them to their quest.

An evergreen along the path catches our eyes with its dark green branches liberally tipped with new yellow-green growth. Most things here are thriving, drawing up the abundant rains from recent storms into branches and leaves.

A flock of geese is noshing on the grass, more than a dozen adults watching over six or eight young ones. These goslings still have some of their baby yellow, but are more a fuzzy brown now, wobbling around on legs than seem too long for them.  Just a couple of weeks ago the babies were still yellow, practicing swimming with their parents.

It’s the first morning in a week or so that we haven’t seen fishing boats heading out into the lake, but we do spot the fellow who brings his single skull here to skim across the water many mornings. Along the river’s edge, chairs on the docks await those who will come today or tomorrow to sit for a spell and enjoy the water and the wildlife as we do. Here and there canoes are on their racks, their red and green sides still now, but we know they will be in the water when Memorial Day weekend fills them with vacationers.

We pass the gazebo, quiet now, but I can almost imagine a time-lapse film of the weddings that have taken place here on the lakeshore. A few days ago, there were rose petals in the grass nearby, left from weekend nuptials. It’s a beautiful spot for happy ceremonies.

As we leave the park after making our circuit around the path, we see again the wood duck and her babies on our side of the pond, counting six. As they swim out into the middle of the water, five little ones stay close to Mama’s right side, but one ventures out on his own from the left until she gathers him back closer. It’s wonderful to watch how the waterfowl care for their little ones. They know the dangers of predators and attempt to hold their young close and safe for as long as possible.

Back along the boardwalk we find our way to the car again, now noticing how the traffic has picked up. It’s almost time for school and kids are being ferried to schoolyard or bus. Others are headed for work. The Lake Lure Arcade, built in the mid-1920's, centers the town, overlooking the beach and settled into the curve of the mountains rising behind it.  

Our day starts with this panorama of life and nature, blended into something that seems almost magical .  There’s that great sense of beginnings that each morning brings, somehow made oh-so-special in this little mountain lake enclave we love.

All photographs by Mike Lumpkin