Familiar Footing

Arrived to the gin-clear water of a quiet medium-sized New Hampshire lake.  The Orvis jacket has lived there longer than I can remember.  A pair of LL Bean mocs, flip-flops, and boat shoes are the only footwear I take.  The Bean mocs are useless on wet wooden stairs and logs, but brilliant on granite faces of enormous rocks.  At quarter to six in the morning, young Jr. awoke with the declaration that it was time to "make something".  "The only hardwood we have is firewood" I told him.
"Okay, we'll use that!"
"Uhh... Okay. We can do that."
The woodshop is where many generations have crafted the replacement planks for docks and buildings, forged iron hinges, repaired caned seats, and every manner of repair imaginable, often completed to unnecessarily fine detail.

Small lads can cut a line steadier than one expects when using a coping saw.  A pencil line makes a good guide.  The gratification of a rasp, a file, and a few planers comes easily to new woodworkers.

Young hands learn the joy of concentration and the pleasure in craft of using hand tools. Chisels and a club mallet make a straight line, even though they were new to him.

 

 Fitting the mallet head and driving the wedge in elicit young smiles and reward the patient planing and (well-supervised) chiseling.

 

A rag of Minwax and the summer sun cure the creation.  Here, it rests on the bench we made in ten minutes using a bow saw and a hand auger.  The mallet spent hours cracking acorns, smashing ants, "cidering" crab apples, and pulping weeds.

A sail towards the swimming island where we anchor astern and tie the bow ashore to jump off the high sheer rocks, my bare nancy feet griping about the granite during the first two days.

Mumma and Papa Loon teach their two young how to fish and swim.  We had the same plan.

A grapnel for throwing to shore trees, a mushroom for mud and muck, a Navy for sand and rock, and two Danforth styles for sand and gravel.  With these in the hold, we can land in any of the lake-bottom's personalities.

Spliced eyes and toggles are a project to pass time, but are indispensable for large coils of line, rolled towels, hanging picnic bags, and nearly anything else.

Water sparkles with sunlight from lunch until sunset, and on the VERY rare morning when the water is not glass-smooth, Jr. and I enjoy the opportunity for a six o'clock sail in the rainy gusts while others sleep.

One never outgrows a love for water, and a restless thumping in the chest propels adults of all ages to climb to the top of the granite edge and leap into the clear deep, feeling the water in the nose and bubbles past the face that haven't changed since the first life-vested panic-filled jump as a tot.  I use the same words of encouragement this year for mine (from the lower ledge) and the giggle is distinct when the heads surface, gasping with surprise and relief.  Boys and girls of summer.  They are full steam until the dinner spread, with a thirty second transition to twelve hours of snoring, and only then do I uncork the bottle.  Other boats appear at the dock, and friends stroll up to the house with their bottles and a years worth of news to share.