Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Flynn Rapids at Bass Rock in the Muskoka River are raging along today. I could fall asleep soundly to that watery spring music. Swollen rivers are an iconic sign of spring arrived. And so too are the woodland daffodils, the fattening buds on the old wild apple trees edging the river and the wild strawberries shooting outward in search of new ground to grasp. The lichen has exploded with thousands of new miniature shoots reaching skyward - one patch dipped in an impossible shade of emerald green which I have witnessed nowhere else in nature. Ducks are sailing placidly ignoring the heightened pace of the Muskoka while other ones flap overhead quacking together in pairs.



I picked a branch of silvery pussy willows along the Muskoka River today. Do you remember the childhood pussy willow song - each line rising one note higher than the last?

I know a little pussy
Her coat is silver gray
She lives down in the meadow
Not very far away.
Though she is a pussy
She’ll never be a cat.
She is a pussy willow.
Now what do you think of that!
 [And back down the scale with...]
Meow, Meow, Meow, Meow, Meow, Meow, Meow, Meow! MEOW!

Spring greetings to you all from Muskoka!