Marys Creek Lake Number Nine

During the course of his leisure time, of which these days we seem to have less and less, and which we ought to find time for, as if scheduling time is the appropriate language for such an endeavor, a man ought to become more and more acquainted with the geographical intracacies of his surroundings with an intimacy that only comes from walking the land, studying its inhabitants, seeking to understand its flora, and attempting an overall heightened engagement of his sense of awareness and observation, and preferably undergoing such an endeavor on a lazy sunny Sunday afternoon.  So that is just what I set out to do.  I've had it in my mind for some time now that a walk circumscribing the lakes and along the waterways of my backyard, so to speak, was in order.

With Marys Creek Lake Number Four and Marys Creek Lake Number Five under my belt, on this trip I took off with camera in tow for an amble along Marys Creek Lake Number Nine. 

As typical of footpaths that start near an access point that has a drivable path nearby, I was able to find a faint trail near the lake, but that petered out in less than 25 yards.  I prefer the open forested landscape anyways, and willingly created my own trail of discovery.

Not long and I came across evidence of the human touch, but the likes of which was done more tastefully than many I have encountered on such strolls:

At 100 yards out near the middle of a crystal blue water, I was able to capture in still-life the swift lake-traversing passage of some of the landscape's seasonal caretakers.  I couldn't help but wonder where these geese had flown from just a month earlier, in search of such a warm climatic region as this, and it was fascinating to think that of all the possibilities under their sky-soaring wings that they chose Marys Creek Lake Number Nine as their temprorary home; probabilistically speaking, it was mind-boggling to think that in some lake, somewhere out there, similar geese were calling another place home, and that in some lake, somewhere out there, similar geese were calling another place home, and that....  Oh the stories that they could tell of open country - perhaps even arctic tundra with its barren horizon, or lichen-covered boreal forests and their deep dark secrets, or grasslands pocked by endless marshes, or crooked creeks spilling into brackish inlets, or of high alpine ponds fed by glacial run-off - all untouched by the human hand, and descriptive of a life expressed most richly in the flutter from landscape to landscape, and of a subsistence enhanced by the fruit of the land, a providential impression stamped upon nature's dynamic painting.

I continued on with a keen observance of the uncharacteristic green-ness that this year's mild winter has afforded.  Grassy shorelines, once dormant from winter's touch, had prematurely started the transformation into a prolific infancy of pre-spring grassy seedlings, and I imagined a blanketed picnic afternoon, flying frisbees, and rolly-polly, pell-mell puppies tumbling down the hill, curious about what the water entails.  As I turned from this spot, such imagery still lingering in my mind, I crossed a grassy field which led me to climb a water carved embankment, and began thinking of where my next lazy Sunday stroll would take me.