As with all entries in this blog, click on a pic for full-screen viewing.
Porch sitting is a major skill set:
We have honed our practice over many years.
Sometimes the dog walks, and sometimes he's just exhausted:
But at the end of the day, we are lucky to have the original non-digital high-resolution scanner on duty, who,I should note, adds olfactory to the visual and auditory sensor mix. Pinkerton's and Ring, step aside, rookies:
And many folks attach a specific meaning to the phrase "on the rocks"... this is my take, from the dock:
Just to set the context, as I was out searching (unsuccessfully) for loons a day earlier, I chanced upon early morning light, which was fab (there's the rocks from the pic above):
I would be remiss if I failed to mention our host, Roger. Here's a guy who has a huge heart...he's rented to us for what, eight years now? Linda discovered the property while searching for a rental with a dock on Burt Lake. It seems the launch-and-retrieve activity which engages boat owners who have put their resources into boats, and not real estate, doesn't get easier with practice. Well, no matter how skilled you become over the years, Father Time keeps marching on. I mean, I could have purchased a 12-volt winch to get the boat back on the trailer, but, honestly?
That's just cheating him.
However, this boat of ours had a wakeboard tower, and THAT'S an issue. Who could ever find a cottage, with a dock, has a boat lift, that can accommodate a 22-foot Four Winns Candia, with a wakeboard tower?
Um, Linda.
Thus Pam and Roger entered our lives, folks of the highest order of decency, and compassion, the kind of folks we aspire to be. I mean, Roger refreshes the charcoal for the rental cottage... who does that in this day and age? And they bonded with James, and mourned his loss with us, and to this day insist on a
James Burger dinner with us each year.
Pam has actually stepped out to grill them.
Amazingly decent folks.
Here's our boat on Roger's lift, arch tucked down, waiting for the next adventure (2019):
Did I mention Roger moved his own boat to the second lift, closer to shore, to accommodate us here?
For the full effect, for posterity, of this Shangri-La, created for us by Roger, a short video, shot in 2020. It's worth a click.
Every time we visit, I'm on the lookout for the classic sunrise shot... this year I went with the natural-framing-lightpath to the dock, at 6:58 am:
And, as the grand finale, I spent nearly two weeks listening to loons calling, and sighting them only three times, and never in good range as they are skittish, or in good light as we're on the west coastline and, as conventional wisdom has it, the sun rises in the east.
So if I shoot them from the shore, they're backlit.
If I try to walk out on the dock and shoot from "behind" them, well, that requires me to walk out on the dock, which scares them off.
Finally, as luck would have it, with us having to pack and leave tomorrow, a group of Mergansers came in close and one female presented herself in range... I didn't dare walk out on the dock for fear of spooking her, so I had to shoot from the first section of dock out from the shore... and I couldn't move once I set up my gear.
I got my shot. Not a loon, but worthy, I think:
Thanks Pam, and thanks Roger, for your graciousness, generosity, and genuine humanity. We'll ever be grateful for all the good times, good photo ops, and unparalleled hospitality.
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