Life On the Lake 

Dedicated to the Joys of Waterside Living

Sunflower that grows unplanted in a planter

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About five in the afternoon, Norma disappears into the garden, to emerge twenty minutes later with bowls of raspberries, strawberries, cherry tomatoes, larger tomatoes, and scads of pole green beans.

It is a wonderful sight, knowing that the garden is so fertile and bears so well. Most years the raspberries and strawberries are done producing long ago, but these varieties bloom weakly in spring and come into their own late in the year. They are at their peak now. Blueberries stopped producing a couple of weeks ago. And the wild huckleberries that were here when we moved in have disappeared. Evidently they died off. I miss them.

The flowers are pretty much done blossoming. Spring is the time for rhododendrons and azaleas. That is long past. And the bush roses turn brown so quickly. A few long-stemmed roses are producing flowers in spurts--first the brandy rose I enjoy so much, and then the deep red ones. Between blooms, however, there is a long wait. And in this warm weather individual blossoms quickly open and drop their petals. Soon they are gone.

Yellow daisies, though, are holding up nicely. What infinite variety there is in the shape of each flower, only, you have to look closely at the arrangements of petals to notice this. I don't mind doing this at all. (All in a day's work.)

The lake is clear of annoying algae, but the macro varieties still rise from the bottom and discourage fishers, such as my friend Terry, who built a new house a year or so ago, and is the most enthusiastic of residents. He fishes with a bobber and bait because of the stringy algae rising from the bottom, which entangles his hook and bait, and makes the effort of bottom-fishing near impossible.

I wish he'd discover the joy of twilight fishing with a fly. There are surely enough fish to go around. Especially since neither of us keeps his catch.

This morning on the deck above the lake

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These days, the last days of summer. How sweet they are. True, most of the garden is bloomed out, the grass brown as toast, but the berries are blooming again, even more luxurious than in Spring. And crops are coming in from Eastern Washington, namely, peaches, which I love. And the local corn has been available at roadside stands for about a week now. We will try it soon, probably this weekend.

The dogs have fleas again. We treated them a month ago with some stuff from France that comes in tubes and costs about $20 each, but kills off the fleas in 24 hours and lasts a month. Nothing else seems to work at all.

A poor year for apples here. Our two young trees were late to pollinate and have but a dozen and a half apples between them. And I see signs of apple maggots. They are a long ways off from ripening. Now, in Eastern Washington they are having yet another bumper crop, which portends a poor season for them, for the more apples the lower the price.

Their problem is the opposite of ours. Either way, you cannot win.

At dark the bats and and I are out in the late hatch of dun- colored midges, I fishing for bluegills, or whatever will take my fly, and the bats come alarmingly close to my head in their last quest of the day for insects. But we have a pact, they and I. I trust their antenna, or whatever it is that protects me, and I leave them their flies, except for a few that I heedlessly swat when they tend to get in my eyes.

Midges do not bite, only threaten women and children. But we have a few mosquitoes mixed in that come from the wetland. Now a wetland used to be called a swamp. Now it is a recharge area for a local aquifer, or so the field biologists tell us.

I wonder if the mosquitoes know the difference?

The view last night from my dock

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Dusk

What a beautiful word, with its soft sounds and lush memories.

So much good fishing takes place when the daylight and the  beginning of darkness are in perfect balance. This picture was taken a bit later, perhaps too late when night was claiming the land and the water. The fish did not hit until darkness, then hit hard and often at a light-colored fly, the traditional Hare's Ear in a fairly big size, 12.

I think the fish were moved by motion, for they could hardly see the fly, only that it was moving, and discarded their usual daylight caution, based on their keen vision. The line would twitch, or else I sensed rather than saw a very slight motion and struck back hard.

One small bluegill was solidly hooked and came flying through the air and landed with a clank on my dock. Quickly I worked the fly loose and returned the fish to the water, where it struggled and swam in crazy tight circles for a few moments.

"Uh oh," I thought. I'd injured its swim bladder and it would die. I watched for a few moments of deepening dark, for it was now full night, but then, by degrees, the fish recovered, swam deeper in every widening circles, and finally disappeared from view.

I think it survived. Sure hope so. Fishing is at heart a cruel sport and pain and mortality often occurs, whether we want it to or not. It is the price of fishing, and should never be forgot.

Then I returned to the bright house and the Mariner game, with a Hernandez pitching for each team. Our Hernandez threw strike out after strike out, and we won handily, though Jeff Nelson in the top of the ninth inning almost gave the game back to them, Kansas City, who are as lowly ranked as we are this year.

But didn't.

Thanks for the visit,
Robert C. Arnold, Editor