Mason

Mason

The past few days I have seen much larger numbers of dragonflies than I ever noticed in one place before. One day Mona and I walked up our road and first noticed a large flock of dragonflies buzzing, zigging and zagging just above the pavement near Rosemary Stackhouse’s driveway. There were dozens of them. As we continued up the road, we saw more and more “miniature helicopters” flitting around about two feet above the pavement all the way from Hutchinson Brook to the top of the next hill – hundreds and hundreds of them! After we got home, we even saw many more dragonflies in our front yard, some of them as high as the tops of the trees. I wonder if anyone else has noticed similar numbers of these curious critters!

Last Friday I got a call from Ina Grover needing help to change a water filter on their well pipe in the basement. At her house I met Jola Thayer, Verna Thayer’s granddaughter-in-law, who is visiting for a few days. She is here with daughter Maja and her cousin Alex. Jola asked me what I was doing that day, and I told her I was going on a hike after finishing piling some firewood. “You are? Would you mind taking Maja and Alex with you? I am going down to take Verna shopping, and they would enjoy hiking much more than shopping with Grandmother!” “Okay. I guess I can do that. I’ll be back in about an hour.”

So, I took Maja, 8, and Alex, 9 years old, with me through Evans Notch to hike the Blueberry Hill trail in the direction of Speckled Mountain. About a half mile from the trail head, the trail crosses a picturesque small stream. The kids had to play in the water for a half hour or so. Then we resumed our hike up the much steeper trail on the other side of the brook. After about a mile, both kids were ready for a rest and then to head back down trail. Maja’s plastic shoes were not really good for steep trails, and she slipped on the rocks several times. Then she began to whine about turning her ankles. With this, Alex took up a similar refrain, and they were soon trying to outdo each other with “Ow! I just turned two ankles!” “Well, I turned my ankles five times!” After about 20 minutes of this, I said to Alex, “Nobody told me I was taking a wuss on this hike!” “What’s a wuss?” I replied, “Well, a wuss is kind of like a baby.” Then Alex said, “Okay. That’s it!”

For the next half hour, until we got back to the truck, Alex never said another word about turned ankles or skinned knees!