Woods and Waters

 

My teen hangouts were different, reflecting my unease around people which was offset by my love of and comfort with nature. We moved to Sennebec Hill farm when I was just over a year old. Living on 187 acres that included old tote roads, lake frontage, an orchard, and a blueberry field offered endless adventures. Many years later, my friend Massachusetts Jack summed described it perfectly when he said “I liked being alone. It was the only time I understood all the rules.”

That was how I felt most of the time as a teen. I earned enough money to buy a ten foot wooden boat when I was fourteen. In summer, I established a routine that helped me stay sane. I got up before anyone else, packed a lunch, walked down to the shore, and rowed out onto Sennebec Pond. Ostensibly, I was fishing, but for all practical purposes, I was isolating. The pond was three miles long by a mile wide. The Georges River flowed in at the north end, exiting at the other on its way to the sea. While shallow, the pond offered plenty of solitude space, along with a small inlet where Allen Brook entered.

That inlet offered plenty of small adventures, from watching deer, kingfishers, and loons, to huge snapping turtles, a rare eagle sighting, and toothy pickerel swimming through lily pads. Beavers built a dam where the inlet narrowed, and for a few years after they moved on, the small pond behind it was good for a decent trout or two each summer.

My sisters and I created our own summer activities, two of which I can still imagine when I think of our lazy days swimming in the pond. We were fascinated by the prospect of finding a freshwater pearl in one of the fat yellow clams we called ‘goldies.’ Despite our best efforts, all we ever found was one small, misshapen one. Clams of the narrower variety were integral to our other activity-clam races. We’d each find a clam and line them abreast in the soft sandy bottom. Hours later, after engaging in other pastimes like picking wild strawberries or blueberries, we’d return to see whose clam had moved the furthest. Generally, the winner had gone an amazing three inches.

By the time I was a full blown teen, I’d spent so much time roaming our property that I felt like I knew every tree personally. I knew where to pick wild apples grew, where to harvest what we called boxberries, fat red berries with a minty-sweet tang, how to walk so quietly I could slip along the long beaver bog, watching wildlife. One of my fondest memories was an afternoon one fall when I watched an otter gliding along, diving every so often to retrieve a clam and a small rock which it then used to crack open the clam and eat the meat.

There were plenty of places to lose myself when I wanted to really get away from people. The best was a ledge on the back side of the hill directly across from the house that we referred to as the deer’s bedroom. I could recline there, covered with balsam boughs and be completely invisible for as long as I chose.

 (Base of the hill where the Deer's Bedroom lies)

My teen hangouts were far from average, but they helped keep me sane in that part of my life, and over the years, have kept my love of the wild and what’s out there fresh, not to mention influence my writing.