Driving Miss Canoe

There was no way Shila and I were going out on Seneca Lake in canoes under a driving rain. Part of the point was to take pictures and watch birds, and cameras and binoculars are fussy about driving rain. So we tooled around in the truck, digging the colors on the land and what few birds that revealed themselves in the pauses between downpours.

Colors are so saturated when they’re saturated.

I can’t get enough of the smoky blue of autumn hills, or weathered wood against goldenrod.

Or weathered wood against sugar maple.
Fall foliage shimmers and glows in the rain. Here I am, having made lemonade out of lemons. It's good to have a barn to go behind for that.

photo by Shila Wilson

What do you think? Are cropped pants on their way out? Should they be? On someone with 30" legs like mine, cropped pants just look like a terrible mistake. The only thing they're good for is canoeing, because you can launch without rolling them up. Other than that, they're really good for getting poison ivy, ticks, chiggers and briar scratches on your ankles. I give them five stars for that. I flippin' HATE cropped pants, but I've got a closet full of 'em, because I shop at TJ Maxx. Like most things I whine about, I have only myself to blame.

Speaking of cropping, I suppose I could have cropped off my slug-white ankles...

A kingfisher finial.

Song sparrow, weathered wood, winter weeds, rusty wires, oh oh oh.

In the end, the canoes were the reason we went to Seneca Lake at all, so they deserved to come along for the ride. The car didn’t get too wet, and when I got home I unloaded them and thanked them for the inspiration for our wet photo safari. I looked at my photos and decided that our trip wasn't as dopey as it felt at the time. Thanks to Shila for being able to live in the rain-drenched, ludicrous, four-hour moment with me. It's a rare aptitude, and it's what I treasure most about her.