Shady Beach BBQ

Yesterday Laynie and Miranda thought a BBQ at the beach would be a good way to gather everyone together to celebrate the new look of the shady beach.

Around noon families began to arrive with their cars full of food.

The hexagonal Bates table was brought to the area, as well as two large oval tables to hold food.

A long log was the appetizer site, packages of chips lines up so that people could identify which kind of salty potato offering to take next.

The area around the new “step over the log” has been lines with stones and filled in with pebbles. Deck chairs were artfully placed around the campfire which was now in full blaze.

There was rain last night so the morning was cool, most of us wearing a jacket until about noon.

But not the children. They went right to the water, and some swam out to the new buoy marked Lot 12 – thank you, Marcia and Art. Others headed for the blue dock which sports a brand new aluminum ladder so people can get up on it with ease. Glen and Laynie took measurements for that ladder, went to town to buy it, installed it, and are looking for feedback. Is it better than the old ladder, or the same?

Connor has donated a yellow rope, now repurposed into a swing from a high branch of a Douglas Fire.

Glen knotted the rope , starting with a rope just at Landon’s height, then adding more knots for taller people who want to swing from a bank, over an open beach.

A call went out to those who really know their knots for a special one at the end of the rope for a foot. Greg knew the way to tye that knot.

For him it came with a song about a rabbit, having the rabbit home out of a hole, loop around a string and go back into the hole. He tied it perfectly. Just not exactly where Glen wanted it.

On the second tying of the knot, Glen just had to test the rope for strength. So out he went, swinging from the bank toward the water and then back.

The line-up for the rope swing began: Alice, Landon, Michael, Kalina, and Zoe. Well, to begin with, Glen took the first try on it, testing out the strength of the branch, wondering if it would hold. His enthusiasm for his swing was mirrored in other who followed. Michael swung out and back, next, not with a cautious first swing, but with a bold and determined swing as he had seen Glen make. Other children followed in the same manner. Hard for parenting adults not to have a certain amount of fear, manifest in tension in their own bodies when they see their children doing this. Glen went back into the forest to clean out the brush around the swing with the chain saw, others coming forward to take the limbs and saplings over to the beach burn pile.

Whenever I hear the chain saw, I search out its location. I want to know what the next vision is as we tidy up the Shady Camp area. There is a marker at that end of the beach: two tall concrete pylons. While I was in that area Glen told me he thought they might be a location of a shake mill. I know that in this area there was also a landing for logs that had been pulled out of the push and were going off to market via a boom in the water. Perhaps that is further down the beach. Glen said he knew leveling had been done in this area at some point. I couldn’t tell, but he stopped the buzz of the chain saw long enough to show me that the slope of the land gave that away. Glen was creating a small space for Connor where he can keep his trailer. There is too much temptation to steal fishing gear when it is left in the fishing boat in full view of other boaters who might ride by. Someday someone might think that the space where the trailer is was just “there”. We laugh all of the time at the misunderstanding that the “now” look is primitive nature to someone who just passes by. No, this is nature, groomed and tended, I laugh. Already hundreds of hours invested in making the railroad lease area. Hundreds of invisible,loving hours donated from Laynie, Connor, Glen, and Miranda.

Arta