What doesn't kill you keeps you young ...

Another brilliant day on the lake.

Yesterday I found the green ladder that enables us to get down to the lake from the deck. It is very ugly and very heavy. I made it when we built the deck. Last spring I found it leaning against a tree down at the other end of the lake and I had to get Tammy to help me hoist it onto the roof rack to get it home. I was very glad I found it before it had got too far this spring.

It was hovering next door, kissing their dock which has fallen to pieces.

Kenya and I made our way through the undergrowth to the old dock where I stood in the water and attached a yellow rope to one of the rungs.

So far, everything had been simple, but now the hard part began.

I had to make my way back along the shoreline keeping the rope on the lake side of the trees as I dragged the ladder along toward home. In manicured countryside, this might have been easy, but Pike Lake's shoreline and forest are largely untouched tangles of brush and trees whose root systems are half in the lake and half on shore. This can make grabbing a small tree to avoid falling in the lake a little hazardous, as some of the smaller ones are not rooted at all.

By the time I had moved the ladder about 30 feet I decided that I needed to bring the kayak over to complete the journey. Too many of the trees were just too difficult to make my way around or too big to manoeuvre a rope around. The one I gave up on was impossible to circle with my arms and the lake at that point was too deep for rubber boots and too cold for bare feet.

I tied the yellow rope to a tree and Kenya and I made our way back home. I picked up kindling as I went and Kenya tried to take fallen trees with her. When that proved bothersome she tried to steal my sticks. Have I told you Kenya doesn't share sticks? Well, neither do I. We argued all the way home.

I climbed on the table in the porch and got the kayak paddle down off the rafters. The thought that I might fall and break something crossed my mind briefly. Men have these thoughts and act on them; I just have them and ignore them. After all, how would a small hermit woman manage to accomplish anything, if she paid attention to such thoughts?

I was tired by now so I decided to make it my mission to take the kayak to recue the ladder the next morning.

Several years ago when I was much younger, and Tyren was a year old ... 15 years ago ... Kerry and I took the canoe to rescue The Royal Bob, our floating dock. We couldn't leave Tyren, so all three of us got into the old yellow canoe.

It is an ungainly thing that is almost untippable but also almost impossible to steer with one paddler. We bought it when Kerry and Rob were old enough to want to play in a canoe, but too young to handle anything less stable.

Off we went, zipping along to the populated end of the lake, both of us paddling, Tyren happily ensconced between Kerry's legs, his little red life jacket making him look quite seaworthy.

I tied the yellow rope to the raft and we began to paddle home. Paddle, paddle, THUMP! Paddle, paddle, THUMP!

Each time we were thumped we'd have to get up steam again and retrace the last few paddle strokes that we had lost when the raft hit and pulled us backwards.

Tyren began to wail, and every time the the raft hit us, he shrieked. Kerry had to stop paddling.

It took a very long time to get the raft home.

I trust today's adventure with a ladder, a very tippy kayak, and May-cold water will be easier. But I am now almost 68. The last trip occurred when I was 53 and not alone. If you don't hear from me, I am likely caught in undergrowth somewhere along the shore.

I am off on my next adventure.