Winding down ...

This morning, it felt like the first stirrings of the fall season are making their presence known on the North Island ...

Yesterday my niece was proudly waving a yellow leaf she found on the beach ... it's beginning to look like summer is slowly giving way to the fall ... and in time fall will roll over into winter ...

Can it be??

Could the seasons have turned so quickly, and so imperceptibly, that we barely notice until they are full on us, and we look back and wonder - "where did the time go?"???

Looking back though, it's been a good summer ... The kids have each gone to camp in Manitoba, they've played on the beach with half of their cousins ... they've seen a veritable plethora of wildlife from eagles and ravens to whales and seals ... I think it has been a good summer for them ...

Last night as I watched the last vestiges of sunlight touch the mainland coast visible out the mouth of Hardy Bay from "OUR" beach, I wondered how many more summers will our family have in such a delightful and magical space ... The gardens and yards and beach are filled with multi-generational memories of Mag's family ...

She and her sisters, and their mother and her siblings before them grew up and came of age on this plot of land clinging to the west side of Hardy Bay ... in the water and woods, they mucked and monkeyed ... they played and fought ... they build forts and dams and generally got into good natured mischief ... and now each summer for a few short weeks the grandchildren have gathered to follow in the foot steps of their mothers and grandmother ... they have again filled the yard with shreiks of joy and shouts of laughter ... they have, for a wonderful moment reclaimed from time, their beach, their woods, thier yard and like the generations that have come before them - played and fought, tumbled and ran ... made it their kingdom.

In the next few days we will begin packing up the van and getting ready to head "home," though, clearly home is where the heart is - and in our extended family, home is found in a tiny house perched on a hill overlooking a beach where the tide and waves and come and gone for tens of thousands of years ... home is where we gather over tea and laugh as we recall today's adventures and connect them to the canon of stories that have been amassed by the Clayton girls and the Melan children ...

Makes me wonder if Florence could have envisioned the wonderful legacy of love, laughter and life that she would leave behind when her feet first left England's civilized shore and ended up in the rugged North West where she met a Norwegian logger/fisherman with whom she fell in love ... I doubt it ... but from the stories that are told of her, and the memories that are cherished by her grandchildren ... well, there can be little doubt that she is looking down on her legacy, and like the rest of us, laughing and delighting in the sheer joy that abounds on the beach each summer when the COUSINS get together at Grandma and Grandpa Beach's ...

Today it doesn't matter how many more summers we'll have together ... what really matters is that we've had so many together up until now and we carry forward wonderful new memories that will echoe and resound across Hardy Bay long after we're gone ...

In a few days we'll pack up the van - but the most precious things will NOT get packed in the van, but rather will be carried in the hearts and minds of the "cousins" as they look forward to next year's adventures (and misadventures).

May it be a short year ...