ShareThisFrom where I stood in a shaded shoreline pool of the East Branch of the Pemigewasset River in North Woodstock, N.H., I could see at least 50 small waterfalls. Cool, refreshing White Mountain water coursed through the river's quartz-ribbed granite. This was natural air conditioning on a hot August afternoon.
Beside me, my wife Karen sat on a ledge of stone smoothed over eons into bowls and flumes. Ahead, my son Noah and his friend Alex rode bellies and bums through a descending stretch of crevices, falls and pools. When done, they shimmied and rock-climbed back upstream to start again. It was easy to slip and tumble.
Thick, drooping hemlock branches draped the river like bangs. A sun-seeking mountain maple grew out from the bank perpendicularly. Several of the tree's paired-samara clusters hung like the bottom of Chinese lanterns. Tucked between tree and stone was a stout, thick-legged, brown-and-tan nursery web spider spread out on a mountain maple leaf.
I've read that nursery-web spiders mate while dangling from a line of silk, and that the female wears a "veil" of the male's silk. Mothers of this species also protect their emerged young, an uncommon trait among spiders.
I wiggled my toes in the sandy bottom of the quiet pool. Every so often, a small trout flexed past my feet. Huge daddy long legs -- one with a near-pea-sized body that resembled a gnarled potato -- reached from a boulder and touched my shirt. Large green dragonflies flitted above the surface of the pool, while a chipmunk in a low-bush blueberry plucked a dried fruit. The mammal dropped to the ground to chow down. Somewhere from the evergreens, a red squirrel released a long, rattling buzz.
As the notes slowed and faded, I climbed onto the rock next to Karen. A light spray tickled our faces as we closed our eyes to the shouts of young people and rippling water.
A slant on these sounds returned to me from the 1970s Bronx, when kids on my block would break off the fire hydrant lock, remove the spray cap and turn the hydrant up full force on hot days. A boy or teen with strong enough hands would employ an open-at-the-bottom-and-top metal can to direct torrents of water.
For bespectacled, slight youngsters like me, the others would cheer if a blast tore off my glasses or, better yet, slapped me down to the slick asphalt or concrete.
So when a hydrant spewed, I slid to a safer, quieter place. I sat on a stone curb around the corner, dipping my feet into the discharged water before it vanished into the sewer, where I fantasized about visiting a real waterfall.
When it comes to rushing water, you want to control where you put your feet and when you take your seat. On this 85-degree summer's day, we found comfort coursing through slippery potholes and cascades of granite in New Hampshire. Water seemed to plunge over polished, sculpted, shiny rock everywhere.
The natural world was so accessible here. You felt it on your face and on the soles of your feet. It was not blasted at you, or experienced distantly from beyond a fence like some great monument of nature out West.
How nice to go prone on a stone of my own, and to know that I was no longer dreaming.
Scott Turner is a nature writer. Reach him at scottturnerster(at)gmail.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com
Must credit The Providence JournalComment
