Reflections -  I’d Longed for This

Deer Creek Upstream from Mary Ann's Bridge

What was my husband doing? I could see his feet propped on the coffee table and his hands tying the laces of old tennis shoes, but . . .  “Don’t you want to wear shorts?”

Spence straightened and rested his hands on his denim-covered thighs. “Oh. I forgot.” He stared at his tied shoes. “I’ll go this way. My jeans can get wet.”

I didn’t argue. On every hot, humid day this summer, I had longed to sink my feet into the cool water of Deer Creek. 

Spence didn’t share my passion so putting shorts on before forcing bare feet into old tennis shoes didn’t come naturally to him. He could soak his jeans if he wanted. I needed company for a creek walk, and COVID-19 kept all our creek-walking visitors away. Spence, a phenomenal, accommodating guy, agreed to humor me for my birthday outing.

For a third of a mile, our creek shoes crunched gravel on the dirt road to Mary Ann’s bridge—my name for it because our late neighbor had resided in the nineteenth century farmhouse across the bridge for much of her life. I planned an upstream walk so disturbed silt floated away rather than obscured the rocky creek bottom. 

Spence halted twenty yards from the bridge. “Which side?” 

I stepped into the drainage ditch that spring rains widened into a four foot channel. “Let's follow the ditch. It’s dry.” 

Spence led the way. 

Halfway to the creek, a blackberry bush scratched my shin, and plants came up to his thighs. 

“It’s turning into a jungle.” He pointed his hand to the adjacent woods. “We could go that way.”

The understory grew knee high there, but across the road brush topped-out at crew sock height. The blood drops oozing from my scratched shin convinced me. “Let’s try the other side.”

Spence shook his pointing hand. “This might be easier.”

“I don’t think so.” I stepped out of the ditch, crossed the road, and walked through the underbrush toward the creek. No new scratches. 

“Trouble is,” Spence said behind me, “we’ll have to get over the downed tree.”

“No. It’s downstream.” I emerged from the woods and underbrush to Deer Creek’s bank. “Oops. That tree.”

To the left, a moderately sized maple had fallen across the creek. We didn’t have to climb over it. 

An ancient cherry blocked the way to the right.

Before it fell, beavers had built a bank den under its roots. Twice, in mid March and in mid April, we’d stood on the bridge while a subadult beaver down the slope from the land entrance and swam to the underwater opening. After the tree fell, we didn’t see the beaver again, and no fresh sapling stumps—their pointed tops marred with fresh tooth marks—appeared near the creek.

The fallen cherry had three trunks. Each was thick enough to harvest for lumber, and each came thigh to crotch high. Go back and risk getting scratched on the other side of the road? No, I could sit on the trunks, twist, and hop down. Easy.

Backing up to the first trunk and standing on tiptoes, I hoisted my fanny up and onto the log. I lifted one leg then the other. While gripping the log with both hands so I wouldn’t topple over, I swiveled to the other side and lowered my legs. My creek shoes dangled two feet above water that filled a depression in the creek bed. If I jumped into that, I would get splashed—not to mention probably losing my balance and falling in. 

Stretching one leg wide, I slid my fanny along the trunk. The scaly old bark chafed my cotton shorts. I thought they’d rip, and I’d have to continue with my underwear showing. Inching sideways, I cleared the creek and slipped off the log. OUCH! My shorts stayed intact, but the bark scraped the backs of my bare thighs. Blackberry thorns pricking my shins would have been less painful. I had two more trunks to cross. If the first trunk hadn’t been chest high, I would have retreated and taken the woods route. Spence’s idea of wearing jeans made perfect sense now. I gritted my teeth and clambered over the next two cherry trunks. 

In front of me, Deer Creek spread wide. Water gurgled around rocks varying from pint size to sit-on boulder size.

Spence Wading in the Shallows

I stepped in. Creek water seeped into my shoes cooling and soothing my feet. Smiling my thanks to Spence for enabling this moment, I walked to the middle of the creek.

When water came up to my calves, I glanced upstream and gasped.

A baby beaver with a bloated tummy floated feet up. The kit’s guts bobbed in the current by its side.

Usually the putrid stench of death warns of a nearby carcass. On this sunny, 84° F (29° C) afternoon, the air smelled fresh as if it had just rained. Perhaps the creek washed the odor away, or the kit hadn’t been dead long enough to stink.

As if a beaver carcass wasn’t gross enough, the decades old vision of Mary Ann’s worried face popped into my mind. She had warned, “My daughter swam in the creek once and ended up with beaver fever.” Mary Ann had pulled at the knuckles of her long, bony fingers. “She got real sick. Fever. Cramps. Diarrhea.”

We were already downstream of the kit. Hopefully it hadn’t caught the parasite that causes the disease. “Wade to the other bank. We need to avoid the carcass.” 

Spence splashed behind me. “There are two. Looks like something attacked them.”

Six feet further upstream, a second baby beaver lay on its side with its intestines bobbing on the current. 

“If a predator attacked, why wouldn’t it eat them?” I skirted the second carcass as quickly as I could while keeping my balance on the rocky creek bed.

“Maybe it was a land predator. The beavers could have escaped into the water.”

“Or an adult beaver chased the predator . . . ” I halted and stared. “Uh-oh.” 

The rocks had disappeared. Silt covered the creek bed the whole forty foot expanse under the bridge. Wading through that would be like wading through quicksand. And the narrow beach next to the slow moving section consisted of mucky mud. 

Spence shouted, “Head for the beach.” 

Unfortunately, the beach was on the opposite side of the creek because of our detour around the beavers. “I should have risked getting my legs scratched and gone through the woods.”

“Slow easy movements.”

Of course he was right, but when my feet sank into the soggy silt, I sloshed to the beach as fast as the shoe-slurping silt allowed. 

Spence came at a more sedate pace. On his last step, he pulled his shoe out of the sucking silt—THWURRUP—releasing an earthy mud fragrance which combined with the musky-algae smell from the stagnant water under the bridge.

I walked along the narrow bank, until rocks covered the creek bed, then stepped in. 

Water trickled and splashed. Light flickered through treetops. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out a plastic sandwich bag, unzipped it, and grabbed my phone. I tapped the camera app button, focused upstream, and took several pictures.

“Did you get a picture of the beavers?”

“Yuck! No, and I don’t want one.” I tucked the phone into its bag and back into my pocket then strode upstream. 

Though COVID-19 deprived me of creek-walking visitors, it taught me about avoiding disease. We didn’t drink or swim in the water. We didn’t touch our faces. We would wash our legs and hands with soap when we got home. We’d also wait one to three weeks for symptoms to appear before getting medical help. In the meantime, Deer Creek sparkled in front of me.

Stretching my arms to the side for balance on slippery, algae covered rocks, I watched each step to avoid deep holes.

Swish. Swish. Swish.

Sunshine warmed my head. Minnows darted in the cool water around my legs. Damselflies, neon blue Ebony Jewelwings, flitted along the bank. 

I’d longed for this.

Deer Creek at the Wells Wood End of the Trek