Leaving New Hampshire

Although none of the three of us enjoys the high heat and humidity of summer, we revel in our dawn walks when the leftover damp cool of the night marries the coming swelter, and the tension creates sultry fragrances.

Light and shadow are contrasted artfully in this first hour of the day. Faint haze diffused the rising yellow glare reflected across the pond.

Black flies and mosquitoes skimmed the air above the still water; fish bobbed up for a leisurely breakfast. Mother merganser and thirteen (thirteen!) offspring moved about like an ameba, shifting, tightening, loosening, but moving in the same direction. I envy them. Their closeness and ease; the awareness of their surroundings; and how the mother is ever watchful, but never panicked. Over the past weeks, we've observed the chicks growing. Some are bolder with maturity.

Their flotilla headed toward four Canada geese who arrived the other day and are in no hurry to leave. A beaver swam in the space between the two groups.

We stopped …