When I was young my family owned a cottage. To a child it was a place of wonder, a place of marvels. While I spent ten months of the year in the confines of the big city, summers at the cottage offered freedom to explore and to discover, to be a wanderer and adventurer, to roam at will through fields and forests.
One of my favorite things was to strike out on my own into the woods. Our cottage faced a lake on one side but was surrounded by deep forest on the others. On many a warm summer afternoon I would lace up my shoes, grab a walking stick, and wander away. For the first few minutes I might follow the paths my father had cut through the woods, but soon enough I’d leave it all behind and blaze a trail of my own. I might discover a pond and watch silently as beavers built their dams. I might come across a swamp and watch herons standing stock still as they waited to nab a careless frog. I might find a clearing where thousands of wildflowers waved in the breeze.
One summer afternoon I came upon
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