Turtle pond at dusk, after Kristen and I have put David to bed. I held him in my arms and rocked him after she'd nursed him, and then I laid him with Douglas Bear into the crib. It's been raining for two days straight, a boiling gray sky one minute, torrents the next. But the air has gone still and the clouds risen away from the earth leaving humid mist draped like cotton bunting on the low hills around the still, black water. The rain begins again as I push the canoe away from the landing and paddle toward the shadow-obscured tree-lined far shore. The air is so warm and wet the rain doesn't seem to make a difference. The damp has settled like a jungle humidity, and pond feels exotic. I catch a big perch and a bass and after a while hang up a fly in some duckweed near the shore. I reach down to untangle the fly and feel a momentary fear; the pond is full of snapping turtles and snakes, and the night is dark now. I think, you have to be a certain kind of creature to think this is as fun as I do, swatting mosquitoes, smelling of fish, sweat and Deep Woods Off, reaching into who knows what... I was going to write this post about the huge bass I caught on a big topwater bass bug, the one that I saw out of the corner of my eye, slurping a insect off the water like a bluegill would. But I like the image of the mist, the dark, the water and the sound of rising fish. I'll leave it here.