Row, Row, Row your boat...

I can remember picking blue berries when I was 9. My kids started picking blue berries before they could walk, as they sat in a pack on my back. I fed them berries as I picked. We hike to the tower on Pitcher mountain and pick. Everyone has their own pail, some old and made of tin others a recycled large yogurt container on a string, but they all work and when the bottom is covered they no longer say, "kirplinck, kirlank, kirplunk."

If you ask me how long I have been coming to the lake I will tell you I have been coming here since I was 6, that I spent my summers here growing up. In truth I came here when I was 6, 9,11and 16 then it was another gap till college. I did not start coming to the lake regularly until my daughter was 3. The summers in between are blurry memories. So the lake is where I grew up.
Today I made a memories, not intentionally, but I think it will stick. As a child at the lake many of my memories involve the row boat. When I as old enough to go by myself, learning to row and when my Grandpa Put came running to the end of the dock in a panic to remind me not to run into the rocks around the island, I was 18. Hadn't I been doing this for year? Either way, this year I got a myself a rowboat. The maiden voyage involved two dogs, for kids and me. My niece is visiting, she is four, and this was her first boat ride. We went to the island for a jump off the rock, another first. We even found some blueberries.
We are all leaving the lake today and the summer is starting to wind down. The lake is a long time tradition in my family, my grandpa Put had been coming here since 1916 when his father bought the original camp. I cherish my time here and wish I could bring all my friends. Thank you to those that visited, hope some more of you can make it next summer, and I hope someday my kids will have the chance to share their memories as they make more in the summers to come.