Canyon Ferry, Pitchfork, and Roots

Yesterday, I attended a dinner with my sister and our cousins at a cabin my aunt and uncle constructed on Canyon Ferry Reservoir.  The cabin was one of the first constructed along the east lakeshore following construction of Canyon Ferry Dam across the Missouri River in the 1950s.

My cousin, Buzz, deep-fried steaks and whole chickens on the end of a pitchfork, preparing a meal for about forty-five people.   A horde of kids swam in a quiet bay off the main body of water while most of the adults sat in spots of shade around the cabin.  Yellow jacket wasps orbited all open cans of soda and flurried around the steaks and chicken.

As is always my habit, I wandered the lakeshore and looked for anything interesting.  I found some old weedy roots that had been exposed by the crashing waves.  I liked the roots and sat there looking at them, trying to imagine why they had grown just so.  I could hear the children splashing in the water and the adults chatting at the cabin and I wondered how our roots had grown just so.

The photographs are courtesy of my twice-as-smarter-than-me phone.

--Mitchell Hegman