Aki and I needed a trip to the woods. After the morning fog burned off, we headed to one of our favorite trails—one through old growth forest to the beach. Ten minutes in, Aki leaped up to some high ground above a dying pond and stiffened tail, body, and ears. I wondered if she spotted to young male deer I saw here on our last visit but found that she was staring at a tree creeping bird. I’d just seen a red-breasted sapsucker hammering a spruce tree. But the bird that worked its way up the trunk of a dying red alder didn’t have the fire engine red head and chest of an adult red-breasted sapsucker. It must have been a juvenile bird. Like a shy human teenager, it took advantage of it’s dull, earth tone feathers to blend into the background.

The forest was in high summer. The time of blue berries had passed but there were still many purple and red huckleberries to pick. As a sign that we are charging towards fall, I found chicken of the woods fungus growing on a downed tree. The time of king salmon must have also passed. Few boats fished for them off of false outer point or the mouth of Fish Creek. Why is nature in such a rush to end summer?

Low angle sunlight on Mt. Ben-Stewart, I think on the drive up Fish Creek Road. That’s what I’ll photograph this morning. Aki starts squealing when we pull up in the parking lot. This is a chance for her to catch up on recent dog use of the trail. She doesn’t care about early morning light unless forced to walk with it in her eyes. She ignores the dew glowing on the sunlit grasses and lupines and steaming into ghosts off the muskeg. I doubt if she can even see Mt. Ben-Stewart.

The mountain does look lovely in light that banishes shadows from its granite face. But how many times have I taken its portrait in summer, winter and fall? A Western White butterfly photo bombs my shot of the mountain and settles on a yellow flower that I can’t identify. The butterfly folds back its wings and holds on to the flower’s stamens as it shakes in a light breeze. I’ve never seen that before. Click.

On a beach just off the North Douglas Island road system, a child wearing an old fashion, brown-colored cotton dress bursts out of the woods, apparently alone. Aki doesn’t react but I can see her squat down to examine a tide pool. I don’t reject out of hand, the idea that she appeared through magic. The weather gives no reason to expect logic. The little dog and I have to squint against the sun while raindrops wet the stones around us. Along the forest trail to the beach blue berries are almost ripe and the low growing cloudberries glow orange—both a month early. Even our relationship with the Chicken Ridge birds seems out of whack. This morning, an Anna Hummingbird gave me attitude while preening herself on our lilac-colored fence.

I lead the little dog into the woods before the beach child can turn back into a deer or a seal.