14 Barton Road
A stitched map of my childhood yard.
My magical childhood yard. Shaped "like a piece of pie," my father would say. One of its long sides was bordered by a canal, which connected two lakes. The stuff of dreams.
What to find in the stitching.
Look along the canal — and find the pair of mallard ducks and their nest. They came every spring to raise their babies.
Zoom in to see it. A source of fascination mixed with fear for me.
Find the bird my sister raised — it lived in the arbor vitae trees for a year until a hurricane blew it away.
Try to imagine their scale — one of them was host to an epic tire swing.
Take note of the post by the fence at the back edge of the property. We used it to swing out over the water and into a shady forested area of the neighbor's yard — home to jack-in-the-pulpits, wild orchids, and skunk cabbage.
An open field, inhabited by rabbits and crickets and field mice. We would sit on several large rocks, set in the midst of endless raspberry bushes, and feast.