The wintergreen on the shoreline

I made my first visit to a client’s cottage last week. There were still drifts of snow piled up by the plow. But I’m ready for spring to be here.

Rufus, my dog, was ready, too. The ice was out so he had a muddy splash in the lake.

We were looking at my client’s shoreline. As I always do, I glanced down at what was there already. Not much, of course, it was still April.

But beneath the cedars and spruces, I saw what I thought was the tiny leaves of wintergreen.
I picked one of the leaves and handed it to one of my clients. She crushed it, smelled it and passed it to her partner. Yes indeed. Wintergreen.

Most of my client’s shoreline was natural – thick, layered vegetation.

The cottage was surrounded by water on three sides with liminal, partly wet, partly dry areas where the water ebbed and flowed. By these grew meadowsweet, blue flag iris, and lowbush blueberry. Further inland was mainly coniferous forest – cedar, hemlock, and spruce.

The only part without much vegetation was near their firepit. They simply wanted that final patch to be naturalized, too.

Healthy shorelines

A vegetated buffer keeps the lake healthy because it slows run-off and helps prevent erosion.

A natural shoreline also helps cottage prices. A study in 2014 found buyers pay about 2% more for each foot of Secchi disc measurements – the standard test to measure water clarity. A healthy shoreline is part of what keeps the lake clear.

This number keeps popping up in my head. I’ve even mentioned it to clients. I’ve written about it on my website. Once you know this number, you can’t unknow it.

And that’s a problem because it does something to your relationship with your land and the lake.
The shoreline becomes a line on a spreadsheet. The plants and the water are variables in a mortgage calculation.

You’re standing apart from the land, not being part of it.

But somewhere in the back of my mind, hopeful green leaves and the unmistakable scent of wintergreen linger.

Seeing

We’re often encouraged to help the environment because it’s good for us. Being in nature makes us healthier and happier. A natural garden means we spend less on gas and fewer precious weekend hours mowing the lawn. A clean, healthy lake helps make our cottages worth more.

All these are true. But I can’t help but notice what it does to me when I think this way. I’m removed from the land I live in. Somehow less human, like I’m separate from the grass and the rocks, not part of them.
I’m seeing the world through my thoughts, which means I fail to notice the layers of sedges, the fallen pine cones and, yes, the tiny leaves of wintergreen.

It wasn’t like that last week. That afternoon I stood on the shoreline and felt the first rays of spring warmth after a long, snowy winter. The moss was squishy where it had soaked up the spring runoff. The hollow ground of roots and needles had the comforting scent of my childhood weekends amid the pine forests of eastern England. And Rufus, muddy and noisy, was splashing in the water and pulling at fallen sticks.

These are the times when I feel human, part of the world. I think the cottage owners felt it, too.

I’ll be adding more wintergreen to that shoreline this summer.