The Marsh

South River Marsh. View from the house.

  My middle son Joe lives in the town of Marshfield, Massachusetts. It’s a relatively big town at 31.7 square miles compared to Palmville Township, where I live, which is 36 square miles. Marshfield has a lot more people: 25,905 vs 37 for Palmville. Marshfield has lots of hills and curving roads, while Palmville is flat and straight. Top speed on Marshfield roads is 45 mph. In Palmville the sheriff permits 67 miles per hour, and much faster if he’s not around.

  Palmville has big skies, beautiful cloudscapes and bright galaxies at night. Marshfield has the ocean and extensive marshes.  Joe lives on one of these marshes. Marshes always have a river meandering through them. The view of the marsh from Joe’s kitchen window is beautiful. It’s five hundred feet from his house to the banks of the South River and another quarter mile to the woods on the far side of the marsh.

  I’ve been visiting  Joe’s home since he bought the place in 2015. I’ve always wanted to walk across the marsh to the river, but there’s an impenetrable band of ten foot tall reeds barring the way. Right after buying the place, Joe pushed through the reeds to the river, but the reeds quickly grew back. It’s a jungle.

  During a recent visit I noticed that small trees are starting to grow above the reeds. Left unchecked, these trees will block the view of the marsh in a few years. With Joe’s permission and his clippers and saw, I set off to take down these saplings. Trampling down the reeds was not difficult. The real problem was the thorn covered vines twined among the reeds. The vines were carried aloft by the growing reeds and as I trampled the reeds masses of vines came down on my head, hooking into my clothes and skin.

  There was nothing for it, but to snip the vines. I went back to the house for gloves. Then went back again for thorn proof gloves. I’d snip a vine and pull on it which brought down more vines which I’d follow to their roots and cut them there, then throw them aside in a pile.

  It was disorienting in the middle of the towering reeds. I pushed on to where I thought the view-blocking trees were until I found a clump. It was satisfying to finally do something constructive. But when I returned to the house after two hot, scratchy hours, I found that I had wandered off to the south and had cut trees that were not threatening Joe’s view.

  The next day Joe came with me with his power hedge clippers to take out the reeds and thorns, which was a big help. We navigated to a clump of willows and I took them down. I had to start cutting as high as I could reach and cut the trees in sections otherwise the reeds would hold the trees in place. Joe’s two kids were loving running around the winding paths we were making. Joe promised to build them a fort out there. The paths were blocked in places by big trees that had blown over in storms years ago. Parts of those trees had to be cut out to make the path more kid friendly.

  The next day Joe and the kids were out and, as I washed the dishes, I looked out at the South River, a mere slit in the marsh from my viewpoint. I decided I was going to break through the reeds to the river for the first time in my five years of just looking. I brought along a pair of long handled clippers and continued the path I had already made, clipping vines as I went. As I got closer to the marsh the vines disappeared. They probably couldn’t take root in the wetter ground here.

  The reeds also began to thin out. I was following an old deer trail. At last I broke through to the open marsh. It was a beautiful, peaceful area. There were occasional narrow channels that carried rain water out to the river. The water in these channels would rise and fall with the tides. Now the tide was out and I could see little crabs scurrying along the mud in the bottom of the channel. The channels were only two or three feet across and I was able to jump over them to get to the edge of the river which was much wider than I had expected.

  As I was enjoying the scene I remembered I had to pick up my grandson at school in half an hour. I walked back across the marsh to the reeds, but could not find the entrance to my path. Everything looked the same and I didn’t have time to make a new trail. Fortunately I had propped my clippers near the entrance to the trail. Even so I got off track and had to cut my way through a new jungle of thorny vines. I changed quickly, washed my face, and picked up my grandson on time.

  When I told little Nash about the river he insisted on going out there. I told him he had to wait till his sister got home, and that afternoon we all visited their brand new park.

Kids love water.