The Loon's Nest

I was just six years old when I realized what love feels like. For me, my first taste of love was the Loon’s Nest, our family cabin that rests on the edge of Elbow Lake deep in the Montana mountains. The Loon’s Nest is made of stained logs all stacked neatly upon one another by my father and grandfather. There is an inviting porch that wraps all of the way around, a green tin roof that is a catch all for pine needles, and an old wooden sign that reads “Welcome to the Loon’s Nest.” My grandmother, or Grams, claims she worked alongside them everyday stacking logs in the hot July sun. When Papa hears her talk about her cabin building efforts, he reverts to mumbling under his peppered beard.

“Your version of helping includes a lawn chair, some sweet tea, and your hands on your hips.”

Furrowing her brows and offering him a half smile, Grams continues telling her patchy history of the building of the Loon’s Nest. “And the finishing touch that brought it all together was when we planted the daffodils out front.”

Whether Papa’s version of Grams’ version is the true history of events will forever remain a mystery to those who aren’t the pines standing tall watching it all unfurl. However, one thing for certain is that Grams had a heart deeper than the green waters of Elbow Lake. The happiness of her family meant everything to her. That’s why her heart shattered more than mine did the summer my mother announced she was leaving my father. Grams was worried about the emotional toll it would take on me and my two older sisters, Kaia and Franny. On the weekend my mother was coming to move all of her stuff out of the house, Grams decided to whisk us away to the Loon’s Nest.

“It’s going to be a special weekend,” Grams said to Kaia on the phone, “I think we’ll call it Cabin Days and make a yearly tradition out of it.”

Grams knew how to start the week to Cabin Days off right. Standing in the yard, packed bags in hand, we watched with eager eyes as she rolled up our windy driveway in her 2000 White Birch Subaru Outback.

Rolling down the window, with the unmistakable voice of Johnny Cash whirling in the background, Grams would call to us: “Ready for Cabin Days?”

Buzzing like bees about to taste the honey, we catapulted our bags into the back, and scrambled into the car. With Kaia being the oldest, there was an unspoken rule between the three of us that the front was reserved for her. Franny and I piled in the backseat and got lost in the mix of Johnny Cash and Grams’ strawberry scented car freshener.

“Can you hear it?” Grams asks as Franny tilts her head to the right, “The Loon’s Nest is calling!”

Kaia furrows her brows and offers Grams a half smile. She says, “And the loons must fly back to it.” As if she’s heard it a time or two.

The one hour drive to the cabin is bittersweet. I could stare out the window forever at the Blackfoot River meandering its way through a maze of green pines. The snow-capped mountains of the Swan Range stand tall in a circle around us, making me feel as if they're shielding me from the world through a hug. Yet, there is also a part of me that would love to fast forward through all of the scenery and just be there already.

“That massive, jagged mountain off to the left is called Holland Peak,” Grams says, interrupting my thoughts. Suddenly feeling impatient to reach the cabin, I ask Grams how much longer until we’re there.

Grams looks at me with playful green eyes and asks, “How many times have you been to the Loon’s Nest?”

I offer Grams the half smile I often see her give to Papa when he teases her and go back to staring at Holland Peak out the window. I think to myself how I would love nothing more than to stand at the top of that peak. My mind is busy imagining myself upon the summit, hands in the air, calling to the valley below when Grams turns on her blinker. The steady ticking brought me down off the peak and I realized we were making the renowned left turn to the cabin. Exchanging an enthusiastic glance with Franny, we tear off our buckles and roll down the

Non-Fiction Gracie Schwenk

Florence

windows. Heads bobbing along, tongues poking out, we pretend to be our chunky black lab, Moose, out for a joy ride. We are two black labs wagging our tails, until Franny begins to lean a little too far out the window.

“Be careful,” Grams says beneath furrowed brows, “you don’t want to fall out and become bear bait.” Kaia laughs from the front seat as Franny’s eyes go wide and she quickly climbs back in the car. I’m beginning to think Grams and Papa are more alike than I thought. The pair have a witty knack for teasing.

As Grams parks her car, or Oatmeal as she calls it, in front of the cabin, that familiar feeling of love swells up inside of me. Slamming the car door shut, I run to the edge of Elbow Lake and take it all in.

I’m getting lost in the fresh smell of pine, eyes closed, when Kaia calls to me: “Poppy, come help us unload.” I skip over to her as she hands me a jug of hot chocolate mix. We follow Grams across the yard, up the three wooden steps to the porch, and shift our feet from side to side as Grams fetches the spare key from the bird house. She unlocks the door and my ears are filled with the comforting slap of the wooden screen door. We push Grams through the door and lay our items on the round table near the large windows that overlook the lake. I pause for a moment. Something is different. The pounce table is still there. The brown-tone floral-print couch and Papa’s napping chair are still there. The mugs with loons hanging to the left in the kitchen are still there. Then it hits me. There is a new mount on the wall above the large windows that reveal the lake. To the far left is an antelope shot by my Uncle Jack. To the far right is a mule deer shot by my father. In the middle is a seven-point bull elk peering at me with beady eyeballs. A true Royal Rare my father calls it. I stand frozen in place as the tears begin to drip down my face.

“I know sweetie,” says Grams, as she pulls me in for a hug, “I don’t like it either.”

Franny and I were sitting on the porch swing watching the beavers swim around the lake after we settled in.

“There’s Justin Beaver and Selena Gomez!” Franny says, pointing to the beavers.

“Franny, it’s not nice to call people beavers,” Kaia says through the open window, “just because Papa says it doesn’t mean you can.” Franny and I exchange glances and roll our eyes at Kaia. Papa only started calling the beaver Justin in the first place because he found Kaia’s poster of him hanging in the loft. It only started to bother her when the beaver found a match and Papa started calling that one Selena.

“Wanna go turtle hunting?” Franny asks, ignoring Kaia. My eyes go bright as I bounce to my feet. We crawl over the railing and jump down from the deck. Papa and Grams always store the aqua blue paddle boat from the 1960s beneath the cabin in the winter to protect it from the snow. There it becomes a home to spiders and is always in need of a rinse at the beginning of the summer season. Franny and I heave the paddle boat out from under the cabin. I make a grunting sound like a grizzly bear so she knows I’m putting in all my effort. Kaia turns on the hose, and Grams emerges from the cabin with a comforting slap, carrying an old cooking pot filled with soapy water and strips of a faded beach towel. Kaia is about to start spraying the winter months away when Grams holds up her hand and asks her to wait. Grams dumps the soapy water into the grass and goes over to the paddle boat, kneeling beside it. She scoops up three daddy-longlegs in her fingers and places them in the pot. I can see Kaia to the left of me furrow her brows and scoot away from Grams and the spider pot. Kaia doesn’t do well with creepy crawly things. She drops the hose on the ground and Franny picks it up. Grams examines the boat one last time before she takes the pot over to the bushes and lets daddy-longlegs go.

“These spiders are misunderstood,” Grams says, as she remerges from the cabin with soapy water in the pot again. “They can’t even bite.”

Franny takes the hose and begins to power blast the ghost town of spider webs out. It made me somewhat sad to see all the hard work of the spiders swept away in a matter of seconds. We each take a strip of old beach towel and scrub at the paddle boat until it shines like it’s the year 1968. Then we each grab a corner and take the paddle boat down to the lake. I make my grizzly grunting noise again so they all know I’m putting in my best effort. Pushing the paddle boat back into the waters of Elbow Lake is like hearing the morning melody of a Meadowlark after a harsh winter. All feels right in the world again.

Kaia and Franny climb in the front seats so they can paddle. I crawl in the back and grab the steering handle until Kaia shoos my hand off of it. I roll my eyes at

her and turn around, ready to watch the dragonflies and put my hands in the water to make ripples as they do all the work.

“Make sure your lifejackets stay on!” Grams calls from the dock. We were maybe ten feet out when Kaia let out a shriek.

“Grams,” she calls back to shore, “there’s a leak in the paddle boat!” The girls reverse the boat back to shore and Grams takes a look. Grams examines the leak with furrowed brows. There are tiny drops of water that come in every time the girls peddle the boat on Franny’s side. Grams goes back up to the cabin and comes down with the spider pot.

Handing it to me, she says, “The water isn’t coming in fast enough to make the boat sink. Use this to empty it if it fills up too much.” I grab the spider pot with excitement surging through me. I finally had a job! I was in charge of making sure the boat didn’t sink, which in my opinion, is way more important than steering. We climb back in the boat and Grams pushes us back out. We paddle over to the marsh of mud and lily pads to look for turtles. We always wanted to bring them back and keep them as pets, but Grams always told us we needed to be nice to nature. So we just paddle over to them and try to count all the ones we could find. We count thirteen turtles. Ten big ones and three babies. There might have been more, but Franny probably scared them all off when she jumps into the marsh and starts throwing mud around. We jump in after her and start a mud war.

We return to the cabin smelling like rotten eggs and carrying flowers from the lily pads for Grams. Kaia makes us rinse all the mud off in the lake before we go back. We find Grams asleep in the yard on a hammock tied between two pines. She has a book open on her chest and is softly snoring. Kaia goes into the cabin, careful not to let the door slam, and emerges with a cheetah blanket. She covers Grams up in it as I lay the lily pad flowers on top of her book. She awakes mid-snore, offers us a smile, and falls back asleep. We leave her there and scamper off to Snake Lake to go snake hunting.

We find three garter snakes over at Snake Lake. The first snake slithers across our path as we walk along the shoreline. Franny snags it right before it slips into the water. Holding it gently in her hands, just like Grams taught us, we say hello as it pokes a pink tongue out at us.

“This snake must be spending too much time with Kaia,” Franny whispers under her breath. Kaia, not a fan of creepy crawly or creepy slithery things, stands ten feet away writing in her diary while Franny and I do the snake hunting.

“Put down the diary and come snake hunting with us,” Franny calls to her. Setting down her pen, Kaia looks up at Franny.

“It’s a journal,” she replies. “I’m writing a poem about a pinecone.” Franny and I exchange glances. We were both thinking the same thing. It was her diary and she was writing about her latest crush. We would find out later when we broke into it to see what she was writing about.

We return to the cabin after we capture two more snakes. One snake lies on a rock in the middle of Snake Lake, taking in the warm rays of the sun. Its at ease presence reminds me of Grams on her hammock. The third snake is a blur of brown and yellow stripes before it darts into a hole. Franny’s reflexes fail us on that one.

As we return, we find Grams sitting on the porch swing, watching the June sunset over Elbow Lake. She waves us over and pats the porch swing beside her. We squish in and Grams wraps us up in the cheetah blanket. I love this blanket. It’s warm, cozy, and smells like the cabin.

“Where did you get this blanket?” I ask Grams. She takes a sip of her evening coffee and tells me she found it at a thrift store the year they built the Loon’s Nest. We sit with Grams, watching the sun slowly disappear behind the Swan Mountains. I sit captivated by the evening ornamentation of light dancing off the water. The sunset is a mixed celebration of faint yellow, baby blue, and champagne pink. We watch the sun go down as Grams tells us all about the history of the loggers who used to camp across the lake and float logs down the river. Grams is interrupted by the faint cry of a loon in the distance. The eerie yet peaceful “oo-loo-lee” ripples across the lake and up to our ears.

“I can hear the call of the loon now,” Franny whispers, turning to Grams who pulls us all in closer.

Once the sun has set, the crickets come out and start to sing their enchanting summer tune as if they are sirens trying to lure the stars down to earth. We could have stayed out longer to watch the stars shipwreck, but Franny pulled a slithering bundle out from her pocket. Kaia shrieks, scaring away all the crickets and making a mad dash for the cabin. The shriek star-

tles Franny, who drops her captive garter snake onto the porch. It slithers way for the cabin and finds safety beneath the crack between the floor and the porch. Legend has it the captive garter snake remains there to this day.

“I guess … maybe it didn’t … spend … anytime … with … Kaia … after all,” Franny lets out between laughs. Grams green eyes dance beneath her furrowed brows. I can see that there is a part of her that finds it funny. However, we all spent the next thirty minutes listening to Grams talk about respecting nature again. It’s another twenty before Kaia came down off the table. Grams follows us into the loft and tucks us in for the night.

“Scary story?” I ask Grams as she tucks the cheetah blanket around my face.

“I think we’ve just lived through a scary story,” she says, “I will think of one tonight and tell you tomorrow.”

The next morning, I wake up just before the sun begins to rise. I crawl down from the loft to find Grams out on the porch swing again with a loon coffee mug in her hand. I quietly open the screen door and go to sit next to her on the porch swing.

“What are you doing up already?” Grams asks, even though she knows I was always up early. I shrug my shoulders and ask her to continue telling the history of the loggers as we watch the sunrise.

The girls are up two hours later, and Grams tells us to get ready for the two mile walk to the Medicine Tree. Grams makes sure Franny wasn’t wearing any clothing items with large pockets to hide creepy crawly or creepy slithery things in. As we make our way to the Medicine Tree, Grams tells us about how the Kootenai Tribe of the Swan Valley used to cut pieces of bark from the tree for medicinal purposes long before our cabin was built. We had been to the Medicine Tree before. It’s easy to spot her amongst the rest of the pines, as she stands about 150 feet tall, almost 70 feet taller than the other pines in the forest. Grams carries the cheetah blanket for the full two miles to spread it out on the ground beneath the Medicine Tree. We each take a seat and make ourselves comfortable. Grams and Kaia sit criss-cross applesauce, as Grams describes the tree to Kaia who furiously scribbles all Grams had to say into her diary. I lie down on my back, staring up at the grand pine tree. She has a trunk, colossal yet amicable, that wraps around wider than a bear hug. Her bark consists of a maze of intricate details that would lead one to the secret of wisdom if they ever made their way through. There are bare sections on her trunk where her bark was stripped away years ago by gentle hands. She is a standing vision of sublimity. My eyes watch as green branches full of pine needles sway in the rustling of the wind. The wind knocks a few loose pines free and they land at the center of our blanket. Franny grabs the pilot pine and begins twiddling it in her fingers.

“When pines break free,” Grams says, “they don’t just drop to the ground. They fly.” Franny stripped each section of the pine off. One. Two. Three. She hands one to Kaia and one to me.

“They know this is their chance for an adventure,” Grams continues, “so they take the leap and jump into the wind.”

By the time we return from the Medicine Tree, the sun is perched in the heat of midday. We are all in dire need of a dip in Elbow Lake. We change into our swimming suits and make a dash for the dock. The first one in the lake always gets the most marshmallows later that evening for our mocha party. Franny is the first one in with a cannon ball. Kaia follows her with a swan dive. I am the third one in with what mimics a swan dive. We swim out to the floating dock so we can have a splashing contest without getting Grams soaked. She is reading Jane Eyre on the dock with her toes in the water.

“I give that splash a 6.4,” Franny says as I come up for air.

“I give it a seven,” says Kaia as she makes a leap off the dock. Just then, Mr. Calhoun, our cabin neighbor in his late seventies, can be heard puttering about in his fishing boat. He waves as he passes by us, sending waves along with it that rock the floating dock back and forth. We hang on like we are riding a bucking bronco.

“Again! Again!” We call to him as he flips his boat around and passes us again, sending more waves our way. At that moment, Mr. Calhoun’s old fishing rig turns into a speed boat and you can see a gummy smile spanning across his face as he passes us one last time before disappearing around the bend. He used to have dentures, but he lost them one day when he was out fishing with Papa.

“There’s a fish down there wearing a set of pearly whites,” Papa says when he takes us fishing, “grinning like the Cheshire Cat.”

Franny is about to resume our splash competition when Kaia starts shrieking at the top of her lungs.

“B..E..A..R!” she screams, while pointing across the lake to a black bear nosing around the old logging cabins.

“Stay calm,” Grams calls across the water, an anxious look written upon her face, “he is more afraid of you than you are of him.” Grams advice does little to nothing. We each run in circles around the dock, screaming at the top of lungs, flailing our arms every which way. The bear, not particularly fond of the circus, studies us before darting back into the forest. With all the commotion, Grams jumps into the water and swims out to the floating dock to calm us down. She climbs up the ladder and motions with her hands for us to settle down.

“Congratulations girls,” she says with a smile, once we finally stop moving, “you just saw your first black bear.” I can feel my heart still thudding rapidly in my chest. Kaia has tears streaming down her face. Franny is shaking.

“I’ll have to give you a lesson on what to do when you see a bear,” Grams continues.

Grams knew we needed a distraction from the Great Bear Scare. She decides we are all old enough to play Pounce, the card game invented by our Great Grandma and passed down with each generation. Pounce is essentially one giant game of solitaire. The key to winning the game is being the first to run out of your pounce pile. Cards can only be taken out of the pounce pile if they are up next on one of the piles in the middle. The rule is 13 cards in the pounce pile for experts. As beginners, we put ten. I put nine in my pounce pile. It took me a few tries, but I easily became the self-acclaimed Queen of Pounce.

“You’re such a cheater,” says Franny, after I win for the fifth time in a row. I merely shrug my shoulders and turn my nose up at her. It’s not my fault I was gifted the pounce playing genes and she wasn’t.

“Just wait until you three begin playing pounce with your aunts,” Grams says. “Everyone gets called a cheater at some point.” Last year, Kaia told me about how our Aunt Sara left the table in tears after being called a cheater. Pounce is not taken lightly in our family.

We get lost in the shuffling of pounce cards for hours. Just as evening sets in, Grams tells us it's time for our mocha party. She goes into her room and brings out three moo moos. A moo moo is what she calls her night gowns that are covered in vibrant tropical flowers. Kaia puts on a blue moo moo with purple flowers. Grams hands Franny a red moo moo with orange flowers. I am left with a green moo moo with yellow flowers. We put on our moo moos as Grams pours us giant cups of hot chocolate in the loon mugs.

“One more marshmallow,” Franny reminds Grams, “since I was the first one in the lake.” Grams nods at Franny and drops two more marshmallows in her cup. As we sip our hot chocolate, Grams goes over to the record player and puts on Johnny Cash. Franny finds a coon hat hanging on the wall and puts it on her head. Grams pulls down two more coon hats from the wall and hands them to Kaia and I. We each put one on and began to dance to “A Ring of Fire.” We dance around, and around, and around. We dance through three cups of hot chocolate.

Once we dance most of our energy out, we grab the cheetah blanket and turn off all the lights. Grams lights a candle and sits in Papa’s napping chair for scary story time. She begins to tell us a story about a rabid grizzly bear who once terrorized the Swan Valley.

“ … and he broke through the cabin window with a crash … spreading glass everywhere…” Grams says, looking up to find my eyes wide as the full moon on a clear night.

“Would you like me to stop?” she asks, with a concerned look. Latching onto Kaia’s arm and burrowing under the cheetah blanket of protection, I shake my head no. Grams finishes her story and tells us it’s time for bed. Franny asks her if it’s a true story as we crawl up the ladder to the loft. Later that night, I sneak down from the loft and crawl into bed with Grams. I know she will protect me from any rabid grizzly bears that come knocking on the cabin’s squeaky screen door.

As we packed up Oatmeal to go home the next day, I took one long look at the Loon’s Nest before climbing in. I loved it. The comforting slap of the screen door. The wrap around porch. Elbow Lake. The turtles. The captive snakes. Even the black bears. I loved all of it. I loved the Loon’s Nest, or did I love the Grandma who put up with us loons in her nest?