Today is my birthday, and as I usually do I celebrated it by going out into the woods...and such presents! I am lucky. Finally I heard loons...saw beavers, up close (it slapped its tail! twice!) and from afar (they are much larger than I expected, one was the size of a small seal, it seemed). Also a kind of hawk with spotted wings. The photo above was sunrise from one end of the lake...and below, mid-afternoon, is the view from the other end (from the tent door). And yes, the storm did come.
When in camp (and not swiming) I spent most of my time in a hammock, not doing much of anything except watch the light change and the moon rise.
August 26, 1920 was the ratifaction of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which granted women in the United States the right to vote. I often think about the time it takes for change, and how many people's efforts are required, most of whom go unnamed and unnoticed in history. So today I think of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott at the Seneca Falls convention in 1847...and Susan B. Anthony arrested in 1872, 25 years later, for trying to vote...the ERA, which was proposed in 1923, 84 years ago and still not yet ratified. Martha Coffin Pelham Wright (Lucretia's younger sister). Ernestine Rose. Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis. The names scroll on and on, and for every one that history remembers, countless others toiled as well.
