Musquash Estuary Tide Rising - bone china mug

30 June 2013 finds me sitting at the edge of the marsh to paint a channel of the Musquash Estuary, on the Five Fathom Hole trail, 6.8 km east of Musquash, New Brunswick. The tide has turned, according to the pen that Fred has stuck in the marsh mud. We have trampled a swath of marsh grass in our gradual retreat from the tea brown water as it wets our toes. Every few minutes of determined painting finds me retreating again, moving the caddy which is my seat, picking up my palette and the wooden tray that holds my cup of brushes and my bottle of water. The Warblers have moved back into the forest, and now a Robin begins its vesper song. A breeze springs up from the coast, and the regular dripping of an overhanging Red Spruce into the rising black water to my right increases to a shower. Its needles are collecting the fog and dropping it as if it were rain. A fog horn hoots lazily in the distance. The breeze is chilling, and we decide to pack up my painting, which has become rather wet from the fog.