My family and I moved to the outskirts of a small town in South-Western Michigan, fifteen minutes away from the Lake, in December of 2010. The purple house sat at the corner of an intersection, atop a hill, surrounded by about an acre of lawn. The driveway led from the road up to the large, unattached garage. But the thing that captivated my brother and I most was The Creek.

The Creek ran through a gully which divided our property from our neighbors. Steep sides led down from our yard; gradually mellowing out into a small decline at the back of our garage. It flowed merrily through a pipe under one road, down to a pipe leading under the other. Adventure awaited.

Frogs

Creeks are remarkable habitats for all manner of wildlife, especially – as my brother and I discovered – frogs. There were dozens of the amphibians: sunning themselves along The Creek’s banks, swimming about, catching the mosquitoes that buzzed above the surface of the water. They also resided in a small, rectangular, cement structure which we creatively named The Cement Thing. That spring, my brother and I discovered the many joys of Frog Hunting.

Frog Hunting is a sport which requires much skill, stealth, and grace. My brother and I were experts. We’d approach a favorite frog sunning area, stoop down, and then grab the frog between both hands, more or less effectively trapping it. We would then deposit them in an empty plastic spinach box, observe them, and release them back to The Creek. More often than not, we were unsuccessful in our attempts, so we developed a rotating system. We would start at the first sunning place, and make our attempt. If we failed, we lost the frog, and all the other frogs that had been enjoying the sunny day. We would then move on to the next spot. We had about four, so on a sunny day we had a good chance of getting a catch. If not, we would go through all the spots, and then come back to the first one. Almost always, the frogs had come back up to sun, and the cycle would begin again.
Snakes
The Creek technically belonged to our neighbors, a retired couple living in a ranch house. In summer, flowers would bloom along its banks, carefully planted by neighbor’s wife. The flowers would promptly be stepped upon in our haste to catch the frogs. We tried to watch out for them. But what are flowers when there are frogs? It was late spring when we discovered a new resident of The Creek. And so, snake hunting was born. To give credit where credit’s due, it was our neighbor who first put us on the path towards this new passion. My brother and I had just spotted our first snake. We ran over to him, and showed him the thing, shying away from it. He explained to us that it was just a harmless garter snake, and encouraged us to touch it. My brother did, it slithered away, and that was that.

A short time later, we saw a big garter snake. He was gorgeous, with a dark skin which made his stripes stand out all the more. We decided to catch him. It was a relatively simple procedure- grab him by the tail, deposit him in the spinach box, then move on to handling him, watching as he slithered his way along our arms. We named him Gordon. And we told our mother about him. That was the end of our Snake Hunting days. We released him, and he slithered into a small hole along the bank of The Creek, one of many. We would later discover that these were residences of the Crawfish.

Crawfish

When we saw our first crawfish, we were shocked to discover that it looked just like a mini lobster! We immediately set about to Crawfish Hunting. Crawfish are quite aggressive creatures, so the simplest way of catching one is to poke it with a stick. It will grab hold, and you just pull it out. Then we would place the animal into one of our ever useful spinach boxes. We would also handle them- letting them crawl atop our hands. That is, until one decided to pinch me in the palm of my hand. I jerked my hand up into the air with a scream, staring in horror at the creature hanging from the palm of my hand by a pincer. My brother quickly forced it to release its pincers, and it dropped to the grass, crawling away. Our parents decided that was the end of our Crawfish Hunting.

Fall

Fall was beautiful down by The Creek, but it signified the disappearance of our beloved frogs – until next year. This was the time when I fell in love with photography. Before, I had just snapped unprofessionally at anything, not caring how the pictures turned out, just as long as I had someone in them. I started taking pictures of nature. I started thinking about perspective and background.

Fall seemed to last forever, since the snow didn’t come until late into the winter. My brother and I desperately wanted the full experience of sledding Once December came around, we did. We positioned our sled at the top of one of The Creek sides – where it would be clear of trees, and rode bumpily down atop the leaves.

Winter

Winter did finally come, freezing over the surface of The Creek. We would break the ice, and display the fragments on the benches of The Bridge – our Ice Museum. Snow came, and we had tons of fun sledding down the creek sides, braking desperately with our hands to stop ourselves from falling into The Creek.

Move

Spring came again, and summer followed it. In mid – July of 2011 we moved. We said goodbye to The Creek – to the frogs, the water striders, the two bridges, The Cement Thing, and all our fun there. We were ready for a new adventure. We moved to a small town in Massachusetts, and fell in love with The Brook.