Every Mondate is different, which goes without saying, and the adventure always begins with a question, “What are we going to do today?”

The answer is frequently this, “I don’t know, you pick.”

The instantaneous reply, “I asked first. You need to figure it out.”

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Some have found us paddling in our favorite body of water, where we love to explore the edges and islands and float among the lily pads.

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It’s a place where we always look below the surface and sometimes are rewarded, this being a Bryozoan mass, a most definite gift for the tiny colonial aquatic creatures that connect their tubes together and form the jelly-like blob, effectively filter particles from the water. The animals live in the tubes and extend their tentacles that capture even smaller microscopic organisms for food. The gelatinous species, also known as moss animals, is native to North America.

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We’ve wandered beside ponds where gentle breezes provided relief from mosquitoes and views of distant mountains doubled our joy.

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Being my guy, he’s spotted lady’s slippers in bloom and more than once observed clusters bouquets worth noting.

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Likewise he’s occasionally rewarded with pendants, this being an immature Chalk-fronted Skimmer dragonfly.

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I’ve been equally rewarded with the sighting of a perching Dragonhunter, one of the largest clubtail species in our neck of the woods.

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One hot summer Monday found us taking a shower under a waterfall.

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And contemplating in front another.

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We’ve searched for our favorite shades of blue, mine being that offered by Clintonia borealis, aka Blue-bead lily, it’s fruits reminding me of porcelain.

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While mine is inedible, his favorite shade of blue invites his greed.

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And so several Mondays were spent picking blueberries from the water . . .

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and atop our hometown mountain.

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Upon several occasions we summited said mountain and always paid homage to the fire tower that still stands tall and recalls an early era when wardens spent hours in the cab scanning the horizon for smoke.

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We’ve posed at the ski area on the same mountain, where the pond below sometimes serves as our backyard.

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Some of our best Mondates of this summer have been spent with family, this being our youngest and his gal.

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And our oldest and his gal and their friends.

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One we even shared with a tyke we finally got to meet, a grandnephew from Virginia . . .

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who travelled north with my niece, his mom, and his daddy and grandmother.

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It’s been a summer of catching up on so many fronts, and now I’ve arrived at our most recent Mondate. The morning began with a delightful surprise for when we uncovered a pie we’d purchased at one of our favorite roadside stands, and discovered it was decorated with a dragonfly. I swear we purchased it for the strawberry/rhubarb flavor and not the design. Really.

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After dining on the pie for breakfast, we started our journey by searching for a trail someone had told me about. But . . . did she say park at the shed before the pond or after? We couldn’t find a shed in either location, but did find lots of NO TRESPASSING signs. Finally, we located what might be a trail and it wasn’t posted. For about a quarter mile we walked, until we found ourselves facing a field with a farmhouse at the far side. Backtrack we did, with Plan B in mind, but at least we were rewarded with the spot of Actaea pachypoda, White Baneberry, aka Doll’s-eyes. It does look like the eyes of a china doll, its creepiness accentuated by the thick red stalks and the fact that the fruits are poisonous.

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The trail we chose instead let us know from the start that we’d made the right decision when we spotted a bumblebee upon a thistle.

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It was a place beside two small specks of ponds, where the beavers have docked a boat conveniently beside their lodge.

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Though we didn’t see any beavers in action, my guy demonstrated their gnawing technique.

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It’s also a place where Autumn Meadowhawk Skimmer dragonflies danced and paused, danced and paused.

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But the best moments of the day where spent crossing under a powerline where goldenrod grows abundantly. If you look closely, you might spot the subjects of my guy’s attention.

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Monarch Butterflies. The most Monarchs we’ve seen in the last twenty years. Ten butterflies? A dozen? Perhaps two dozen? Maybe more.

Watching them flutter and sip, flutter and sip, gladdened our hearts and made a perfect ending for this particular collection of Mondates.