My husband and I recently arrived in Connecticut for the summer. We avoided the spring rains, which ruined Memorial Day weekend here and probably a lot of other weekends as well. And that in a nutshell is why we don’t come up until June. From my home office window I have a great view of the back yard and, at the very bottom, the Saugatuck River. It meanders through our property and heads toward Westport where it becomes much, much larger. One hundred and eighty feet wide, to be exact, at the place where Route 1 goes over the river near downtown Westport.

The river is almost 24 miles long, begins in Danbury, and eventually empties into Long Island Sound. In the 17^th century the river was the site of a Paugusset settlement, the Golden Hill Paugusset Nation being a state-recognized Native American tribe in Connecticut. In the Paugusset language, Saugatuck means “river that flows out.” I love that we have a little piece of this river in our back yard and that it goes all the way to Long Island Sound. I love the hum of it when I walk down there. The water gurgling and spilling over rocks. And I love the wispy-winged dragonflies that dash across the surface. There are fish in the river and sometimes we’re visited by a lovely, long-legged heron who comes looking for a meal.