“Flood watch in effect until 6:00 a.m. tomorrow,” says the voice of public radio. So I watch. From my new stone patio, I watch the islands sink, an inch at a time. My eyes wander to the ducks in the eddy. Curious, I ascend to higher ground—the balcony outside my bedroom. With binoculars I study the ducks that paddle excitedly in the swirling current.

The river is a moving pattern; stripes of flowing water going upstream and down, against each other. The ducks are finding lots to interest them and there is a kind of frantic purpose in their movements. In the widest part of the river, fish jump, their silver bodies glinting in the pale light. I watch as dozens do this dance.

The natural world is alive and gathering its food while it can. The animals know, better than I, what to do in these circumstances. The knowledge is built in and those who fail to carry out their assigned tasks may not get another chance.

Without my family here to care for, I let the pantry go almost bare. Jill’s Kitchen sustains me; the ducks have no such luxury.

Fishers are scarce on the surging river—no fools here. The hardy souls who brave fierce winter on the Delaware, cutting holes in the ice, don’t play around with flood water.

On a recent Saturday, the sun appeared along with a family friend who has taken a recent fancy to kayaking. I drove my son and our friend Janina down to the Narrowsburg landing and set them out on the river to make the short crossing to our islands on the other side of the eddy. I was sure to make them fasten their life jackets and pushed them off without concern. At the same time, my daughter and her father were putting in from the island, in a canoe.

I stopped in town to visit with friends along Main Street. The artist Margo Spoerri and her son Stefan were receiving patrons in her gallery space. Stefan is a local river guide. When I told them my family was out on the river, Margo immediately issued a stern warning. “That river is dangerous right now,” she said, “I wouldn’t go out on it if I were you.”

Her son, the expert in my eyes, was less concerned but reminded me it was as foolish to paddle a kayak in the Delaware without safety training as it was to handle an automobile without driving skills. I looked out the window of Margo’s studio onto the bloated river below. My son and Janina were paddling safely across.

I could not see my husband and daughter, but supposed they were in the little stretch of water we call Iskebeg between the islands. In fact, they were, but not in their canoe. Relatively able flat-water kayakers, only my daughter has any training in a canoe. Here is where all those years of Girl Scout camp came in handy. The current had taken their canoe and turned it perpendicular to the river and in an instant, they were overturned. Callison remembered her training enough to know how to help her father right the craft and empty it. Her father, thankfully, has natural survival skills as well as intelligence. The pair emerged, wet and minus a pair of eyeglasses, but whole.

The other two had their own dramatic moment after venturing a bit too far downriver. I had forgotten to extract a promise from them not to vary from their destination and they found themselves caught in the remarkably strong pull of the river. Both fit young people, they had to use all their might to paddle close to the islands against the current in order to make it to shore safely. Each admitted to the brief sweat of fear.

Margo’s admonition is worth noting; Stefan’s is imperative. Let’s all heed it, for a safe summer.