Venus...morning star

I was up by 5:30, went outside to a brilliant sky of stars, especially in the southeast, a brilliant planet Venus, off over Tom's Point.  I could see the Big Dipper, up over our house, and what looked like the Milky Way.  It's amazing the stars are so bright, at this time in the morning.  It's now 7:45 and once again, I have to move to another chair, as the sun reflecting on the lake is so bright I cannot read nor work on my computer if I face the lake.  It looks like another beautiful day, like yesterday, with highs in the 60's, the Indian summer I have been waiting for.  This morning's Post Journal had an interesting article about winter spear fishing on the lake in the late 1880's.  According to the archives, the lake froze in 1888 in October, and there were over a thousand fishing shacks on the lake, with the largest fish speared weighing over 46 pounds.  They clear a 2 foot hole, put the shack over it, climb into it, keep it as dark as possible so they will be able to see the fish, float a decoy to lure the fish upward, then spear him.  Sounds easy in the paper but I am sure it's difficult.  That year they caught so many fish that the summer yielded very little success for the fisherman, which forced them to set up dates for Spear fishing, even going so far as to outlaw it for a couple of years. It sounds like it was more successful than using a fishing rod but I find that hard to believe.  The next year the lake froze for only 3 days during the fishing season.

When I woke, it was frosty outside, hovering around 32 degrees.  Now, it's 38, as the day is warming up because of the sun.  We are thinking about going out for dinner at Taco Hut, in downtown Jamestown, then seeing the movie Inception at the Reg Lenna Theater, but I cannot find out if it's showing for sure,  The paper says yes, the website says no, only tomorrow, Saturday night.  Why can't anything, even going to a movie be easy.

After we rearranged the living room for about the tenth time, we went for a hike in the Dobbins Woods Nature Preserve, a 60 acre plot about ten minutes from here.  We like it because of the combination of pines, especially small hemlock forests and other trees.  The pathways were strewn with brown leaves, covering up the dampness and the paths as most if not all the trees had lost their leaves.  Because the trees are so close together, they have narrow but very tall trunks, with the tops only spouting leaves.  Anything below the 20 feet line either has died off, from like of sunlight, or never grew in the first place. Some of the older pines have dead branches that rise up perhaps 50 feet, the top then green with pine needles and cones.  Obviously, at one time, there was more sunlight for the lower branches but as the nearby trees matured, they blocked out the light.  The walk is fairly short but pleasant, about 35 minutes, following a man made path.  In one area, what we call the cathedral of hemlocks, a huge tree had fallen over the path, and we noticed a dead deer right near it.  I cannot believe the tree fell on it, but it was right next to the tree.

Later, we went for a kayak ride over to Long Point, paddled to the marina, then back, a pleasant ride over but on the way back, the setting sun was so blinding that you really could not see a thing, only a  vague outline of the nearing shore.  A few more boats were on the lake fishing because of the spectacular weather, sunny and in the low 60's.  It's supposed to hold through Sunday I think.

Ron and Linda are coming over at 5:30 for a beer, before we head off to Taco Hut and the movie Inception.  I hope we are not too lost in the plot, despite the cheat sheets.