A Quiet Morning After (the 4th)

5:50

Mc Clure's Are Back From Europe

Well, as I implied yesterday morning, I am back on my porch, a bit chilly but not enough to make me go inside and get a jacket.  Our neighbor's ski boat just flew by, enjoying the calm of the early morning lake.  A number of fishing boats are gathered around the reeds by Victoria hoping for that big one.  Evie's up as well, about ready to go out and try her luck on the dock.  It's almost 7:00, 67º with thunderstorms, what else, predicted for the day.  When I got up at 5:50, the sun was almost blinding but it's disappeared now behind clouds, the sky mostly gray, little hint of blue.

Biff's Bass

I was not sure of what to do yesterday, whether to stay home and fish, go to Mayville for the parade or go to yoga.  I chose yoga as we had a guest teacher, a women who teaches in NYC come to the studio and teach a class.  Most of us really liked her, very involved with her students, starting our asana by rubbing  some thing like tiger balm on our neck and sides and ending asana with a brief ten second foot massage on each foot.  It was a flow class, more rigorous then most, so we all worked up a sweat by the end.  She started our class, like all her Jivamukti Yoga classes, with an interesting chant or mantra, which I really liked.  The translation is as follows:

May all beings everywhere be happy and free and may the thoughts, words and actions of my own life contribute in some way to that happiness and to that freedom for all.

My neighbors, Kathy and her daughter Amy also went to the class and both enjoyed it as well.  It was a different way to start off the 4th besides rain, a run, a parade, or an art show, all possibilities in the area. After class, we enjoyed a cup of coffee at the Ryder's Cup coffee, as the 10 K race in Lakewood had just finished, an arts and crafts show was setting up.  

Garden Fleurs!

Woodlawn looked like a used/new car parking lot, as everyone had family up for the 4th except for us. We had the Mc Clure', back from their great trip to Barcelona, Spain, and Bavaria, in Germany. Evie spent part of the afternoon getting our dinner prepared and baking a lemon meringue pie.  We then hung out most of the afternoon on the dock, fishing and swimming, enjoying the busy lake, lots of skiers, fishing boats, pleasure boats, and our neighbors even had a canoe and kayak race after dinner, about seven of them, having a great time paddling and splashing each other.  Most of what were kids a few years ago now seem all grown up, either in high school, college, or have graduated.  Time, that devouring lion!

Kayak/Canoe Fun

Late Afternoon Clouds

It did rain briefly just before the Mc Clure's arrived at 6:00, so we sat on our front porch till about  7:30, as they regaled us with stories of their trip to Europe, no problems, just lots of good food and drink with Linda's family in Spain, and hikes and hearty German food and beer on one of the Bavarian lakes, about 45 minutes by train from Munich.  I grilled the chicken outside, and we had dinner around 8:00, sitting outside as it was a beautiful evening.  We had a leisurely dinner of barbecued chicken, noodles, asparagus, salad and cole slaw, and by the time we finished and brought the dishes inside, it was 9:30, almost time for the fireworks at 10:00.  We got out the lawn chairs, sat at the edge of the lake, lit the flares, which surround the lake, and watched the fire works at Bemus and Maple Springs, but our neighbor's, the Scholtz's, had the best show, an amazing display that went on for almost twenty minutes.  They had close to 30 people, all family up, so they were pretty excited.  The Mc Clure's left around 10:45 and we went in, did a few dishes, read and went to bed.