A Partly Cloudy, Pleasantly Cool Morning

6:29

6:35

8:12

A lazy morning so far, as it's 8:00 and I have yet to get up off the couch except for a second cup of coffee.  Evie is still sleeping, lucky gal as I have been up since 6:25.  The lake was busier at 6:30 then it is at the moment.  It's 57º, and the never to be trusted weather report suggests the next three days will be sunny with the high only in the 70's, our favorite kind of days.

Kayaking Snug Harbor Swamp

Unidentifiable Birds?  Any Thoughts

Yesterday we took another  not too early morning, let's say 9:30, kayak paddle,  Instead of our usual crossing over to Long Point, we got wild and crazy and paddled for forty minutes down to the Snug Harbor sign, just this side of Prendergast Point.  We then meandered home, along the swamp like area around Snug Harbor, rift with ducks or some other kind of birds,  then around the point to Whitney Bay and home, a more typical route.  On the way, we had a brief shower, a heavy wind, a hot sun, and calm waters, all in our one trip.  We talked about putting our boats on the roof of our car and going off to another part of the lake to explore, or even driving to Kinzua Dam or Findlay Lake, to get some different.  I don't think it will happen this morning because of Evie's sleeping in.  We were home by 11:00 and I decided to enjoy a swim, the dock and  and my book before lunch.  It was a good choice, not too hot, a nice breeze and the water, as its been, was refreshing and clear.

Water Lily

Water Lily And Its Reflection

Evie came out just about the time I went in for lunch; I had leftover eggplant pasta and watched the newest episode of Ray Donovan.  What a hard ass,  just like me!  When I finished, I noticed one of our neighbor's friends was out on the dock with Evie.  He's a talker, and discovered that we have something in common, that his father worked at our school back in 1980's.

Around 2:30, I took my bike to Jamestown, parked it next to the Lakeview Cemetery and went for a ride, through the cemetery, a beautiful place, filled with trees and lots of shade, then the neighborhood surrounding it.  It's a slowly degrading area, like much of Jamestown, but it's also peopled with some amazing houses, what's left of a prosperous Jamestown.  It's sad to see a well kept home sitting next to a home that's been abandoned.  I rode for about forty five minutes then drove home through Lakewood, stopping at Sam's Club to pick up dinner, salmon and spinach.

Around 5:30, we went out on the dock with a libation and enjoyed the end of the day on the lake.  We never get tired of sitting on the dock and enjoying the ever changing sky, the clouds, and the colors of the lake.  And the lake traffic, if any, always settles down about this time.  Around 6:30, we went in and Evie broiled the salmon, sauteed the spinach, cooked the rice and made a salad, while I watched and did some dishes.  We also watched the first episode of the last week of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  It's amazing the press his show is getting; one of the headlines reads "Farewell To The Last Honest Newsman".  The critics are suggesting that he's changed the way we see the news, that he's a iconoclast, which I suppose, is true.  This apotheosis, however, is getting a bit too much, at least to me.  It's like everyone is jumping on the bandwagon the last few months.  We have been watching him now for close to 15 years.  Where were these pundits five, ten, fifteen years ago?

We then watched Masters of Sex, not as compelling as the first years, some junk TV,  then went upstairs to read.  I was tired from both a long kayak paddle and a bike ride.  O, yea, I did swim, too, about ten yards.

Here's today's poem from The Writer's Almanac which, if you read my blog, with its numerous photographs, struck a chord of awareness  Enjoy.

The Vacation  by Wendell Berry  Listen Online Once there was a man who filmed his vacation. He went flying down the river in his boat with his video camera to his eye, making a moving picture of the moving river upon which his sleek boat moved swiftly toward the end of his vacation. He showed his vacation to his camera, which pictured it, preserving it forever: the river, the trees, the sky, the light, the bow of his rushing boat behind which he stood with his camera preserving his vacation even as he was having it so that after he had had it he would still have it. It would be there. With a flick of a switch, there it would be. But he would not be in it. He would never be in it.