The Haze Of An Early Morning

6:23

7:01

7:05

Another 5:30 morning, total darkness, as I stumble around the kitchen, looking for the coffee pot, a light to turn on.  The fishermen next door were up as well, amazingly quiet, as they were on the lake by 5:40.   It's 63º at the moment, but will get in the mid 80's later in the day, not our favorite kind of weather.  It's now 6:45, the lake, the sky, gray with a tinge of rose, the sun yet to rise.  Two kayaks just passed by, as well as a flight of ducks.  The day begins.

Yesterday is a blur for some reason, perhaps because we did little in the morning, no hikes, no kayaking, just working around the house.  It was an uncomfortably warm day, so the first thing we did was bring an air conditioner downstairs and put it in a window.  Surprisingly, one small air conditioner made a big difference, keeping the indoor temperature at a cool 70º, despite the outside being in the 86.  We also noticed the lake was beginning to collect green algae or some kind of vegetation in pools, stagnant as a result of the weeds.  So both Evie and I went out in the lake, cut weeks for an hour or more, so the algae could move on.  What we really need is a heavy rain or wind, to keep it moving.  Yesterday was the definition of a 'dead calm,' at least in my mind.  Temperatures and heat that reminded me of camping on the southern coast of Crete, feeling the hot winds from Africa (an exageration but you get the idea).  By the time we were finished water weeding, it was past noon, time for lunch, my black bean soup and a bagel, with salmon cream cheese spread, tomato and onion. I forgot to mention that after weeding, I drove just up the road to a farm stand we like, picked up a dozen ears of corn and some tomatoes.

After lunch, Evie put together the first step of our dinner from the classic cookbook, The Silver Palate, a pasta dish with brie, tomatoes, and basil.  She combined the tomatoes and basil with olive oil, letting it sit till dinner time.  The rest of the afternoon Evie read on the dock, with an umbrella, staving the sun, enjoying a breeze that had picked up.  We both went out for a paddle around 5:00, down towards Wells Bay but Evie got a phone call from our daughter Jill (yes, she brings the phone along when we kayak), so that took up ten minutes, while I paddled out and back, trying to catch some waves.  When we got back, we put a couple of beers in a cooler, and took a booze cruise over to Bemus Point, then slowly back along Lakeside Drive, a lovely evening, few boats, clear skies, a nice breeze, the best time of day in fact.  We were back by 7:00, time to make dinner, which involved boiling some linguine pasta and adding the brie to the marinating tomatoes and basil.  Evie mixed the tomatoes and brie with the hot linguine and we had a great meal, along with, what else, a couple ears of corn.  We started a movie, Mr. Turner, had a difficult time understanding the English accent, and turned it off, to watch some HDTV shows instead, a couple of sybarites.

This morning I begin our weekly Thursday breakfast with the guys at the Bemus Point Inn.  We have a hiatus when the Chautauqua Institution is open but it closed for the season on Sunday, so we are back to unhealthy breakfasts once a week.  An orange orb, the sun, just burst through the morning haze, casting its reflection on the lake.