Listening, Finally, To The Sound Of Falling Rain

5:43

6:48

Photo Of Long Point From My Kayak At 7:45

I was up by 5:30, walked outside to see that the sidewalk was damp, made my coffee and it started to pour, with a few flashes of lightning.  I hurried out to our front porch so I could enjoy the rain, the sounds of it hitting the roof, pelting the lake.  I had forgotten how pleasant it could be.  It's a balmy 70º outside and watch this storm pass over, we should have a decent day.  It's now 6:30 and its been raining for the past hour, gentle at times, heavy at others (half inch total).  Love it.

Duck On Rock

Yesterday was the first really hot, humid, stifling summer day, as both of us felt logy and lifeless much of the afternoon.  The morning, however, was a different story as we were both up early and busy mostly outside.  Evie watered for a good hour, from 7:30 to 8:30 while I read the NYTimes online and wrote my blog.  Around 10:30, as it was getting warmer and more humid, Evie had a great idea...why not cut the lawn.  So she fired up the lawn mower, I moved the lawn furniture, etc, the least I can do for a wife who loves to cut the lawn, and she was off.  I, meanwhile, gathered all the weeds that were drying on the dock and put them in a garbage barrel.  More were to come.  When Evie finished the lawn, she had to relax and cool off before starting on our next task, which was to clear some of the more obnoxious weeds and algae from our lakefront.  That took both of us an hour or so, in the heat, but fortunately, we were in water.  We did make some progress, however, and swimming area should be mostly weedless for our family this summer.  After weeding, we took a swim to wash off, to cool off.

And then we went inside to our refreshingly cool house, and Evie made our Sunday breakfast of eggs, bacon and a bagel.  Why does it taste so good?  Perhaps because we limit it to once a week.  We watched some CBS Sunday morning, but soon got bored and Evie went and relaxed on the front porch and I turned on the soccer, watching parts of a couple of different games before falling asleep.  I obviously need my nap.  For the next couple of hours, neither of us moved, as the heat and humidity and our morning work had taken the air out of our energized balloons.  I read some, watched some soccer, napped again until around 4:30 when I suggested to Evie that we go sit out on the dock and have a beer.  She perked up at the idea, so for the next hour or two, we sipped our beers, munched on pretzels and endaname, and jumped in the lake occasionally to cool off. And we were surprised, as an osprey swooped down in front of our dock, flew off with either a bird or fish, chased by purple martins protecting their nests.  It was a surprisingly pleasant way to spend the late afternoon on a hot and humid day.

Around 6:00 Evie went in and got dinner ready, pork schnitzel cutlets, with a potato galette and coleslaw.  Meanwhile, I gathered all the weeds we had cut from earlier in the day, three garbage cans full, and took them up the hill to marinate over the winter into compost (we hope).  And because the rains were coming, I put away our sump pump, which we use to draw water from the lake, and turned over the kayaks, a sure way to avoid rain.  We loved our dinner, about as good a schnitzel as we have ever had, no exaggeration. We watched a couple of more episodes of Dicte.  This was not our favorite episode, a bit silly and coincidental.

8:38 Sun Set

When we finished, around 8:30, the lake was still inviting and lit, so we decided to not waste the rest of the evening watching TV and kayak.  So off we went across to Long Point, as the sun was setting behind the clouds off to the West.  We were out about forty five minutes, as the boat traffic on the lake waned and we stopped and talked with our neighbor for ten minutes before heading home.  It was a good idea.  We then watched one more show, Bill Maher's Real Time before going upstairs to read and sleep.

Evie Kayaking At 8:45 As Sun Sets

Around 7:15 a.m., the rain let up, the lake was a smooth gray, so I went our for a paddle. There's a sacredness to the solitude of a lake in early morning, my church so to speak.