And Yet, Another Striking Sunday Morning

A Chilly Morning For A Paddle

7:13

I slept in until 7:00, kind of nice, up in time to see the sun rise above the Power Boat Club, just beyond Bootey Bay.  It always amazes me how far the sun moves from the summer to winter solstice, something I was barely aware of until we retired here on the lake.  When you are raising a family, and working hard like I did for 45 years, it's difficult to pay much attention to the natural world.  One of the joys of the past seven years is our discovery of nature through hiking, kayaking, traveling to different parts of the world, and enjoying the change of seasons here at the lake.

An Empty Lake Of Blue

The Rusts Of Long Point

Yesterday was sunny and cool, the kind of weather in which we started with a fleece but ended up taking it off if we were doing something physical.  And we started the morning around 9:30 with a paddle on a seemingly placid lake.  Our neighbor had paddled by earlier, making us hurry up and try to get out on the calm lake.  And we did it for the first five minutes but by the time we got to Long Point, the lake developed wrinkles as the wind picked up.  And just as we were starting out, Jeff was returning from a good hour paddle to Bemus and back.  He, like us, has discovered the beauty and quietness of an early morning paddle on the lake.  We paddled along Long Point to the Marina, then back across to the reeds as the wind began to really pick up so we headed up, glad we had made it out if only for a half hour.

Neighbors:  Leonards And Davis'

When we returned, I was motivated for some reason to work in the yard, unusual for me.  So I did some mowing, staked up our new trees, raked the twigs that had fallen from our willow tree, always a mess in the fall.  I filled up an entire garbage pail with the twigs and it took me a good hour.  By the time I had finished, Evie had straightened up the house, got all the trash ready for me so I went off to the Transfer Station and got rid of our trash, metal, glass, plastic and newspapers!  Done.  I then came home and made myself a couple of tuna sandwiches for lunch and watched some college football for five minutes before quickly being bored, in fact, I am bored with most TV now that the monotonous, never ending, anxiety creating elections are over.  Strange but true.

At 1:30, we drove off to Jamestown to meet with a Medicare insurance broker whom we met at Wegman's.  She represents all the insurance company, is paid by them, so she charges no fee to her customers.  We really like her, as she was knowledgeable and helpful, and helped us pick out a plan which best served our financial and health needs.  And she said to call her at any time if things change and she would help us alter our plans.  It was a very worthwhile hour.  We then stopped at Farm Fresh Foods, just north of the Jamestown bridge, browsed their bakery, picking out three donuts, and their store which we really liked.  It's a discount grocery store but we liked it and wished it was closer to us.

We were home by 3:30 and I went outside and worked for another hour, mulching, raking and spreading the leaves that tend to gather around my garage and in its gutters, not my favorite job but something I have to do once or twice a year to keep water from seeping on to our garage floor.  At 5:30, we drove over to Bemus to have a beer and a German pretzel with beer cheese at the Ellicottville Brewing Company.  When we won he trivia contest a month ago, we also won a chit that allowed us a free beer and five bucks off our bill.  It had to be used by the end of November, so we sat at the bar for an hour, enjoying a micro brew or two, the pretzels, and talking with the barmaid, Taylor.  We left about 7:30 and vowed to come back before it closes for the season on December 23rd.

We had leftover chili for dinner, along with two corn bread muffins we bought at Farm Fresh Foods, so we had an easy and tasty dinner although neither of us were that hungry because of the pretzel which is filling.  We watched the last Real Time with Bill Maher for the year, then an episode of HBO's Divorce before going up to bed.