Just The Four Of Us, Alas

This Is Us

Better Together

6:20

A Purple Martin Morning Dance

It's breezy and sunny here at the lake, the birds chirping, the wind chimes ringing.  It's 7:23 and I have been up for an hour, to a quiet house.  Because of the nice breeze, I opened all the windows to cool the house down for the day.

Well, yesterday the weather gods' prediction were correct, as we had a lovely day on the lake, a tad warm perhaps but sunny with blue skies and puffy clouds.  It was a typical slow moving morning, as one got up after another, the girls the last to rise around 10:00.

Half An Artisan Bread (With oats, quinoa, flax meal)

Once they shook off their sleepiness, they helped me get the bread dough, which had been rising for 18 hours, into a dutch oven and bake for close to an hour.

Rolling Out The Sticky Bun Dough

While it baked, they helped Evie roll out the sticky bun dough and put together the roll up stick buns, letting them rise for a couple of hours.  After the bread was done, Beth, her friend Nancy, and I drove off so Nancy could see the Chautauqua Institution's grounds.  The girls stayed behind with Evie to bake the sticky buns and fish, then swim, enjoying the morning.

Yum

The three of us walked around the center of the CI so Nancy could get a sense of the cultural, spiritual and intellectual vibes of the grounds.  They also did some shopping at the bookstore and because the Smith Library was having a book sale, they were able to leave with a bag full of books for five bucks, a deal.  After our walk, we stopped at the Lighthouse Grocery for some subs, chips, and dip and brought them back to the house for lunch.  The girls were on the front porch painting rocks when we returned, a custom for most visitors to the lake.  We then had the subs on the front porch, as the girls finished their painting  and then we went our ways, to relax for an hour, read, or nap.

Painting Rocks

I took a nice nap, getting up at 3:00 and found that Evie, Nancy, Marisa, and Amanda had gone for a paddle down to Wells Bay and back.  Although it was warm on the lake, there was enough of a breeze to make it pleasant for them.

Lake Fun

The rest of the afternoon all six of us sat on the dock, swam and watched the girls antics on the surfboard.

Cruising With The Captain

Around 6:00, we came in, changed, grabbed a beverage and went for a booze cruise down to the Chautauqua Institution and back, a lovely night for a cruise. When we got home, we got busy with dinner, four racks of lamb, fingerling potatoes, salad and asparagus.  I seared the racks in a frying pan, then put them in a 425º oven for about 14 minutes, checked the temperature, and pulled them out to rest.  Meanwhile, Beth got the potatoes ready and Evie did the asparagus and a salad.  By 7:30, we had a lake feast, all the lamb chops we could eat.  And the hit of the meal was the artisan bread we had baked earlier in the day.  The girls loved it.

Dinner

After dinner the girls went for a quick swim, then we took the boat out to the middle of the lake to watch the sunset.  It was not as spectacular as I had hoped because of the clouds but still fun.

At Sunset

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Handstand Of The Evening

We came back and I realized the bailer on my boat continued to run even when I turned the key off. So I undid the battery cable so the bailer would not burn out.  We sat out on the dock until 9:15, as the girls swam and did tricks on the surfboard.  When we came in, we texted our boat guy Chris, asking him what to do about the boat.  About 20 minutes later, we noticed some action out on our dock and it was Chris, working on the automatic bailer.  He eventually cut the wire to the automatic system.  For now, I will have to turn the bailer on with a switch instead of assuming it will go on automatically. What a good kid.  Later in the summer, he will replace both the switch and bailer.

9:00 PM Sunset

When I got in from helping him, the girls had already gone upstairs, exhausted from their day of play. The rest of us soon followed them, dreading the morning because both Nancy and Amanda have to leave for home around noon.