Another Country

5:57

6:31

6:34

 I was up before 6:00 to a Tiepolo blue sky, the eastern horizon just starting to turn pink, a streak of orange in the sky, either a cloud or a trail from a plane.  It's warm out, 44º,  and may get up to the 60's later in the day.  It's 8:30 now and I have been kayaking for a half hour, then working on my blog and photographs. 

Finally, A Sighting Of My Favorite, A Wood Duck

Sunday did seem like we were transported to another country overnight.  Suddenly, the white of winter yards and the lake was gone and in its place was color, the blue lake, the green yard, the sun filling the sky with its light.   And the songs of birds, the quacks of ducks, the haunting wail of loons, and the croaking of peepers broke the long silence of winter.  Spring was a long time coming but I can confidently say it has arrived. 

With the warm weather comes all the chores of Spring.  Evie and I were planning on going out for breakfast at Red's but because of the weather, we ended up spending most of the day in our yard, getting things cleaned up.  Before the work, however, I did get a half hour paddle in, my usual route, south on the lake to Sandy Bottom and back, mostly because I pass an area of reeds where the ducks and herons seem to gather. 

After coffee, kayaking, and the blog, we went outside, surprised by how cold it still was but nevertheless, we started working in the yard.  I began with getting some of our tools, pots, and most importantly, the purple martin house out of the garage attic.  Every year, around the 15th of April and depending on the weather, the men in our neighborhood don their waders and slog their way out into the cold waters to put up their martin house.  By the end of the day, six were up.  Anyways, after taking down the purple martin house from the attic, I put on the doors, then tied on the owl guard (chicken wire) with plastic ties.  The house sits on top on an extension pole, about 15-20 feet above the water.  The difficult part is pounding a five-inch pipe into the mud and rocks, then placing the martin pole into the hole of the pipe.  Unfortunately, when I tried to insert the martin house pole into the pipe, the orifice was not wide enough.  So I got out a file, and for ten minutes, I enlarged the opening.  Once again, I waded out into the water, with the house on top of a ten foot poled and, voila, it fit into the pipe's opening.  I then raised it up another eight feet and the house was ready for martins and a major spring chore was done. 

After that ordeal, Evie made us a big breakfast of eggs, bagels, and bacon, to reward us for our morning efforts.  After breakfast and watching a disappointing CBS Sunday morning, we relaxed inside, tired from our morning efforts.  Because it was Sunday, a day of rest,  I fell asleep reading, happy to nap on a sunny afternoon.

Evie, however, smartly took her chaise lounge chair out on the dock to get some sun and ended up taking mucho photographs of all the grebes that seemed to float by her.

Loon Taking Off

Snorkeling Loon

Around 3:00, we both decided to work in the yard raking and trimming until about 5:30, filling a couple of large pails with leaves, dead branches, and grasses.  The backyard looks much better after our efforts and I ended the day by hauling the pails up the hill, then driving over to Bemus Point to pick up dinner,  a pizza from Coppola's.

We then relaxed with a glass of wine until 6:30 when Evie made a salad and we had dinner.  We decided to watch a new movie on Netflix called Kodachrome, a mistake.  Despite a decent cast, the tired thesis, a dying father, a famous photographer, and his estranged son, drive from New York to Kansas to get the father's film processed because Kodak was going out of business.   We were able to predict just about everything that happened, so for us, it was really a comedy.  We ended the night laughing with Stephen Colbert.