Sunday Blues

Gold Finch On A Budding Lilac

Osprey Sighting This Morning

Not much of a morning here at the lake, more drizzle, gray, overcast skies, and 49º.  No sunshine forecast for today despite yesterday's optimism, just more gloom for a Sunday.  I guess I have had enough of Chautauqua gray days.  It's almost 9:30 as we finish this blog because I went out for a long paddle.  I was able to see an osprey dive into the water to grab a fish but missed taking his photo.  It was really cool. 

6:05

A Squaking Great Blue Heron

Hooded Mergansers

Yesterday was one of those enjoyable rainy days we, sitting in our house, nice and cozy, just letting it rain, with occasional claps of lightning and thunder,  on and off most of the day.  We had no desire to get outside other than my paddle around 9:00 when the rain seemed to let up and taking the trash to the Transfer Station around noon.

Evie's morning was taken up with two things, cleaning out the refrigerator and putting together Saturday night's dinner.  For some reason, I woke thinking of one of the comfort foods from our first few years of marriage, a tasty dish called hamburger stroganoff.  So by the time I was on my way to the Transfer Station, Evie had browned the chuck, added onions, garlic, mushrooms, cream of chicken soup and sour cream simmered it for ten or fifteen minutes, and dinner was ready. 

A Wet Day On The Lake

After the Transfer Station, I had picked up a roast beef sub at Hogan's, so we had no worry about lunch.  Evie and I split it and I watched Jack Taylor while Evie got started on putting together a Shutterfly photo album of the family visit, Summer, 2017.  This is the fifth book she has put together on Shutterfly as well as numerous albums of photographs, of our summers with our kids and grandkids.  It's a time-consuming task, going through probably a thousand photos, mostly from last summer but some from the year. So while I watched TV, read, and napped, Evie worked religiously all afternoon on the book, occasionally asking for my help, even calling Shutterfly for some questions.  Because they could not find one of her account's books, they ended up giving her a free photo album.  Cool beans.

Around 5:30, I finally pried Evie off the couch, but not before I sat down and went through the first ten pages of photographs.  As always, there's good sense to Evie's organization and the photos bring back great but melancholy memories.  Our best days at the lake are the two or three weeks when we have our families with us.  The rest of the year is waiting for next summer and the arrival of kids and grandkids. 

Fog And Rain And Clouds

Because dinner was basically made, we were able to enjoy a glass of wine as the rain stopped about 6:00 although the sky remained overcast.  We ate around 7:00, the hamburger stroganoff (which looks unfortunately like dog food) over egg noodles, with a salad.  For some reason, the stroganoff lacked something, was not quite what we remembered.  It was decent but not great.  Maybe our tastes have matured, become elitist!  We watched Real Time with Bill Maher, always funny and infuriating, then Colbert and ended the night with a new series on Netflix called SAFE, another one about a daughter who goes missing.  There are not many feel good series out there.  Maybe this girl will be found safe!

Our grandsons are off to Europe for the next couple of months, Nick to Italy this week, Mitchell to Spain next week.  Bon voyage, you lucky boys.

Nick, to Italy

Mitchell, to Spain