A Chilly Start To Summer

5:40

5:45

5:57

Woke at 5:30 to a 55º morning and a wind out of the southeast.  It's a partly cloudy morning, the sun peeking in and out of the clouds, the lake choppy because of the wind.  We may get some rain today and the Amish should finish our roof, hopefully before it rains.

Kayak Morning

Mallards Preening

Yesterday was a spectacular start to summer, a calm sunny morning, an afternoon where the wind surprisingly picked up, nixing any hope of a boat ride.  I had a long paddle because of the beauty and calm of the morning.  When I returned, Evie was already geared up, ready to get things done.  We were getting a new mattress for the guest room, so we worked on stripping the bed, then vacuuming under the bed, then washing windows and screens.  They guys arrived around 10:30 and within 15 minutes our old mattress was gone, the new one in place with a topper.  Evie and I then quickly made up the bed and now its ready for our kids when they arrive in late July.  Let's hope they find it comfortable.

Looking For Breakfast

Because we were having neighbors over for dinner, Evie spent a part of the day prepping, in fits and starts, our dinner, a specialty of our son Tommy, penne with shrimp, asparagus, and sun-dried tomatoes.  In between blanching the asparagus and cleaning the shrimp, both of us worked on the front porch, filthy from work on the roof.  We took off all the furniture, then I washed down the siding, swept and vacuumed, then Evie moped it.  It needed it.  We then put it back together once the floor dried and we had it ready for the summer.  While Evie worked in the kitchen, I swept and vacuumed the back porch, which always needs to be done.

By noon, dinner was basically prepped and the porches done, so we really had an afternoon to relax and get ready for company.  Evie spent time out on the dock while I had my usual afternoon, of a lunch with a tuna bagel, soup, and watching the World Cup.  I cannot believe Argentina, with Messi, were drilled by Croatia, 3-0, what a surprise.  Midafternoon, I convinced Evie to cut the lawn on Friday, not yesterday, as she had already done enough.  For once, she listened to me.

Porch Time With Friends

Our friends arrived at 6:30 and we quickly opened the sauvignon blanc and adjourned to our the spankingly clean porch for an hour, enjoying appetizers and wine.  Our friends, Ken and Marjorie, live four houses from us, and we have also become good friends with Charlie, a friend from Ken's teaching days.  We are all in our 70's (a few very close to 80), retired educators, we always have lots to talk about, especially the way teaching 'ain't what it used to be.' No surprise there.  Dinner was great, as we devoured the pasta with shrimp and asparagus, salad, and garlic bread, then sat outside until dark, enjoying a dessert of a lemon pudding cake with raspberries, a tart yet sweet end to our dinner.  Our friends left around 10:00 when it started to get too cool to sit on the porch.  We were too tired to do up the dishes, so Evie rinsed most of them and we left it for this morning.

SUMMER:  From Half Borland's SUNDIAL OF THE SEASONS: published in the New York Times on June 18th, 1961:

"Summer is misted dawns and searing afternoons, hot days, warm nights, thunderstorms cracking their writhing whips. Summer is shirt sleeves, sunburn, bathing suits, tall cold drinks, dazzling beaches and shimmering lakes. Summer is the green countryside, the cool fragrance of mountain pines.

Summer is the house wren bubbling over with morning song. It is the long afternoon aquiver with the sibilance of the cicada. It is slow dusk freckled with fireflies - and prickly with mosquitoes. Summer is a meadowful of daisies, a field of corn reaching for the sun, a straw hat, a hoe and a garden.

Summer is the fresh garden pea, new lettuce crisp in the salad bowl, snap beans, sun-ripe raspberries on the bush and chilled strawberries in a bowl of cream. Summer is the weed, the gnawing insect, the foraging woodchuck, the nibbling rabbit. Summer is sweat.

Summer is April and May grown into June and July, the green world working almost eighteen hours a day. It is a lazy river and a languishing brook. It is a vacation dreamed of, realized, too soon over and done, too soon a memory.

Summer is a promissory note signed in June, its long days spent and gone before you know it, and due to be repaid next January."