Monday, July 9, 2018

Sunny, Blue Skies, A Quiet Lake (Cardinal Fun)









It's 6:40, a quiet morning on the lake.  A bright sunrise at 6:05, and now a shimmering lake start the day.  It's a comfortable 58º but should get up to 80º later.  After a busy 4th of July, it's easy to see why we love the quiet and mostly empty weekdays on the lake.

6:04

6:05
I just returned from an exciting paddle, as I photographed a couple of cardinals, drinking and bathing at the lake's edge.  And I caught a heron in flight, a kingfisher hidden in a tree.  Amazing morning.

Kingfisher

Great Blue Heron

Mallard
Unable To Identify
Yesterday was a day to recover from our 'fun', attending The Great Blue Heron Festival, not that we overdid it.  I had a long paddle early before the traffic on the lake churned the calm waters.  And when I got home, Evie was watering, working on the side yard, weeding and pulling out some of the overgrown beds when we realized that we needed one more hose to water some of the bushes.  So I volunteered like an idiot to drive to Walmart, pick up a few things for dinner before our big breakfast, a mistake.  I picked up the items for dinner, found the hose I wanted to buy but it lacked the scan code.  I took it to the cashier in the garden area but he was no help.  I went through the checkout but she was no help either, sending me to customer service.  They made calls to various departments, ending up giving it to me for eleven bucks after a 15-minute wait.   Hey, time is cheap now that I retired, and I saved probably five bucks.

When I came home, Evie was wondering why I had been gone so long, so I told her my sad story.  We then sat out on the front porch and had our big breakfast, bagels and a great omelet with feta cheese, tomatoes, and asparagus.  The rest of the afternoon was a typical lazy Sunday, spending lots of time on the dock, reading, napping, coming into the house or yard to do something small, like moving the hose, but then going back on to the dock.  There was still a breeze but it was comfortable.  Around 5:00, I took the cover off the boat and we drove over to Bemus and came back along Lakeside Drive, as the boat traffic began to ebb as the weekenders headed home.

We then sat on our porch with a major libation and cheese and crackers, enjoying the ebbing of the day, the quieting of the lake, something we had not done recently.  Dinner was pulled pork with coleslaw, lots of it.  We had trouble with Netflix, as it kept closing down, so we watched some reruns of EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND, a series we still enjoy.  I was happy to get back to my book THE GREAT ALONE, set in the wilds of rural Alaska.  One certainly had to be tough to last a winter in that part of the US.  By the way, the writer/poet Robert Service coined the term 'the great alone' when describing Alaska.

We are starting the countdown until our kids arrive. Beth and Marisa arrive first, nine days from now.  Yippee.

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