Morning Rain

7:24

Finally, Some Fall Colors Along Magnolia

I woke at 6:20 to pouring rain, darkness, and a 47º morning.  I have to admit I like the rain, just not too much.  It looks like we may have it on and off all day, perhaps into Sunday so it won't be a nice weekend for hikes, football games, and yard work.  This will be a NO kayak morning.  And as I looked up from writing my blog, I realized the sky had lightened, all was gray, the lake calm, the rain stopped.  Maybe I will kayak.  I did and it cleared up, the sun came out, as I was paddling, down to Magnolia and Whitney Bay and home.

Kayak Morning

Sun Rising On A Kayak Morning

A Noisy Kingfishers

Friday was a surprisingly good day, starting with an early paddle, just as the sun was rising.  I then put the blog to bed (aren't I newspaper hip), then drove to yoga for a good class with Julie, a class of three.  I stopped at Ryder's Cup afterward, bought eggs, dropped books off at the library and drove home on a partly sunny morning.

An Angry Hairy Woodpecker

When I arrived home, Evie was a sixes and sevens, having started but not finished a number of projects.  I know the feeling.  I had a couple of things I wanted to get done before lunch, so I pulled our canvas porch curtain out from under a bed, and I hung it with Evie's help on our porch so that it's covered for the winter, making a nice mud room.  Lots of houses in our neighborhood have canvas porches like this, which protects all the porch furniture from the snow.

Our Canvas Porch Enclosure

After that was up, I  got out my hedge clippers and cut down all the six foot high Jerusalem artichokes, enough of them to fill two garbage cans.  For lunch, Evie made me enchiladas stuffed with chili, and I watched the last of the LUTHER series so I will have to start something else next week.  Lots of choices, too many really.  Maybe I should restart GAME OF THRONES, which we would take me into 2019.  I took a cat nap, read my book, SHELTER ISLAND, which I highly recommend, then got busy in the yard once again, cutting the lawn and raking some leaves.  I ended the afternoon with taking two more barrels of leaves and garden plants up the hill, knowing that today it would probably rain.  The yard looked great at 4:30, not a leaf, a healthy green, and the maples were still holding perhaps 90% of their leaves.  It's going to be a busy November of mulching and raking.

A Fun Night With Marjorie And Ken

We both took showers at 5:00, then walked over to Ken and Majorie's, our neighbor's house for dinner.  These will be the last couple of days for them as they will close up their house for the winter and head home to Fox Chapel, outside of Pittsburgh.  They have become good friends since we retired and we often go out to dinner with them.  Their cottage is classic, with photographs of their kids and grandchildren everywhere, fishing rods on the walls, everything a summer cottage should be. They outdid themselves with sushi for an appetizer, a Thai chicken and coconut curry on rice for dinner and strawberry cheesecake for dessert.  We spent the evening laughing, swapping funny teaching stories and of course talking politics because they dislike you know who as much as us.  We ended the night like we usually do on night's like this, with an Evie selfie and it was sad to say goodbye until next Spring.

We watched some TV when we came home but I couldn't wait to get back to my book so I went upstairs early to read.