Choppy Lake, Gray Skies, And Drizzle

Female Baltimore Oriole

Purple Finch

9:00

Not much of a morning with the blustery weather.  I was up at 6:30 and the sky has not changed in the past hour.  No sign of the sun, the perfect gray morning if that's what you like.  It's 45º out and I am tempted to skip a paddle but I didn't. I braved the wind, the chop, the cold and it was worth it to be out on the lake.

Kayak Morning

As bad as this morning is, yesterday was the opposite, lots of sun, blue skies, a calm lake, with everyone in the neighborhood working outside in their yards.  I thought it was supposed to rain but it never did, never clouded up until late in the evening.  After my paddle to Tom's Point and back, we got busy with the yard.  First, however, I took the trash to the Transfer Station, then went on to the gravel pit, very busy because it was Saturday, and picked up another four barrels of stones for our driveway.  While I spread it out, Evie was beginning the arduous task of planting dahlia bulbs in large yogurt containers.  She keeps them in the containers so that they can be brought inside in case of a frost and waits until June 1st before putting them in the ground.  They get a good start in the containers because we can move them outside when its warm enough, bring them on the porch when it isn't.  It took her a couple of hours because we bought too many bulbs, as it's easy to say just one more.  Since it was a nice morning, cool but sunny, I went back for another load of stones and brought it back.

Dahlias

Around 12:30 my back was starting to bother me from all the shoveling so I made lunch, heating up Evie's veggie soup and making myself a turkey sandwich.  I watched Bosch, was tempted to watch another episode but decided to read for a while and nap.  Unfortunately, I napped for five or ten minutes and was then up and awake, ready to do something. So I watched some TV with Evie who was taking a break, having planting probably 25 to 30 dahlia bulbs.  For some reason, we watched the first episode of Big Little Lies which happened to be on HBO.  We had forgotten how good it was and may go back and watch the rest of the series.  

Around 4:00, we decided on an easy dinner, so I drove over to Bemus and picked up a pizza at Coppola's.  Bemus was crowded as both the Casino and the Ellicottville Brewery are open.  When I returned, we decided to plant Evie's clematis but we realized we did not have enough wire fencing. So, as Evie fired up the lawnmower, to cut the lawn for the third time in six days, I drove to Tractor Supply, bought another roll of the wire, and stopped at Sav A Lot and bought some Utz Ruffle chips and dip for our cocktail hour.  We then planted the clematis, surrounded it with wire fencing, put away all the garden tools and came inside, ready to reward our hard work with a Manhattan, chips, and dip. 

Dusk

And we did not have to worry about dinner because all we had to do is heat up the pizza and make a salad. After a leisurely cocktail hour, we ate and watched Real Time With Bill Maher, our Saturday night ritual.  We never did get to Rake or Big Little Lies, but channel surfed instead until it was time to go upstairs to read and sleep.  We had a productive day and our sore backs were proof of it.