Indian Summer Days

6:24

7:09

7:28

8:18

It's 8:25,  and I just returned from a forty-five-minute paddle on an absolutely perfect morning, the sky cloudless, the lake smooth like a mirror. I had to cut it short because of a duck blind set along the shoreline just north of Sandy Bottom. The quiet of the morning was interrupted by their gunshots and an annoying leaf blower on the other side of the lake. Still, I was happy to paddle to Long Point and back across the lake.  

Kayak Morning

Victoria/Woodlawn

The Sun, The Sun

We had a surprisingly good day despite the uncertainty of the elections. Mentally, it was a day of working on patience, dealing with uncertainty, two qualities I lack.  I needed a good paddle to take my mind off of the election and listening to music, not the news.  After breakfast, I figured keeping busy was a good antidote so I cleared the leaves out from behind our garage.  They always collect there, often leading to water on the garage floor so it needs to be done each fall.  I filled two 32 quart pails with the leaves and took them up the hill. 

Lakeview Cemetery

Military Memorial

"Bare ruined choirs/where late the sweet birds sang"

A Sense Of Humor?

Earlier, we had decided to walk the Lakeview Cemetery in Jamestown something we like to do a couple times a year because it's so beautiful and interesting. We walked for forty-five minutes, meeting a couple of joggers.  Although most of the leaves had fallen, the sugar maples were still at their peak color.  The leaves were an inch or two deep in many areas and we could hear three leaf blowers going at the east end near the Buffalo Street entrance. On the way home, we made two stops, at Brigiotti's to pick up feta cheese and some vegetables. We then stopped in Aldi's briefly hoping to pick up a couple of racks of lamb but they were sold out.

We were home late, at 1:00 and I had ham sandwiches and vegetable soup for lunch and watched my show, a respite from the news.  I read some of my new book, Fredrik Backman's new novel, Anxious People.  After a brief nap, I caught up on the news then wanted to get outside, so I ended up mulching the leaves once again and doing some more raking.  Evie joined me with the mulching and raking and I ended up taking two more barrels of leaves up the hill.

We then relaxed, still surprised by how early it gets dark, with the sun setting around 5:00.  About 6:00, Evie got dinner ready, salmon with garlic spinach and rice with a small salad.  We watched various news programs, then Trump came on, whining about the fraudulent election with absolutely no evidence, just lies.  It was repulsive and disgusting to listen to the President malign, even poison our democratic process.  Some Republicans were even critical but not Trump's shills, Hannity and Ingraham.  We ended the night with an episode of Teheran, a new thriller from Apple TV.