Partly Cloudy And Rain

6:38

9:07

By 7:25 this morning, I was already back from a half-hour paddle down to the reeds and return, and had managed to shoot two herons — one walking the shoreline, the other perched partway up our neighbors' front wall. It's 9:15 as I finish this. Evie was awakened at 8:00 to a torrential rainstorm while I was enjoying coffee in Bemus Point and was unaware of the rain and wind.

Kayak Morning

Into The Sun And Clouds

Great Blue

Great Blue In Bud And Debbie's Yard

Yesterday was one of those days with nothing we had to do, which is a particular kind of gift. We took a slow morning — coffee, the blog, the radio — and let it unspool at its own pace. Around 11:00, I decided to get out on the bike. I drove to Lakewood, parked behind the gas station, and headed down Summit toward Ryder Cup. I thought about stopping for a coffee, but passed. From there, I rode on to Celeron, locked up the bike, and sat for a bit with some water and a long look at the lake. Then I turned around.

Somewhere on the way back, I stopped for water and realized I'd left my bottle on the bench in Celeron — so I rode back to retrieve it. I was out 70 minutes, covered 10 miles, and as has become something of a law of nature, the return leg was straight into the wind.

Biking To Celeron's Harbor Front Hotel

Home by 12:30, I had the leftover pulled pork and macaroni and watched some soccer, hoping to catch Ronaldo finding the net. He didn't oblige. My legs were sore from the ride, so I stretched out with my book — The Water Keeper — and ended up finishing it after a nap. I'd liked it well enough right up to the ending, which seemed to go on long past where it should have stopped.

Late afternoon, I went after the weeds, though I gave myself permission to mix in some recovery time. It went: weed, chaise longue, book, weed, chaise longue. The clouds had been building and threatening all through happy hour, and sure enough, it rained later in the evening.

Dinner was the leftover meatballs with pasta and a salad. Evie had found a movie she wanted to watch — The Debt, the Israeli thriller about tracking down a Nazi war criminal — and it held up well. After she went to bed, I caught some more soccer, then an episode of Law & Order, then headed up and cracked the new novel: I Who Have Never Known Men, a post-apocalyptic story about 39 women held underground by silent armed guards. It has a premise that's hard to put down after the first page.

Usually, we have breakfast in an empty Lake Life Cafe during the winter. Below is what it's like in the summer. 

Lake Life Cafe