Hanging Tough In The Heat

6:24

7:51

Kayaking Friends, Jim And Tina

It's 8:20 and partly cloudy, and a bit cooler than when I woke at 6:00 — 73º then, 79º now, getting warmer as I sit happy and comfortable on my couch, although I have yet to turn on the air conditioner. I was out on the lake by 6:30 for 70 minutes, down Woodlawn, across to Long Point, then back across to Sandy Bottom, where I stopped to talk with Tina and Jim. On my way home, I was about to turn into our dock and was looking down the lake to see if there was a heron when I looked up and saw a heron staring at me on our dock, about 20 feet away. I quickly grabbed my phone, took several photos before he flew off and landed on my neighbor's dock.

Kayak Morning

North

Looking East Towards Bemus Bay

Heron On Our Dock

Up Close

Same Guy On Neighbor's Dock

Heron Above The Reeds/ Getting At An Itch

Great Blue Heron Relaxing

Yesterday was a hot one, obviously, whenever I stepped outside into the sun. The day began at 7:20, which meant I didn't have time to kayak. So I wrote some of the blog, then drove over to breakfast at the Lake Life Cafe, which was hopping. I ordered my usual: egg, cheese, and bacon on sourdough toast and an iced coffee. There were just two of us, Jack and me, and we never talked about politics or Trump — a miracle. I was home by 9:00, ready to kayak, and was pleasantly surprised to see the weed cutters cleaning our waterfront of weeds and algae. I didn't get out for a paddle until close to 10:00 and was only out for 15 minutes before I returned and finished up the blog, and Evie published it.

After breakfast, I decided to drive to Lakewood and stop at Ryder's Cup, hoping to see my friend Neal. His son owns a roofing company, and we fear we have a leak in one of our bedrooms and need someone to come check it out. Unfortunately, he wasn't there, and he doesn't seem to be coming around like he did during the winter months, so I'll have to get other ideas from friends. I stopped by the Chautauqua Lake Association to drop off a check for cleaning up the lakefront and weeds, something I do each year. I couldn't pass up a stop at Wegmans, and though it was busy, all checkout lines were open. I bought everything we might need for the Fourth and was home by noon.

I had lunch, a toasted cheese and ham sandwich, compliments of Evie, and watched my show. I then went upstairs to read, finished my book, Ghost Town, and took a brief nap. Because it was unbearable to be outside in the sun for long, I spent maybe 25 minutes cutting the dead wood from our lilac tree, then pulling out sucker vines that grow around the branches of our rhododendrons and tend to choke them. This is something I have to do each year, two or three times.

The rest of the afternoon went quickly, as I started a new book, The Detective Up Late by Adrian McKinty, until wine time, when we listened to Jake Tapper and the breaking news. We decided to try the new Middle Eastern restaurant up the hill called Coasta. We ordered two gyros online for thirty-two bucks, and I picked them up 15 minutes later. They were decent, not great. They could really improve them by getting rid of the feta, adding more tomatoes, and topping the gyro with tzatziki sauce. Both were a bit dry, and the sauce would make a big difference.

We finished our series Families Like Ours and recommend it. Evie went to bed around 9:00, and I watched some futbol, then another episode of my series The Agency, which I also highly recommend.