All Is Gray: Sky And Lake

6:54

6:59

6:59

It’s 8:47, and I’ve been up since 6:46. Evie’s still sleeping, so the house is quiet. I was on the water by 7:30 and paddled for close to an hour on a calm lake. Only a few mallards and a bevy of Canada geese were out. No fishing boats, no migrating birds yet, and no herons or osprey, both having headed south.

Kayak Morning

South

North

Kicking Back

Yesterday started off badly. Neither of us got our usual sleep, and we woke up crabby and tired. I forgot I had a breakfast date at 8:00 and had started out for a paddle when I got a text asking if I was coming. So I turned around, came back to the house, hurriedly wrote the blog, and drove to breakfast in Bemus. I had to be back by 9:00 because Austin was stopping by to help with some outdoor work. When I got back, he was just driving in. We had a list of things we hoped to get done, and Evie left for school at 9:30, tired but ready for the kids.

For the next three hours, Austin and I trimmed the privets and rhododendrons- anything that tended to grow over the fence between us and Pine Hill. Austin even took down a tree that had grown near our compost pile.  We then hung the curtain on our back porch. Finally, Austin mounted a ladder, cleaned our gutters, and ended his day by trimming the suckers on the maple in our front yard. He seemed fine by the end of the morning, but I was exhausted and couldn’t wait to get in the house and relax.

Around 12:45, I made lunch: egg salad sandwiches, and I finished up the black bean soup. And, of course, I watched an episode of The Mayor of Kingstown, starting Season Two. Since I’d had a bad night, I hoped for a good nap, but no luck. After reading some and wondering if I would fall asleep, I got up and went downstairs to read and wait for Evie to come home. She returned later than usual, and though she was tired, she’d had a good day.

We waited until wine time for her to regale me with stories about her kids, some hilarious, some touching. On her way home,  one of the little boys yelled out, " I love you, Grandma Evie." It sounds like a typical day in an elementary school.

Dinner was the leftover pork roast with mashed potatoes and a salad. Neither of us finished the pork because it was too salty, but we devoured the salad. We watched a couple of really emotional episodes of ER, then a few minutes of football, before returning to The Mayor of Kingstown. Because I was so tired, I went to bed earlier than usual and slept through the night.

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