The Joys of Summer
For dinner--home grown beets along with fairly local sweet corn and watermelon.
Prairie, a wonderland of flowers. Yard, short-stopped from its attempt to revert to jungle.
Pool Party
In honor of Collette's move to Springfield. Perfect day for it—hot and muggy. Delicious picnic provided by Sally and Glenn.
First tomato of the season. Delicious.
Power Lunch
Business meeting with Bri to discuss business book The Four Disciplines of Execution, and, of course, bring it alongside our "bible," Human Competence. Lively discussion; very fun.
Saturated steam bath outdoors. No yard work possible due to heat, humidity, rain, and storms. Severe storm warning in effect now.
Still no wifi internet.
Fun Times...
...with Katy and Will.
Lunch, walks, books, games, dinner.
Back Home...
...to air conditioning, mosquitos, thunder storms, non-functioning internet.
But on the way south we got to stop in on some log rolling, sand castle building, and accomplished swimming (Becca, but I failed to get a photo.)
Much To Do, Few Hours.
Trying to squeeze in chores plus a bit of recreation plus prep and packing for tomorrow's drive back to Wisconsin.
Erosion caused by high water, coming for the church.
Shady Lane?
Shady lower deck.
The cedar slab above the couch is supposed to be the anchor for long, dangly, braided, macrame-type fabric and mixed media artistic creations created by grandkids. At least one per child per year.
Cocktail Cruise...
With the Pinebox set. Light wind, bright sun, smoked trout on gluten free crackers.
So far, so good on the water pump situation-new breaker in the electrical panel.
Schnitzel and Sequence
Impeded somewhat by malfunctioning water pump.
The Big Stink
Contemporaneous with Kagawong SummerFest. Big windrows of rotting shadfly remains pushed up along the shore, combined with copious quantities of seagull poop. Both the village beach and Sandy Beach have "No Swimming" signs posted. Rather substantial bummer on this busy weekend. But otherwise, the Island is hopping.
SummerFest included rides on the giant "Metis" canoes. It did look odd, though, to see "voyageurs" wearing splash jackets and PDFs, or do I mean PFDs? And where was the gonfalon?!?
The Historical Museum featured a "barbeque" as a fundraiser, specializing in commercially pre-formed burgers and general-purpose hotdogs. Only trouble there was how they forgot to put the raw meat on the grill until the queue wanting to buy was about 10 deep. We gave up and went up the hill to the Main Street Cafe (which used to be alongside the Esso). Busy up there too, but management capable of serving customers.
The quilt show in the Park Centre was our favorite part of SummerFest. Contemporaneous with the show, Sue has, just today, finished her incredible, two-sided wall hanging. All that remains now is the hanging. I've become a great fan of fabric art, btw.
Also of note, the Susie Pea has been rejuvenated. A little epoxy here and there, and a sweet green paint job. Oars brought back to life, too. What a boat.
The Wind Finally Quit...
... after what turned out to be a three-day blow. Probably very bad for the shadflies (and for certain Nick breaks up with Marjorie).
What change. After three days of dark skies, off-and-on rain, and roaring surf—flat calm and blue sky.
Below, a bit of yesterday (shot by Sue).
Stairway To Heaven...
...or at least to the camper.
A fun project for a cool, damp day.
Iridescent, silvery-green arachnid who joined me in the outdoor shower today.
Now more than 48 hours of northeast blow. Bad news for the shadflies who have been emerging the past few nights and trying to mate. Conditions seem to be settling, though, so I doubt we will equal Hemingway's Three Day Blow.
Tempest
Strong northeast blow with big surf. Chilly, gray, with occasional rain. Actually quite wild out in the Bay—not a day to be sailing by choice. How very different from yesterday—the many moods of Mudge.
In recognition of the weather, waffles. Pine box brought the bacon.
Photo by Sue
If nobody else, Pax loved it, and he got in a good number of high-speed, up-and-down-the-beach, wave-biting romps.
No worries about boats, at least.
Pea Soup...
...to begin with, followed by warm, humid, mostly sunny, and mostly windless.
Too warm for meaningful work. Between naps, however, able to squeeze in dog walks, bike ride, kayak paddles, Wind-ride (not much wind), and episodes of swimming (light breeze blowing in so water nice).
The past three nights have seen small flights of shadflies, but nothing like some of the big explosions we've seen in the past. (The gulls in the above photo have been gorging, however, on what there was.)
~~~~~~~~~
When you look at this beach (above), and then think about all the dozens of kids who jump off the high dock every day, you have to come to the conclusion that this would be a perfect place for log rolling instruction and competition. Do you not?
Asclepias
The milkweeds, now blooming. And traces of their magnificent perfume are now wafting on the breeze.
Much sun, little wind. Water warm enough for swimming.
Rocks and Stones and Trees
Also, sun and clouds and wind.
Blue flag
Bay breeze
A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.
No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.
—Wordsworth
Very Green and Very Blue
Windy but beautiful.
And a bit of yellow, as in this, our special patch of loosestrife.
Laundry day. Weekends have cheaper hydro, but this kind of drier is free, and it leaves the towels comfortably rough and smelling sunny.
The bean patch is growing well and blossoming. We might have a good crop of beans and peas. Tomatoes, not so much. And, just for the record, I have not watered the garden once yet this year.
TGIF...
...although the same goes for S,S,M,T,W&Th.
A laid back, quiet kind of day. Some restoration work on the Suzie P, the Little Dingy That Could—rescued from a burn pile at Roger's farm, south of Whitewater, long ago. The P is now in her eighth year of faithful service, I do believe. What I can't believe how useful this little boat has been. And no one is going to believe how prim she'll be looking in just a day or two.
Surprise, twenty-minute downpour this morning, then sunny, warm, humid, and calm. Until now. For the past hour the Great Manitou has been rumbling and grumbling off in the distance, but now seems to have us surrounded.
Geode Sails Again
And, although a mono-hull dingy can be a bit tippy, and can capsize (unlike a trimaran), Geode felt good to be sailing agin—after how many years? With the right wind, this boat could be a very fine trainer.
Considerable cloudiness and afternoon thunder, but nothing much in the way of rain.
(Thanks to Sue for the photos.)
Crowds...
Plus rescue at sea.
Crowds at the beach, at the marina, at the farmer's market, and at the library book sale. The good weather has brought everyone out.
To get away from it all, and to take advantage of a strong south wind, we decided to go for a sail on the Windrider. Once out of the harbor we noticed that a rental 10' Tango sailboat appeared to be in trouble—rapidly being blown down wind and out to sea. Getting a line to him and getting things squared away for a tow took a bit of doing but proved to be good practice. The rescued party expressed much gratitude once back at the beach, and the boat rental agent learned the importance of a chase boat (we hope).