Met up with the Habes, after an inexcusable gap of nearly a year , in Fontana, on Lake Geneva.

Lunch at Gordy's then a walk along the shore path from Yerkes Observatory to Williams Bay, with a few stops along the way to test the Adirondacks.

It was one of those days engineered in celestial realms to be perfect—temperature, sunshine, wind (or lack thereof). A fine day for all, including Pax, who went swimming twice.

The ice went out last Sunday, and today, four days later, docks are going in, boats are cruising around, and Pax is in swimming.

Also, countless coots, who must be just stopping by to slurp minnows on their way north. Really thousands.

And countless piers, really many thousands, built identically, and all painted white, and all being put back into the lake as quickly as possible. There is no ordinance prescribing how piers should be built and what they should look like, but they are all built exactly the same, and they all look alike. Tradition? I don't know. But it is an example of what Christopher Alexander describes as the unknowable process of people working alone but working together to build something beautiful.