Spinning on the Dock (of the bay)

Actually it’s a small lake in the Adirondacks nowhere near a bay but delightful all the same, every time, any season and I liked the alliteration of that song title.

Getting myself ready is a feat though.  Last week I crammed 5 days of work into 3 long ones and by Wednesday was whining and humphing that it was just too much, “It would be easier to stay home.”  Poor Jim, who heard the brunt of these complaints and mostly just ignored me.  I whined to my sister who sent me an email saying, “It will be wonderful once you are there. It will be wonderful once you are there. It will be wonderful once you are there.”  And it is.

On our walks with Basel we have seen Swallowtail butterflies flitting all around from apple blossoms to dandelions to the sweeps of forget-me-nots. 

There are also Blues and a smallish orange Monarch look-a-like that we only see this time of year (I did not bring my butterfly book).  At night we hear peepers and bullfrogs. Small fish hide under our dock and large fish come near trying to catch them.   During the day a pair of Mallards makes a circuit of the lake several times although today we are seeing them one at a time which leads me to think they are nesting so taking turns keeping those eggs warm.

One of the things I like best about being up here is that my Do switch gets turned off almost immediately.  Usually a bunch of napping happens the first day plus some reading and spinning.  Each morning I hoist my backpack containing this computer and its supplies onto my shoulders and walk in to the village to sit quietly on a bench in front of the town library reading the last 24 hours of mail and a bit of surfing.  I find I don’t really want to stay on too long so do what is needed and wanted and then visit the book store, the bakery and maybe one or two other local shops before hiking back to the cottage for lunch.  A week before the season starts folks around town are relaxedly fixing up: painting, plumbing, finding what got broken over the winter.  Jim was doing some plumbing on the shower.

A tree that had been leaning for as long as I can remember fell over near the end of winter blocking off the channel to our lake.  This means we can’t get out to the big lake and also that no one gets in here either.  It is a no wake lake but party boats often putter through during the season.  Evidently DEC has a rule that the town could not clear that big a tree itself so sent in a crew.  They took one look at the size of the tree and decided that just maybe they could issue a variance for the town crew to do it themselves.  The crew is still waiting on the paperwork.

Lots of knitting is happening but not with any urgency.  The Aran Necklace cami is moving forward, although yesterday I did need to frog the neckline gussets all the way back twice because I was not paying enough attention to fully and carefully read not only the instructions but also my knitting.  Plus I was being too social at a time in the process when I should have been concentrating.

Front in process on the left, with the back ready to be picked up on the right once knitting in the round commences.

Jim has gone to Paddlefest all three days while I only attended on Friday.  He loves trying out new boats.  I looked at a few but since I have a beautiful kayak made by Jim for moi several years ago have not felt the need for anything else.  I did buy a new pair of Tevas, eat some Ben & Jerry’s and investigate the Thule Hullavator while I was there.

This is the beginning of black fly season.   On Thursday they were annoying. On Friday they started making perforations on my ankles and by yesterday were already doubled in size.  As evening falls those little chain saws are replaced by mosquitoes and then we get to watch swallows swooping around catching them.

Each sunset is more beautiful than the last.