Actually, it’s only one bear and one puzzle. I’ve been toying with a puzzle for a while and I finally mastered it. It’s two bent nails seemingly locked together. But the two nails do come apart.
it’s been cloudy most of the day, threatening rain
The twisted nail puzzle is one puzzle in a boxed set of puzzles I received as a Christmas gift from my daughter a few years ago. I decided to leave them here, at the lake, with her permission. This past week I re-discovered the twisted nails and I have been playing with them as a diversion – off and on. Twisting the two nails back and forth was a wonderful way to pass time and focus on something besides the future – COVID19 and the approaching school year.
It’s Good Friday. As i reflect on the past few weeks I am grateful there is a much more good than bad. of course, we are still in lockdown which really means we should stay home and not gather in large groups but, we are healthy and safe.
Orchestrate: To arrange or control the elements of, as to achieve a desired overall effect.
Our schools are shuttered until April 30th, at least until April 30th. Several states have closed schools for the academic year, but Illinois has not. Yesterday, I spoke with my colleagues and my principal via Zoom and while it’s great to see them and talk with them, it doesn’t replace the spontaneous interactions of popping next door into their classroom or the conversation at the end of the day about something amazing a student did or said, or simply asking what my colleagues were looking forward to over their long three day weekend. I miss the girl in my last class of the day who always asked me what I was doing over the weekend. That’s what I miss the most.
After the first couple of weeks of quarantine and e-Learning, spring break started. It was an eerie beginning for a spring break. Our plans to travel to the Florida Keys and warm weather were cancelled by the virus, so we decided to travel to our lake home in Michigan to visit for a couple of days. We were only planning to visit for a couple of days so we took what we needed to survive for a few days – clothes and enough food for the five of us (me, my wife, daughter, and our two puppies) to subsist without contacting the local population.
Friday morning’s day begins as the sun rises and the moon sets
whitecaps on the lake – Thursday
Tueday’s sunshine melted the ice and pushed it all along the shoreline
Thursday morning’s mug of encouragement
We arrived late Sunday afternoon, unloaded, and took in the lake and the lake house. We unpacked and allowed the puppies – really a dog and a puppy – 10 years old and 1-year old run and stretch, while we did the same. I took a nap and broke my stretch of eight days in a row of exercise.
A nest of paper wasps has made a home at the corner of the garage under the eaves up north at the lake. The wasps aren’t bothering any humans so the humans will leave them be, so they can do their job in the environment.
Making the Days Count, one day at a time, letting nature do its job.
What have you observed in the natural world lately?
It’s Sunday morning of Labor Day
weekend and it’s quiet by the lake. It’s the last weekend of summer, at least if
I define summer as having boats in the water.
image courtesy of read.gov
Definitions of summer are plentiful,
though I firmly believe summer is almost a state of mind in addition to being a
season. For O and I, school has been in session for two weeks. Both of us have eight
days of school under our belts.
The autumnal equinox will arrive in
a few weeks and all the earth will be equal for a moment then slowly fall will
advance in the northern hemisphere and summer in the south. It’s time, it
happens each year and again, year after year. There is time for everything
under the sun.
O and I drove up North yesterday
morning. B had come up earlier in the week bringing Ivy with her. Ivy was
overjoyed to see us, though you’d hardly recognize that now as she sleeps
curled up on the footstool. B was too, but Ivy was more enthusiastic with her welcome.
When summer ends, there is much to
do. Boats, dock, lifts, and lawn furniture to store, gardens and beds trimmed,
and the garage organized for the next season. Yesterday one of our neighbors
remarked it was Labor Day weekend and we were working, working hard to get the chores
accomplished. I reflected and replied – this is the weekend we pay the rent. We
work hard at the beginning and the end and reap the benefits of our work in the
middle. It’s different from Aesop’s fable the Ant and the Grasshopper, where the
ants toiled tirelessly all season long to be able to rest (and survive) when
summer ended. Along the lakeshore, we all work together and help each other
with the heavy work pitching in when needed. We know that fall is coming and
winter is not far behind.
There are few grasshoppers here
this weekend, most of us are ants. There is a time for everything under the sun.
It’s Friday and I am by the lake again, but I should write, we are all by the lake. W and I joined the B and O yesterday morning. It’s a foggy Friday morning and it’s day 53 of summer break, 20 remain.
the lake and the ducks… they are mallards
I love the lake and July is our time to be at the lake. We’ve been here almost every month, but July is the best time to be here. It’s usually warm with cool nights, though sometimes it’s very hot, and sometimes it rains, or storms. But whatever the weather being by the lake is peaceful and relaxing. It’s even better when we are ALL here. Continue reading Foggy Friday – Day 53→
We’ve been by the lake for a little more than a week. It feels good to relax and take it easy, even if I can’t get into the water, yet. I know my day will come. Today marks five weeks and a day since my last day of school and my summer break has been full of surprises. It also means summer break is at its halfway point.
It’s also been four weeks and a day since my knee surgery and the incision is healing well and it looks good, but I am erring on the side of caution before venturing into the lake or submerging or exposing my new knee to any sort of water beyond a shower. Yesterday, I checked with my physical therapist and she told me to wait, so I will. A few more days out of the water are a small price to pay.
We’ve been spending our summers along this lake since we were married and I recall my first visit in the July of ’92. Each summer has a been a bit different, there were the years before we had kids, the years of infancy and the toddler years – twice, the years with the in-laws and now without them, and now the teenage years and post teenage years, for one. Our kids are growing and so are we. This place is full of memories for me and our kids and there is a constancy in our place by the lake.
Last Friday marked a first, at least for me. I was sitting on the deck reading when I looked up to see a float plane landing on the far side lake. I am certain there have float planes which have landed and taken off on the lake before, but I had never seen one or seen pictures of a float plane on our lake.
Friday, taxiing to the small bay
I grabbed the good camera and took photos. I watched as the plane taxied along the shoreline and anchored in the bay not far from our cottage. I wasn’t alone, almost all of the folks along the lake watched as the plane moved down the lake to the bay. Continue reading Day 36: halfway→
My weekly challenge was to remember my favorite song from five years ago and listen to it. I have no idea what I was listening to five years ago but it certainly was not on the top 100 from July 2013. I had an idea, a better idea, and I went back 40 years to when I was 16; the summer between my sophomore and junior years in high school. That was the summer of all sorts of memories.
A post shared by Clay Watkins (@makingthedayscount) on
This past Sunday afternoon, we drove north. I had a driver for the first hour and the last hour. My daughter O is working on her driving hours and loves driving. It gave me time to go back in time – 40 years – to the summer of ’78. I checked the top 40 from July ’78. I recognized most of the top 10 but my memory took a jolt when I read #14 – Miss You by the Rolling Stones. That song took me back and brought back all sorts of memories and I found my song…. But first… how I got there.
I turned 16 in November ’77, but I couldn’t get my driver’s license I hadn’t completed the required behind the wheel driving training. Instead of taking driver’s ed during the summer, like all of my peers, I had been visiting by dad in England for five weeks. I took the driver’s training during winter break of my sophomore year and was ready to get my license in January of ‘78. January in Houston, Texas is cold, but not nearly as cold as January where I now live – there is no comparison.
I am the oldest in my family, so I was the first of the kids to get my license and the first child to teach my mom all sorts of lessons she and her sister probably did not teach their parents when they were growing up in the fifties.
When my parents divorced, my dad moved to Saudi Arabia and a year later he and my step-mom moved to London, England. Whatever he had, he took with him or put in storage except for the 1969 blue Volkswagen Beetle. It was stored in the garage. I had my name on it. Or rather, I had put my name on it.
this is my car, but it looked like this…it even had some very cool pinstripes
For a 16-year-old boy in 1978, having your driver’s license is cool, having a car a car is even cooler. Once I got my license, I began to drive the ‘blue bug.’ I could drive to work and back and had to ask permission beyond that. The little blue bug had air conditioning, but it didn’t work and the radio had AM only. I had a job and made minimum wage as a busboy and dishwasher at my next-door neighbor’s Italian restaurant. By March, I had scrimped and saved enough money to purchase an in dash 8-track cassette player and FM\AM radio and a couple of speakers for the blue bug. I had barely enough money leftover to buy two 8-track tapes – I picked Van Halen’s debut album and Jackson Browne’s Running on Empty. I listened to those constantly.
The blue bug was nothing brag about. Beside the AC not working, there was a hole in the passenger side floorboards caused by battery acid spillage. A friend of my mom’s helped with a fix and the radio and speakers were an improvement. To make up for the lack of AC the blue bug had side windows which could tilt inward and force air into the car. But driving it in the hot Texas spring and summer was pretty uncomfortable and perspiring was the norm. Continue reading Day 29 – Miss You→
It’s Sunday morning by the lake. Yesterday was Saturday and tomorrow, is Monday. It’s how the week rolls, it’s elemental.
When I woke Saturday morning, it was cool and overcast. By midday, it had warmed and the sun was out. I had to install a part on the boat lift in the lake. I gathered my tools, my camera, and waded into the lake. Ivy came with me paddling and O followed. The install took only a few minutes, I took photos of the new part, then I took photos of the lake.
earth, water, and air – the ancient elements
I have taken hundreds, maybe thousands, of photos of the lake, but most of the photos I have taken are from shore or from a boat.
I focused on South Bay where a rain cell raced across the lake.
I was able to capture several of the elements of life by the lake – the lake, the hills, and the clouds at once. Of course, there are the sunsets, but that’s for another time. Continue reading hydrogen and helium: elemental→
It’s Wednesday morning and all’s quiet on the lake. The middle of July is usually the quietest time on the lake; it’s after the fourth and before the race. Only a handful of folks are here, just us, the ducks, and the sea gulls.
there were duck butts, but their butts are moving away from shore (and me)
Yesterday I started a post and didn’t finish it – it will remain unfinished. I was sitting on the deck beneath the umbrella enjoying the quiet of the late morning. At first, Ivy was content to lay at my feet. But she soon began to whine and beg to get into the lake. She loves the lake. The lake is shallow enough for her to walk and patrol the shore. I put her on her tether and kept an eye on her while I wrote. I wrote and she searched for fish in the water. I had to venture into the water a couple of times to untangle her – she tends to circle back tangling the tether on the dock or the boat lifts. The third time out, I moved her tether to the See-doo anchor post and returned to my writing.
Yesterday was American Independence Day. It’s the day Americans, like me, take to celebrate our freedom and independence. Many gather to barbecue and watch fireworks, still others, like me and my family, travel to be with family. We are by the lake, where we have celebrated the Fourth of July as a family for as long as I can recall.
Our family tradition began in after B and I married in ‘91, and with exception of a handful of years, I’ve been here on the Fourth ever since. At first, we celebrated with B’s parents and her sisters and their families. Then they moved away and they weren’t able to be here for the holiday and it was just our family and B’s parents. Then life intervened and her dad passed away in June of ‘14, then her mom followed in late ’15. Now it is us and we continue to get travel north and enjoy the lake with our friends we’ve grown to know along the lake.
We celebrated as we always do: we went to the town parade, then spent time on the lake, barbecue and enjoy dinner, and finished the day with the town fireworks celebration, and of course the traditional popcorn. Continue reading Tuesday’s Tune – ‘America the Beautiful’→
