...to Whitewater. After a late rising and a leisurely breakfast we decided to head to the airport, and THEN checked the departure time. It took some high speed driving and some TSA lane cutting, but we made the plane's departure with minutes to spare.
No blog yesterday due to mindless exhaustion.
Rehearsal dinner tonight, actual wedding tomorrow.
Katy and Will came for a visit today, and that included two trips to the park and lots of underdogs on the big oaktree swing. The mosquitoes are bad here, though, so we had to be careful outside.
The small amount of garden maintenance I have been able to work it was also hampered by swarms of bugs attacking the face and neck.
The grass has not yet gone dormant, but it looks like things are getting pretty dry. The purple coneflowers, being prairie plants, are finding conditions much to their liking.
The Resurection Lily: foliage in the spring, flowers in August. Pretty strange, but it must serve some evolutionaly purpose, perhaps a non-competition agreement?
I got to switch gears today, and do some Bubbafying. Ultimately, we ended up with me being a wild horse, and the two girls (Ellie and Maddie) trying to get me into a corral, and keep me there. The horse was pretty much untamed, and the fence had its weak points, so breakouts happened. Eventually Ellie had had enough with the recalcitrant animal and said, "All right, that's enough of this game!"
I suppose I could have been Eyore. But we had great fun for a long time with me being a mustang. (Not pink though, like their hotrod car.)
...en route to Bowling Green, Kentucky.
Twelve and a half hour trip. House still standing, with no major problems immediately apparent. House doesn't even smell bad.
The rudbeckia is doing well, but the 3-year old rosemary bush looks to be dessicated beyond redemption. Very odd driving without Pax in the back seat; odd not to be immediately off to the park or around the block. But Pax is on vacation at the Pinebox spa, which he will enjoy much more than a southern wedding.
A vast calmness.
Frog in herbs.
Mergansers settling for the evening on the pier.
Me, unwinding on the deck after a day of doing almost nothing.
More window framing, setting up of the new logsplitter, some swimming, and then with J&ME and Murray and Elaine over to Gore Bay for pizza, the harbor tranquil in the evening light.
Here, some random photos:
The patio at Bouy's, where we had dinner.
Still some boats on the hard at Norm's boatyard.
A boat coming back towards the marina from across the bay.
Sunny, warm, calm. Perfect for swimming, except for the need to avoid getting masses of shadfly molts in your teeth.
We now have neighbors—Kerrys on the far side of Pinebox, and Tysons on our north. So, we have unaccustomed noise coming from both sides. The Kerrys must have guests with children, and the Tysons pretty much spend their entire cottage time vacuuming and mowing. What is almost the entire year one of the quietest places on the planet is no longer quite so much.
But our neighbors are temporary phenomena, both Kerrys and Tysons as ephemeral as shadflies.
...also, the Civic Holiday. The busiest time of the year on Manitoulin. Which means we hunker down a bit and stay away from places like Sandy Beach. Big party out on Amerdroz Island tonight and tomorrow, but just for locals in the know.
Sue and Pax having morning coffee at the Zen spot.
Summery day. Wind mostly calm, although we were able to take the Windrider for a little sail from the marina to Sandy Beach and back, mostly ghosting along in phantom zephyrs.
...camped in the front yard.
Looked to be a relatively young couple, on a very nice trawler. They pulled up the hook just about noon, and departed for points unknown. To them, the shore probably looks rather wild and untamed, which is right because very few of the cottages around here are really visible from the water, and Manitoulin is the home of the Great Manitou. For me, it was odd being shoreside, knowing what I know but seeing things from their eyes, as cruisers.
For us, no water today. Just trimming out a few more doors, doing some staining and painting, and eventually taking the pro forma trip to the dump.
I still think we had the cooler day, because we know what thay know, plus a little extra.