Monday, September 14, 2009
Restful and productive weekend
We arrived at Sidetrack just after sunset on Friday.
After getting supplies and computers into the cabin, we sighed a bit, relaxed, and quietly enjoyed the evening. N played Scrabble on her new iPod Touch, I read a library book.
Saturday morning dawned gray and quiet. A flotilla of geese paddled north up the lake, disturbing the mirror-like surface with their wakes. The dawn chorus is gone, but I did hear a heron, some crows, an eagle or two, and a pileated woodpecker somewhere in the trees east of Sidetrack. Later in the day, N got a close and clear look at one the magic birds for the first time. Her comment was, "That's a BIG bird!"
I finished my book and got some breakfast and did some yard work. I cut down a bunch of nettles, brush, and saplings around a couple of good looking young birch trees out by the garage.
Then I hauled away most of the rest of rubbish from the Red Tom chimney.
[Clarification from neighbor Skip about Red Tom. Red and Tom were two guys. Tom was the Dr. Hoff whose wife painted the Shakespeare House. Red was his good buddy. The two of them were the builders of the chimney back in '53.]
Sunday started much like Saturday did. The surface of the lake was so still it would have been hard to tell which was lake and which was sky if I hadn't been so sure I was standing on the ground.
When looking at the photos from this morning, it's hard to tell sky from lake without some visual clues. Can you tell which picture is upside down?
Here are some pictures with clues. But it still doesn't look right. The kyaks and the canoe seem to be floating above the water somehow.
I did have a treat when an eagle began circling overhead. Even with my miserable "point, push the shutter, wait, and shoot" camera, I was able to get a little image of the big bird as it swooped down to pick up what was probably a dead fish.
Sunday afternoon, as N worked on editing a ms and making the retractable screen for the sliding door work, I worked on writing one. I finished just about everything I could do without being online. The sun and a tool left on the deck just looked attractive.
We picked up our stuff and headed home after making plans to come back next week.
After getting supplies and computers into the cabin, we sighed a bit, relaxed, and quietly enjoyed the evening. N played Scrabble on her new iPod Touch, I read a library book.
Saturday morning dawned gray and quiet. A flotilla of geese paddled north up the lake, disturbing the mirror-like surface with their wakes. The dawn chorus is gone, but I did hear a heron, some crows, an eagle or two, and a pileated woodpecker somewhere in the trees east of Sidetrack. Later in the day, N got a close and clear look at one the magic birds for the first time. Her comment was, "That's a BIG bird!"
I finished my book and got some breakfast and did some yard work. I cut down a bunch of nettles, brush, and saplings around a couple of good looking young birch trees out by the garage.
Then I hauled away most of the rest of rubbish from the Red Tom chimney. [Clarification from neighbor Skip about Red Tom. Red and Tom were two guys. Tom was the Dr. Hoff whose wife painted the Shakespeare House. Red was his good buddy. The two of them were the builders of the chimney back in '53.]
Sunday started much like Saturday did. The surface of the lake was so still it would have been hard to tell which was lake and which was sky if I hadn't been so sure I was standing on the ground.
When looking at the photos from this morning, it's hard to tell sky from lake without some visual clues. Can you tell which picture is upside down?
Here are some pictures with clues. But it still doesn't look right. The kyaks and the canoe seem to be floating above the water somehow.
I did have a treat when an eagle began circling overhead. Even with my miserable "point, push the shutter, wait, and shoot" camera, I was able to get a little image of the big bird as it swooped down to pick up what was probably a dead fish.
Sunday afternoon, as N worked on editing a ms and making the retractable screen for the sliding door work, I worked on writing one. I finished just about everything I could do without being online. The sun and a tool left on the deck just looked attractive.
We picked up our stuff and headed home after making plans to come back next week.
