Lake days and work days ahead for August

VALOIS, New York, USA - The dog days of August (Where did that expression come from, anyway?) have come in with a combination of work that needs to be done before we jet back to California in September, and some of the best lake weather we have seen. Light winds, about 85 degrees and barely a cloud in the sky.

And the lake water has even warmed up to about 75+ degrees, making swimming a pleasure again. We took the Spirit of Louise out the center of the lake and simply drifted for an hour, joined after a short time by Ruth Bills in her new boat. We rafted up the boats and drifted around with them for awhile. For the first time in years, I didn't have to worry about the currents or tides while swimming.

Oh, or anything biting in the water that was likely to see me as food.


Ruth Bills (right) and her amigo, Cece, enjoy a dip

While we were drifting, cousin Roger Beardslee roared by with a tubeload of teenagers in tow, with the screams echoing across the water to the boat, where our foster dog Arnold stood guard to make sure no seagulls would come near the boat.

Plenty of them seem to have found the boat when it sits in the boat lift in front of the house. Arnold belongs to a friend staying in the guest house on the property. During the day, when Brad works at Hazlitt winery, Arnold stays with us. He likes the boat, but so far hasn't been willing to help me with the gardening or shovel work. Perhaps its the lack of opposable thumbs.


Arnold on guard

But while the lake days are great, the projects around the house remain and as absurd as it seems, the deadline clock is ticking loudly with what needs to be done. A lot of it is small items, some large and already we are paring the list to make it fit the time we have left.

And in among the projects, we have a three-day weekend in New York City and an overnight sojourn to Toronto planned. (Let's see, one month minus five days, minus two days travel time, minus.... Gawd...) And yes, we are going to use the 1992 Buick to get us both places.


Sylvia practices driving while Dan practices digging

The last major project (Who am I kidding?) we hope to finish in a few days involves the plumbing to the guest house, a repair job that required the above tractor work. Although the tractor looks like a lot of fun, I have stayed away from it, except for short spurts of moving it from place to place. I get carried away when using such things and would likely start to knock down the small trees on the property I have wanted to clear out.

But we could sure use the machine in Mexico when we go to build our house this winter.

Hmmm. Perhaps we could trailer it down behind our new Isuzu Trooper?