Wednesday, June 10, 2009

An exciting day at The Lake.

I got up at 6.00am 0n Tuesday to a fine clear day. The sun was just up, both the sky and The Lake were a lovely pink color. I went down and sat on the pier to look and listen for any signs of a repetition of yesterdays splashings of the carp spawning in The Lake, but there was none. Not a sound, not even a ripple, The Lake was perfectly smooth and quiet. So I went back to bed. Less than an hour later it was raining, heavily, which was quite remarkable as there had been hardly a cloud in the sky an hour earlier. We got ready to go to Annapolis and got there in the afternoon after a couple of stops on the way. By now the day was so glorius that we took a harbor cruise, visiting Annapolis Harbor, the Severn River and the Naval Academy. The sky was clear and it was very sunny and hot. Next stop was at The Red Lobster Restaurant to get Lobsters for Margaret & Ed. While in there Sarah called to tell us that the boys ball game had been cancelled, "Due to the storm." Apparently they were having a really bad storm but there was sign of a storm where we were. However when we left a short time later it was clouding up fast and by the time we got to Trader Joe's a few miles away the sky was looking very black. Just after we got into the store it started and we couldn't get out for almost an hour. The rain and wind were some of the heaviest I have ever seen anywhere. Eventually a man from the store escorted us out to our car with an umbrella. It rained all the way home. When we got home there was no real damage, except for a few small branches down but the big heavy bench on the pier had been blown into The Lake and was nowhere to be seen. With thick heavy cloud covering the sky we could see no chance of a nice sunset for Margaret & Ed's last full day here. But to out absolute amazement as the time of sunset approached the sky started to clear and we had one of the best sunsets ever. It got better and better as the clouds cleared away and were replaced with blue that turned to a wonderful gold.
The next day, Wednesday, Ed and I went out in the kayaks to look for the bench and found it only a couple of hundred feet away at the edge of The Lake in the bushes. We towed it back and put it on the lawn.
So we went from clear sky to storm, back to sunshine, back to storm and back to blue sky and a great sunset.
All in all a very eventful and exciting day.

Monday, June 8, 2009

Two things that never come back

Two things that you can never get back are the words you speak and lost opportunities. So, be sure to think carefully before you speak those words, escpecially if you have any thought at all that you may regret them someday!
Lost opportunities - if you make a wrong judgement they could get you into the same trouble as those words you might regret - but I am thinking now mostly about more mundane opportunities, like taking that photo, like getting up to see the sun rise, like complimenting a friend, or a stranger, like telling someone you love them. I've missed chances in life, we all have. The house you should have bought, the girl/guy you let get away, the investment you missed, there are dozens of these biggies that are gone and we regret, but I am not talking about those opportunities now, I am talking about the little ones. Don't forget to tell your little grandson what a great job he did on the ball field today, to thank your wife for the special dinner she cooked, your parents for anything, friends - for being your friends. When you hear of something unusual that is going to happen take the trouble to witness it, meteor showers - ever seen one? It's worth watching - when one is announced in the paper take the opportunity to watch. The space station going over - get up and watch it. Is the sun going to come up tomorrow? Take the opportunity one day to check and make sure that it does! Your grandchildren's graduation, ballgame, science project, school play, first . . . whatever, don't miss the opportunity because it doesn't come back.

More adventures from The Lake.

Last night we had another full moon, it was big and beautiful, hanging in the sky above our small and beautiful Lake.
I awoke at about 5 o'clock this morning and looking out at The Lake through the 10 floor to ceiling windows of our bedroom I saw a huge red moon hanging just above the trees across The Lake. A ribbon of red lay on the water all the way up to our bulkhead. I got up quickly, slipped on my shoes, got Ed's camera (Our English friends Margaret & Ed are staying with us for 3 weeks - Ed is an extraordinary photographer and has a much better camera than I do!) and stepped out onto our deck which is barely 100 feet from The Lake. I quickly snapped a couple of photos. While I was standing there admiring this lovely sight I heard some splashing and thought that it must be my neighbor getting his boat out to do some early morning fishing. But the splashing sounds increased, it sounded like waves, which I knew it wasn't because The Lake was quite still, could it be someone swimming? Surely not, my curiosity got the better of me and I walked across the lawn and down to our pier. As I approached the water the splashing sound got louder and I could hear it coming from several places. Even in the near darkness I could see the water churning on both sides of the pier as well as in front of my neighbors properties. I stepped onto the pier and almost fell over as the silence, apart from the splashing, was torn apart by a crashing and banging sound from right under my feet. By now it was apparent to me that the churning and splashing sounds were fish. But the huge apparition that rose up from under my feet could not be a fish surely? No, it was a Great Blue Heron that must have been feeding under the pier and had been disturbed by my feet over his head. He struggled noisily out from under there with wings flapping against the decking, poles and water and as soon as he was clear, rose gracefully into the air with a few hoarse squawks and flew off. Meanwhile, the water all around me was churning with the sights and sounds of huge fish. They were so big that their backs were out of the water at times, they were bumping into the bulkhead and the pilings of the pier. I estimated them to be between 2 and 3 feet long although over by my neighbors beach the disturbance was so great that they could have been bigger, or maybe there were just more of them. After watching for a few minutes I went into the house, woke up my friend Ed, told him to get his shoes on and follow me. Together we watched fascinated for another 10 minutes until the mosquitoes discovered us and we decided to go back to bed. Instead of going to bed I brewed my first coffee of the day and wrote my blog to tell you about this new adventure from my lovely Lake.
Added later - Oh, by the way, they are Carp and vary in lenghth from one foot to four feet - there are hundreds of them! We have all been watching them thrashing aorund in two's, three's and yes, even foursomes!! They come right in to the edge, so close you could literally touch them, if they weren't so fast.
Enjoy life, I do, Love David.