May 12 - the morning routine

It's interesting how our days become routine. We are creatures of habit and those habits are comforting. When I'm not biking at 3am, my days are pretty much the same up to 11 o'clock.

-- get up around 5am, varies from 4:30 to 5:30
-- make coffee
-- up north, Abby will go out at this point, down south not so much
-- unpack dishwasher (Sandy starts it before she goes to bed)
-- let Abby back in, tell her "no, too early" as she looks eagerly at me for breakfast
-- drink coffee as I catch up on overnight emails and news in my RSS popper-delivered emails
-- depending on how early I got up, update the blog -- this can vary, obviously since I'm not always consistent
-- around 6am, feed Abby, put her out again and get my cereal
-- go back to the computer, finish catching up on news, perhaps update my financials with Quicken, pay some bills etc. if there is anything to be addressed
-- Abby will bark to come in at some point
-- I'll finish my cereal and then go get some more liquid beverage, i.e. chicken soup (powder added to hot water)

There are some differences between the houses naturally. If down south, I'll close the den doors and turn on some music. I cannot do that up north because the den is adjacent to the bedroom and that would disturb Sandy. Also, down south I might go into the garage, have music on there and do any bike maintenance, other mechanical project work. Up north, with my workroom being right under the bedroom, I usually avoid that since again, the sound would carry. When we have lots of visitors and the bedroom is occupied in the basement, it's right beside my workroom, so again that's a no-no.

In the cooler weather up north, after making coffee and unpacking the dishwasher I'll refresh the fire -- empty ashes, get it going again from coals from the prior night. In the winter I'll usually do that right after getting up, since the fireplace is our main source of heat or at least I want it to be.

In warmer weather up north I'll go out to the gazebo with my chicken soup, enjoy the sunrise. Last fall I would go fishing. I'll start that soon -- fishing season starts this coming weekend. Of course the gazebo business only started last year since I only finished building it last spring. Late in the day we'll have snacks and drinks in the gazebo up north, during the warmer weather of course.

On a biking day, I'll putter around, do project work, more computer stuff or whatever until around 11am including having an early lunch, and then head out for a ride. On a non-biking day the time will be spent similarly through lunch and then whatever in the afternoon.

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So what do minnow traps catch ? Well ... minnows most of the time ... perch minnows out in front of us and a crayfish ... a mud puppy down in the bay across from where I fish for crappie ... nice sucker minnows up at caribou creek. I should have guessed that there would be good minnows at caribou creek since there are always seagulls standing in the shallows "fishing" and I know that they're not going after the 2-4 pound fish that are there to spawn.

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... and now it's morning again. The sun is up, the lake is calm, the birds are at the feeder, it's 33F (brrr), the bugs are hiding until it warms up, and it's quiet here on the home front.

I did get out for a ride yesterday, one of my usual 70 milers west and then south. On the way back I was dodging the black flies on 522 -- not successfully, since they were constantly pinging off my jacket. Ping is not the correct sound, but you get the idea. Once stopped at the car, I had to move fast to get the bike and myself into the car because the clouds of black flies gather quickly.

Bev and Bruce arrived about 5:30. Abby was the first to greet them, naturally, and they too moved rather smartly into the house as the black flies pursued us. Paco promptly pooped on the kitchen floor ... perhaps he should have had an opportunity to do his business outside before coming in ... ha. Well, that's what tile floors are for -- well, they're not specifically for pooping, but you know what I mean. He was actually much better than I've seen him before -- much less nose-in-butt with Abby.

We had Sandy's baked salmon & leek along with fiddleheads and a salad for dinner. That was accompanied by wine and conversation and by 9:30 three of us were headed for bed. Sandy stayed up for a while more cleaning up ... I don't know what time she came to bed.

Sandy plans to take Bev into Loring today -- it won't take long for that tour -- otherwise we have no plans. The temperature is supposed to get up near 70 so perhaps, if the air is still enough, we'll get into the gazebo. It will give us shelter from the bugs.

I expect that B&B will leave early tomorrow -- not sure how early they tend to be -- heading back to Florida. I told them our normal route, which I expect that they'll follow. Their house in Sebastian FL is a couple of hours south of us so for them, as for us, Beckley is probably as close to a mid-point as you're going to find.

That's it for now ...

oh -- I forgot -- what else did I/we do yesterday ? Well, Sandy cooked and prepped. I spent an hour extracting the Whaler trailer from the barn. Naturally it was at the back. It's now free and clear and perhaps I'll head into Sudbury tomorrow and pick up stuff to start working on the basement ceiling. I need that trailer to pick up the T's, which are 12 feet in length. It's supposed to rain, so I'll bring a tarp to wrap it all up before to the trailer. Rain won't hurt the T's, but the cardboard boxes that they come in would disintegrate when wet. I guess that I should call HD before setting out to see how much stock they have -- I need a bunch of the T's -- 45, according to my calculation, but I'll double check that before heading out. The number of cross's will depend on whether we get 2x4 or 2x2 panels. Sandy found something that she's able to live with that is 2x4 -- and they're a lot cheaper than the 2x2 panels, so we'll see.

That's really it ...