Scattered Thoughts . . .

We had a brilliant, colorful sunset last night that lit up the stormy skies...resembling a distant forest fire or even a distant bomb blast. The colorful, bright, fireball setting sun contrasted perfectly with the stormy clouds looming overhead...

We've been so busy that I haven't had many opportunities to share some photos so, while it is raining and the house is quiet because our guests haven't arrived just yet, I thought it would be a good time to share some photos... We had a really nice visit with Tom and Karen for a couple of days. We kayaked the longer length of the lake and explored some marshes and the dam...  Our young airman visited a few times (the one wearing the dog tags)...  One of our many sunsets as viewed from the deck... This shot, below, is a long exposure shot. It was almost completely dark outside but I kept my shutter open for 10 seconds which brightened the sky considerably and it also smoothed out the surface of the lake... a nice landscape shot... The loons (and all wildlife, for that matter) have been rather elusive this year. My latest loon count is at only four loons on the lake this year. Last year we had at least seven... I know this s

Today was another stunningly beautiful day. We expected the rains from the remnants of the tropical storm (named "Bill" according to Sheila) to cause problems for much longer than we experienced. Fortunately, this storm hit us through the night and left us with a beautiful day today. Last night, however, was brutal!  We had high winds and heavy rains while the winds blowing across the lake and toward our house caused a bit of a rise in lake elevation on our side of the lake like a mini-storm surge. The lake completely covered our beach and even made its way up a few steps toward the lawn.  This storm reminded me of terrible storms on the waterfront of Long Island when I was growing up. I laid in bed worrying about the power, the roof and the boats while wondering what the high winds were blowing away from our deck and yard. This house is sort of like a houseboat as it is perched out over the lake so the house was also making many unusual sounds as it was battered by