This Family Rocks!

This is "my rock" this is where I like to sit and soak up some sun and just feel the peace of the water. This day the water was very rough, usually the rock is dry and a fine place to rest on a summer afternoon.

Last night my friend and I went to the lake after dinner. There must have been 20 or more people there. Six ( including him) of ten of his brothers and sisters were there plus their children, grandchildren and of course his Mom. This is so different from my semi-solitary only child existance! The giggles and pure energy of the little ones in different stages of swimming, marshmallow eating and just plain excitement gives me faith that life is good which is something I haven't really felt alot in the past couple of years. So, thank you family #2 you rock and make me believe life really is good.

Ahhhh Summer

I grew up in the NYC area of New York, down there the seasons are all well defined. Winter melts into spring somewhere around the actual date, flowers bloom in April and summer slides in after spring has had a chance to prepare you for warm weather. Autum is crisp and cool and it never snows in autumn, winter is dark and cold and the chance of a white Christmas is minimal but has been known to happen.
Here in NNY most seasons seem to just run over each other, it can snow in autumn, things really don't bloom alot until the end of spring ,almost summer and then, like a huge natural fireworks display, summer EXPLODES in the north country. Green is the greenest green anywhere, the sky is the bluest blue, flowers are amazing in the purity of their color! It seems like one goes to sleep one night to a semi-gray world and wakes up to COLOR! Bright color, amazing color like a gift to make up for all the months of fading color and just plain gray.
I was back on my favorite rock the other day looking at the lake and the surrounding shoreline and it was so colorful and so peaceful. I can actually feel the tension just drain out of me and all my worries just float away on the puffy clouds. Ahhhhh summer, maybe I appreciate it so much because every year it's a new fireworks display.

Just a Nice Day

Some days are the perfect definition of a season. Today was a perfect summer day. Warm but not too hot, not very humid, bright sunshine, the kind of day that makes even someone like me who rarely communes with nature want to be outside.
So outside I was, at my friend's family "camp" on the lake. They have a nice cabin just about 10 feet from the shoreline of the lake. I waded out to a big rock about 6 feet from shore and just sat there looking at the amazing rocks on the bottom and enjoying the warm sun on my skin. My friend loves rocks , he says he should have been a geologist. So, I was picking out unusual rocks and he was telling me about them, nice place for a casual science lesson.
My friend has a large family unlike my only child of an only child with an only child situation so there were nieces, nephews, sisters, brothers and even his Mom in evidence. It was nice to be with a big family and just observe and sometimes participate in the family groove. All in all it was a lovely day that I hope I can repeat before the end of the all too brief north country summer.