August in Michigan

I'm sitting down by the river on a pleasant August afternoon, not a leaf stirring, watching the river roll by and listening to blue jays and various insect noises. Insect songs are a constant background here from spring to fall, something that seems totally missing at my other home on Whidbey Island. I love listening to them here at night, some sounding almost like zaps of electricity, some just a steady high pitched hum, some like crickets...which they probably are. It's comforting to fall asleep to.

This morning I woke up to two jays seemingly chatting with each other. One would call out, and and another more distant one would answer. The closer one would change his call a bit, and the other would answer with an identical call. This went on through quite a large repertoire of calls.

Earlier this week I attended my 40 year high school reunion. We had over 80 people turn up (including spouses) out of a class of 128, and that even with the dozen or so deaths we've had over the years. It was great to see everyone! It's amazing to see all the couples who got married right out of high school and are still together, and seem to even still like each other.

Yesterday I did my usual kayak route down the river. It's so low this time of year that I thought I would have to get out and drag at one point. The upside of low and slow is you really can just lay back and watch the sky a good part of the trip.

It's always a struggle to get back out of the kayak once back at my dads house, as the bank is about 4 feet tall an there are only a couple of cuts in it, both of which tend to be very muddy. This time I tried getting out I the water, only about a foot deep, next to the bank. So picture this: I have my right foot on a cement block and my left foot on the river bottom sunk nearly to my knee in mud. I can't extract my left foot without losing my shoe, so I'm trying to dig out my foot with my left hand while holding onto the kayak with my right. Curse words ensued, but I did finally manage it.

Heading back west early Wednesday morning.

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