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Views From the Kayak – Upstate New York

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Last month, our family of four, plus the dog, drove 600 miles from Grosse Pointe to Glenfield, New York. My Dad has a spot on a small no-motors-allowed lake at the tip of the Adirondack Park, where we spent most of our time.

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Some of my favorite times were spent out on the lake on the kayak. In the mornings, the lake is like glass. I got up close to waterlilies and purple pickerel…

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picked wild berries….

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and just enjoyed being alone.

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I almost got caught in a storm once, which was scary, but I made it back to shore in time (and I did get a very good workout that day).

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My sweet buddy Sam got very upset whenever I went out on the kayak. If he wasn’t held back, he would try to swim out to me, which is concerning since he is not as great of a swimmer as he used to be.

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His eyes (or perhaps his smell) are still excellent, though, as he could spot me from far away, and would run to the edge of the dock to await my return.

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Family + Telling the Girls + Bugs

Family portrait

Spring 2012

I haven’t talked about my family a whole lot yet, but family is pretty much the whole reason for the move. This is probably my favorite photo of my three loves. My husband (who is the most private person I know – bless his heart for not collapsing when I told him about the blog) was being silly with the girls one morning and I captured this sweet moment. Lucy was about six months old and Penny had just turned three.

Speaking of the girls, we finally told them about the move last night. The first words out of Penny’s mouth were, “I’m not really that excited because I don’t like walking in Michigan….they have worms!” Not the response we were expecting, exactly, although it wasn’t entirely out of left field. Last summer when we were there, Penny was freaked out by all the bugs.

In the backyard

In the backyard. (No bugs.)

To her credit, they were kind of creepy, especially when they crawled up from the dirt and onto the hot stones of Nana’s deck or concrete sidewalks of the neighborhood. They would writhe around, flipping and flopping, and if they couldn’t find their way back to the earth, they would eventually shrivel up and die. There were also lots of beetles and bees and other flying insects. We rarely see bugs here, even in our backyard.

I feel her pain. Bugs make ms jumpy, too. My gross-out Michigan bug moment was during my early evening runs. Every couple of blocks, I would run through a swarm cloud of tiny bugs in a funnel formation (what were they doing? And what kind of bugs were they? I would Google it, but then I’d have to look at buggy photos). Every once in a while I would inhale one. I got to where I could spot them up ahead, and whenever I reached a swarm, I would flail my arms in an attempt to keep any bugs from entering my nose or mouth. Sometimes I’d let out a battle cry while doing it. Preeetty sure the locals could tell I wasn’t from around there.

Penny and I have some manning up to do, for sure (she’s been talking about worms all morning), especially since I plan on composting and planting an edible garden. I’ll let you know how it goes down.