Wake with the Sun: Blueberriesette! ... or shall I say Kinda Blueberries!

Well, after our annual trip to Cape Cod, we are back on Lake Winnipesaukee and are settled in again. The trip to the cape included some wonderful meals and conversations with friends, beautiful swims, beach time, and more. Unfortunately for me, I also had a runin with my bike and a tree, leaving me with a cracked rib I am trying to heal. I also had the opportunity to take a poetry workshop with Alan Shapiro while I was there, working with 9 other really good poets too, and that was a very fruitful time for me.

Speaking of poetry, thank you to all who helped me out by preordering my upcoming book of poetry, Intimacy with the Wind, coming out this fall from Finishing Line Press, and I feel very humbled and grateful to you all. I worked hard to make it happen before my deadline, and now have just finished proofing the galleys and am hoping things go smoothly from here on.

Our first day back on the lake was a bit tumultuous. We arrived at Y-Landing Marina in Meredith on a beautiful sunny day. It was however, windy, and the winds were strong out of the north. The marina is protected from those north winds and we didn't realize how strong they were until we were in the thick of it. Because I am healing the cracked rib, and the trip is 2 1/2 miles to our cove on Bear Island, Claude took the paddle board, and I took the pedal kayak. We overloaded the kayak with our returning gear, and when I got out into the thick of the waves and wind, it also turned out the rudder was not fully engaged and I had trouble controlling the boat, and was taking on water, which made it even harder to control. A very nice family who watched this from the sidelines of their home came out and rescued me. We ended up leaving the kayak on their dock and they took me and the gear to our cove, while Claude paddled back. The next morning I swam the mile + over there, with my shoes floating behind me on my swim buoy, and brought the kayak back to our cove. It's tough getting around with a fractured rib, but I am learning new ways to move.

So, for the last few days, the weather has been fairly nice, and we have been going "out for dinner" or our afternoon nap and then dinner...we are more comfortable traveling by night when the waters are calm, and we put on our anchor light and eat very nice meals out on the water. We feel very much at "home.". Today was another stunning day so we decided to head to Blueberry Island... we were not disappointed!... lots of berries to pick and eat... while I was picking I had Bluesette, by Toots Thielemans and Kinda Blue by Miles Davids on my waterproof headset... kinda nice...and when I returned to the boat, a curious couple on a a jet ski came by and I gave them a tour. Now we are nestled at between Hawk's Nest Island and three Mile Island, where I took a long swim this afternoon. I have been wanting to come back to the blog, and finally here I am .

Before we left for the cape, we had a few day visits. One was an impromptu visit from a family from Beaver Island, and we ended up towing their gas motor boat with our solar-powered boat just for kicks. Another visit was from a dear friend with her two daughters plus friend of theirs. You will see some of those photos here too.

Enjoy these photos from Lake Winnipesaukee and Cape Cod. Here is one of my blueberry bounty.

This next one was taken this morning, the sunrise sunlight inside the tiny house.

Wake with the Sun Tows a Gas Boat

Here are a few sunrise and sunset pictures from our cove and from the lake

These are some dawn photos with the moon

Wake with the Sun has Visitors, and Guest Captains

Food, Glorious Food

Here you can see more of the mushroom bounty from the kitchen garden before we left for the cape. When we returned, the owners had some septic work done and that pretty much demolished the kitchen trumpet mushroom garden for a while. Well, it was good while it lasted. We put the mushrooms into our eggs each morning.

The following is a black bean and rice dish made in our Instant Pot.

Breakfast on the lake

More beans and rice... it might taste better than it looks

Lobster Mushroom I found on the way to the spring

Sailing Along

A Storm

Before we headed to the cape, we went to Blueberry Island one day to see if we could find ripe blueberries. I didn't find any. But it started out as a nice sunny day, so there were lots of boats there so we decided to move islands and anchor elsewhere. We looked at the forecast and expected clearing around 8 pm, but instead, we ended up traveling through some pretty bad thunder and lightening, and the rain held off until just before we reached out dark. One scary night. Here are some photos. Looks innocuous at first, and then you see the high-tailing loons, they knew what was coming.