While I swam an almost illegible alphabet this summer, a Canadian ran an animated stick man in Toronto!
I have to step up my game.
gps swim track
The moment you’ve been waiting for
Well I did it. I swam all 26 letters of the alphabet with a few repeats. Some need imagination. By my count, we swam in 10 lakes and ponds this summer.
Please enjoy My Alphabet Book
“W” is for whirlwind
It has been a crazy couple of weeks. First we went camping to evade a music festival in town.
We worked out a kayak lift system that didn’t break us. We hitched our kayaks to a horse drawn carriage and were transported in comfort to the shore of a beautiful lake.
We loaded up the boats and headed to our favorite campsite, complete with Adirondack chairs.
It was sunny but cool. I swam my final letter in the alphabet, “W”, and sunned myself on a rock to stave off hypothermia. Tim swam longer than me and had a harder time warming up.
Not my best but it’s too cold to keep swimming.
We found a great tent site, where a tree had already fallen. Nature won’t strike twice in the same place, would she?
We sat and looked at the water and clouds for hours on end.
We returned home Sunday, I worked Monday, we went out to dinner for our 18th anniversary, then packed again.
We are back on Seguin Island! This will be about our 14th fall. We spent summer 2008 ad season caretakers and have returned most years since then to help close up the island in the fall.
We packed enough food and water for as long as we will be here. Luckily the Wednesday Warriors were here and they were a big help hauling our gear from the boat to the beach and then up the hill.
We were soon joined by one set of kids and grand kiddos. What a blast. Naturally we ate lobster and corn, found beach glass, hiked trails, gave tours of the tower, flew airplanes, cracked crab claws, watched sunsets, ate delicious meals, hunted crickets in the kitchen, and played lots of cards.
That’s them at the sunset bench we built in 2008.
Great memories are made here.
“V” is for victory
Although I tried to complete the alphabet today, I messed up “W”. There’s still time.
Kayaks are loaded on the car, bags are packed and we’re taking a horse and carriage ride into Great Camp Santononi tomorrow. And maybe I will get to swim.
First I have to pick out my camping, knitting project.
On a roll
We hiked with friends on Sunday and then swam to freeze off. We created, what I am sure would have been, a beautiful “R” but my gps hiccuped. Instead, I improved my “P”.
Today I was motivated and it paid off. Three letters! I could still feel my fingers when I was done. Drumroll…
“T” is missing because I already swam it when a “K” fail became a “T”.
Since I started at the end of the alphabet, I only have one, maybe two letters left. Maybe, because I could flip an “M” to make it a “W”.
We’re going kayak camping this weekend. I may really complete this challenge.
Minding my “P’s and Q’s”
They are both a bit of a stretch but autumn is coming. It was 49 degrees at home this morning! I swam with a brave friend who let out such a whoop when she got in the water, it echoed for minutes off the cliffs around Chapel Pond.
Not sure what I triangulated. Or how it happened. I split the letters into 2 swims to keep it neat. It’s hard enough retracing one letter. I had to quit early because a few fingers went numb.
My “Q” is weak.
Autumn is coming!
So I knit my fourth pair of jaywalker socks.
Just say no
Or not yet to fall. A tree has already changed in the Adirondacks.
But I’m stil swimming.
Letters of the day: “N & O”. It took a bit of flipping and turning to make it legible. I stopped the track when I was still across the lake so I didn’t have to backtrack.
JK
Just kidding and just “K”
Tim and I tackled a home project today. We had to replace the hardware on a twenty year old casement window. Its last straw was when a windstorm ripped it right off its track.
It is a large heavy window, nice to look through but not to hold from the second story. We had our troubles. I installed the hardware backwards and Tim struggled with a track. We were saved when a strapping young man gave us a helping hand.
They got the new hardware started in the tracks and left me to finish the job. I did but left this note for Tim.
“Gone swimming to drown my sorrows”. This was followed inside by another note which said simply, “JK”.
And here’s just “K”.
I’m pretty happy with it. I only swam one letter because thunderstorms were predicted and the sky was getting dark.
Here’s the raw form.
I’m hopeful we will have enough days left for open water swimming to fill in the rest of the alphabet before we are relegated back to 25 meter swim lanes.
Shaking it up
The water is starting to warm up again. I swam without getting hypothermia and there were even a few other people splashing in the lake.
“KLM” Is next but there are issues.
I don’t know what happened with this “K”. The bottom leg is way too close to the start.
But if I flip it over, I’m ahead of the game and have a “T”.
“M” needed a little tweaking.
Not sure what I was thinking when I started it sideways.
Next up is controversial. I took a short run for the first time in quite a while.
And ran an “L”. I’ll have to think about this one.
In the meantime, the wildlife is getting very comfortable in our front yard. The other day, I woke a fawn up when I went to check on my bees.
It was a dark and foggy swim
And it was perfect. It looked intimidating when I arrived, rain and thunderstorms were predicted for later.
I had the pond to myself and it was a good thing because I have to get busy. Water temperature is dropping as nights get cooler. I heard it was 30 f degrees last night on Goodnow Mountain.
All I know is my fingers go numb from Raynaud’s phenomenon at about 45 minutes. Today, I brought a dry change of clothes, wool hat and fleece jacket, so I was better prepared. Then I cranked the car heater up to 85 and took a long, hot shower when I got home.
It was a three letter day. As I try to draw more letters, their connections clog things up. I cleaned it up a bit in anticipation of my upcoming alphabet book.
I have decided order is not important because I will separate them into individual letters. May I introduce “J”, “I” and H”, better known as “HIJ”.
Island and North Country Life 