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Show Summer seems to be sneaking up on us much the way last winter did. Here we are chewing our fingernails, eyeing our boats and barbe-que barbe-que pits, waiting for the sun just as we waited for snow. Our enthusiasm is beginning to rust. There is a certain anxiety growing as we watch the days slide by on the calendar. June already? The rain is definitely cramping our style. The runners we know are cranky, sailors are testy, the cows in the fields are tired of being soggy and the horses are restless. There is little enough summer in these parts and we resent losing even a day to these cold, gusty rainstorms. There have been three notable days of sunshine and for some uncharacteristically lucky reason, two of them coincide with the opening of fishing season. For those two days of horseback riding, kayaking, picnicing, fishing and sunbathing, we are grateful but far from satiated. Last weekend felt just the way summer should feel. Early mornings were spent outside watering and encouraging encour-aging new sprouts, mowing the lawn and cleaning a winter's worth of candy wrappers out from under the seats in the car. A friend brought over some hardy starts broccoli, cauliflower and kale and we worked in the garden closely followed by a pair of robins who combed the freshly turned soil for worms. They were probably wondering at the sudden competition on the worm market, their monopoly mono-poly having been intruded upon by scores of opportunistic opportun-istic bait merchants grossing anywhere from 30 cents to 70 cents per dozen. - The rest of the day was spent stretching muscles which haven 't been used much for reading by the fire. By Sunday, everyone was complaining about stiff shoulders from paddling or achy thighs from bicycling or tired casting wrists. But the complaints were only half in earnest, and we decided they would work themselves out with more of the same. Then, just as the campers began to fold up and retreat from the valley, the lake began to kick up and the clouds returned. Just as well though, resigned to our fate, we'll be back at work on Monday. But as much as we tried to ignore it, Monday was warm and beautiful and we would have oiven anything to be back on he lake with one more day of nimmer. NC HHHHm |