LaDue & Dinner

A long hectic week so a quiet weekend sounds fine. Friday evening was spent watching the Cleveland Indians win over Kansas City. Looks like today’s game is going to be close. Would be nice if the Indians could manage the sweep. The Chiefs are playing plenty sloppy enough so the Indians should be able to pull it out. (Oops, game over as one of the Indian outfielders lost a fly ball in the sun and the Chiefs win).

Saturday Nicki and I started out with a quiet breakfast and sorting papers in front of the Rita coverage. Very relaxed.

Then Nicki took her mom to Oberlin’s Doggie Doo pooch parade. Lots of dogs and costumes and local celebrities - no cats. Ursula seemed to enjoy the outing - even had a chance to hold a small dog. I stayed home with our dogs and did schoolwork. Samantha and Cricket aren’t very civilized with their peers and wouldn’t have been a positive addition to the events. After the parade Nicki brought Ursula back to our house and she had a chance to see how we load up the kayaks.

Then we were off for another kayak excursion. This time we headed for LaDue Reservoir which is an Akron City reservoir. We had scouted it out on our trip to the Upper Cuyahoga last weekend. The first impressive event was circling an island with two trees loaded with cormorants. Cormorants are getting a bad reputation in Ohio as they are starting to have a negative effect on fishing and are competing for habitat with other birds. They are neat to watch as they take off from the water as their wing tips slap the water for the first 5 or 6 strokes. We did see several herons but they were hard to approach. The birds on this lake were much more skittish than our favorite Findley Lake.

But the waters were calm and we had a nice sunset. Took the kayaks out of the water with just enough light to tie up the boats. An odd couple with kayaks was heading out as we headed in. Not sure what they would see in the darkness. Maybe a different set of animals comes out that time of night?

On the way home we stopped at the Mustard Seed Market & Cafe - a neat natural and organic food store with a very impressive restaurant. Nicki had coconut-crusted chicken on salad greens and I had Australian Beef Filet (eight ounce filet of Aussie beef, bacon wrapped, pan seared, and served with grilled vegetables and fries). Not a bad dinner after a good outing in the kayaks.

Sunday was lawn-mowing. Samantha (our elderly main dog) has developed a peculiar behavior. She now follows me around the back yard as I mow. I think she isn't hearing the lawnmower so she isn't bothered by it. Every few rows she seems to need a bit of petting. And then she follows me some more.