I went out to the lake today for obvious reasons (it’s hot here), but mainly because the boat was being delivered. I never know what time, so I was carrying my phone around with me, doing little odd jobs here and there, waiting for the call. I went down to the lake and was digging around the footings of the steps to the lake (the steps started out unstable, and now they’re a cobbled together, still unstable, health hazard). Jean was out planting flowers in areas that the sprinkling system doesn’t reach so I’ll have something to do each day… the manly job of watering flower beds. Anyway, as I’m wading around in the water, she walked by a tree and said, “What’s this yellow paper for?”, like I could read it from 20 feet away. It said that the lake had been treated for weeds and there was to be no swimming, watering lawns, contact of any kind, etc. until dates specified on the notice. Too late!

Even after reading the note, Jean got in the water with me, and used the shovel handle to lift the side of the steps (lever…science class) while I reached underneath, pulled out the patio stones on one side, and inserted a thinner patio stone under the leg by the seawall to level the whole thing up again – sort of. She kept stepping on stones and rubble that had been piled near the legs to stabilize them, saying ouch and repositioning her foot. Finally after about the third time she said, “That’s better”, to which I replied, “Of course it’s better ‘cuz you’re standing on top of my foot”. We were in the middle of moving the stones and repositioning so she couldn’t let go of the shovel handle and couldn’t move off from my foot. We were both laughing so hard I thought she would drop the steps just as I reached underneath. Did I ever mention that Jean and I don’t work well together?

Kyle Matteson called and the boat would be delivered at 5 PM. Jean stayed around long enough to take me over to the landing so I didn’t have to drive over, bring the boat back, then walk two miles back to the landing to get my car. The marina had done some carburetor work last fall so it would idle better, and it did. I took the boat back to the cottage and docked it. I did have a couple of problems. One was that I had a mooring line for the stern, but I had taken the one off the bow and couldn’t remember where I put it. So when I docked, I was able to hold the back of the boat to the dock, but the front end swung out about fifteen feet. I had untied all the dock bumpers, so I retied them in three spots, setting the height for the height of the dock. I went inside and found the bow line in the basement walkout, so I took it out, pulled the bow back in, secured the bow, and the boat was docked.

I noticed when I jumped from the boat to the dock with the stern line in my hand that the dock seemed a little mushy and unstable. I looked and the outermost corner nearest the boat had sunk four inches under my massive weight. How do I know it was four inches, you ask? Because we set the dock so it rested on the cross-pieces four inches above the water. Now that corner of the dock is in the water.

Just (Will It Ever End) Jack