We stopped by Bill and Diane Rossi's this afternoon to meet their guests from Russia - two very charming young men, Pavel who is a printer, and Aleksandr, a photographer. Pavel showed us pictures of the three lovely women in his life, his wife and two daughters. I'm sorry we didn't find out about Aleksandr's family. The men are visiting this country with a Rotarian group and I think today at Joe's Pond was a welcome break in the accelerated pace that's been set for them. Diane and Bill took them up the channel in kayaks this morning and they saw the loon family. Tonight they were going to make dinner for Bill and Diane - a special Russian chicken soup and salad. Diane said it was a pleasant surprise not to have to cook. Later this evening we received this photo. That's Aleksandr on the left, with Pavel getting ready to mix some drinks.

When we left there, we went to see Jamie and Marie for a few minutes. Jamie has been hard at work refurbishing "Raja," our family's rather elderly inboard. I think this is at least the third time Jamie has repainted it from bare wood stage. I haven't seen it since he's been putting final coats on, but it will be in "mint condition" when he's through, I'm sure. It will be nice to see it in the water again this summer. We didn't have it out at all last year.

Speaking of summer, I noticed tonight we have lots of fireflies blinking outside in the darkness. June bugs have been here for at least a couple of weeks, but I hadn't noticed the little lightning bugs. We collected them in glass jars when we were kids, but we always had to let them go again. I think it's early for them to be out.

There have been reports of heavy rain and wind storms in the area today, but we haven't experienced any of that. The wind picked up a little from time to time, but no strong wind and hail like some places got. It was actually nicer today than forecast, with quite a bit of sunshine between cloudy periods and a couple of showers. It will be interesting to see how tomorrow shapes up.

From Evelyn this morning:

Small update... last night the family did leave the cove for the main
pond... the nest is empty... (no second egg)... they no doubt 'bumped' it
off the nest sometime after the first egg hatched... We have
documentation that the second egg was there on the nest after the chick
hatched.

Thanks to all!  Blessings, Evelyn