Reflections on the Third Week of Summer – A Bumbling Swim

Daylilies

Sweat rolling down my nose, I squinted in Monday’s sunshine to read the sign on the YMCA door.

Pool closed.

Sorry for the

inconvenience.

Did a baby spew diarrhea into the water? Maybe the chlorine pump broke again. The reason would determine how long the pool stayed closed. I opened the door and walked to the sign-in desk. Another pool closed sign and the receptionist, who hung up the phone and flashed a sunny smile, greeted me. 

“Why is the pool closed?” I set my swim bag at my feet.

Color drained from her face. She frowned. “The roof collapsed and fell into the pool. Such chaos! They hustled to get everyone out of the water.”

Glad to have missed that adventure, I closed my gaping mouth. “Do you know when it will be fixed?”

She lifted her empty hands, palms upward. “No one knows. It just happened before you arrived. Call or check Facebook before you come again. And you can use your Y-membership to swim at the MARC. They open in a hour.”

Wait an hour to swim at an unfamiliar place? Not in my comfort zone. “Thanks.” I picked up my swim bag for the half hour trek back to Wells Wood. 

Would my arthritis act up if I waited a week to swim? Sheesh, with the Independence Day holiday mid week, the repair might take longer.

So after checking Facebook Tuesday morning―pool closed until further notice―I researched Meadville Area Recreation Complex online, drew two maps, and shouldered my swim bag. Feeling as apprehensive and alone as I did the first day of kindergarten when the teacher separated me from my neighbor Mark because “Boys don’t sit with girls,” I headed for the unfamiliar pool.

In the middle of a square desk in the lobby, the receptionist rested her forehead on her arms. Her red hair cascaded over the counter.

I walked to the desk and cleared my throat.

She didn’t look up.

“Excuse me,” I said. “This is my first time at the MARC. The pool at the Y is closed. How do I sign in here?”

She lifted her face revealing acne as red as her hair and an expression of surprise at my ignorance. The teenager pointed to a scanner on an adjacent side of the desk. “Scan your Y-card there.”

Before her forehead touched her arms again, I asked a second question. “Where’s the woman’s locker room.”

Her head jerked up with the same surprised expression. “Right there.” She pointed. “Behind you.”

Feeling as dumb as she seemed to judge me, I walked to the adjacent side of the desk, scanned my card, and looked longingly at the exit. Then I walked into the locker room.

Unlike the YMCA, the lockers had their own keys and required money. I read the directions. Deposit money in the slot. Close the door. Take the key. How much money? I followed a running toddler around the bank of lockers to his mom.

She watched him run past then glanced up at me.

“Do you know how much money I need to put in the locker?”

She yanked a bathing suit up the legs of the boy’s sister. “I think it’s fifty cents.”

“Thanks.” I returned to the locker. Ask the redhead how much money for sure, or just pay the fifty cents? I unzipped my coin purse and pulled out two quarters.

The mom shouted from around the corner. “Make sure you have everything you need before you close the door. You have to pay each time you open and close the door.”

Determined not to be a wuss and ask more questions, I walked about the locker room finding the bathroom, dressing stalls, and showers before I happened on the pool entrance. Walking through it, I surveyed a huge, unfamiliar space.

The pool was the size of three or four YMCA pools and shaped like an upside down and backward L. Only a dozen people splashed in the immense space. None swam laps. I walked to the nearest life guard, another teenager, and asked where to swim laps.

He pointed to a six foot wide lane running across the far end of the pool, the top of my upside down L.

“Thanks,” I said, marched to the end of the pool, and set my swim bag on the bleachers. I inched down the ladder into water colder than in the YMCA pool―not a problem on a sweltering day.

Alone in the lane, I pulled and kicked for breast stroke. Each time my head bobbed up for air, I looked for a sign stating the length of the lane. No length. Just depth markings from four to eleven feet.

Swimming buddies at the YCMA had told me that the MARC had longer lanes, but did they mean the length of the smaller or larger rectangle section? None of them were around to ask.

I could measure my swim by time rather than lengths. At the YMCA, I swam five-sixths of a mile in fifty-five minutes. I bobbed and checked for clocks. Two large circular pace clocks sat at the end of the lane. The hands didn’t move on either clock. And I couldn’t see a standard clock.

Great Spangled Fritillary on Butterfly Bush

Switching to side stroke, I decided to swim seventy-four lengths, like I do at the YMCA, and relaxed in the soothing water. I’d calculate the distance later.

With peripheral vision, I watched more and more people join the folks in the main section of the pool. Children jumped off diving boards in deep end adjacent to the lap lane. After my fifty-sixth length, a preteen slipped into the lap lane and pulled a bathing cap onto her head.

Stopping backstroke, I stood and asked, “Where do you want to swim?”

She stuck her index finger into the water at her side. “I’ll stay here.”

I assumed she meant by the edge of the lane rather than in just that spot. “Okay, I’ll swim in the middle.”

The girl only swam six lengths then I had the lane to myself again. Why hadn’t any of the other Y-regulars come to the MARC?

After length seventy-four, I climbed out of the pool―blood tingled through my extremities and air flowed to the bottom of my lungs. A refreshing swim. But how long?

I picked up my bag and headed toward the locker room. A new teenager sat in the life guard chair. When I stopped beside her, she looked down at me with an angelic smile.

“How long is the lap lane?”

She shook her head. “Sorry. I don’t know.”

“Would it be okay if I measured it after I take my shower?”

“Sure,” she said without a twinge in her lips as if people asked her to measure the pool every day. “You can come back and measure after your shower.”

Shower.

Yikes! I hadn’t packed a towel because the YMCA provides towels for its patrons. The MARC didn’t have piles of towels stacked anywhere.

If I showered in my suit, I could dry outside in the sunshine―and get sunburned. Dry with my t-shirt? Not unless I drove home in my bra or a sopping shirt.

I showered, dripped to the bathroom, and pulled eight paper towels from the dispenser. Hiding behind the curtain of a dressing stall, I patted my body to damp―perfect for a sweltering day.

After dressing, I fished a measuring tape out of my purse. But kneeling on the wet deck in dry clothes didn’t appeal to me. I carried my gear and the measuring tape to the front desk.

The redhead had her back to me. She colored a design and chatted with the life guard I’d asked about the length of the lap lane.

The life guard stared at me.

The redhead saw the her friend stare so turned around. She walked to my side of the desk and said, “How can I help you?”

“How long is the lap lane?” I waited for her surprise at my ignorance expression. It didn’t come.

“Twenty-five yards.”

I waved the measuring tape. “Thanks. You saved me the trouble of measuring.”

She nodded and went back to her drawing.

Maybe she was just sleepy when I’d arrived around noon. The next time I swim at the MARC, I’ll ask her how much money to put in the locker.

In the car I pulled out a notepad and did the math.

75 feet X 74 lengths = 5550 feet

5550 feet / 5280 feet per mile = 1.05 miles 

My cheek muscles squeezed into a grin―not bad for bumbling my way through swimming in a strange pool.

Thursday, when I pulled a towel out of the cupboard for my trip to the MARC, the phone rang.

“Hi, this is Christine,” a youthful voice said on the other end of the line. “I’m calling to invite you to the July birthday party for seniors at the Y Thursday, July twelfth from nine-thirty to eleven. We’ll have a present for you and cupcakes.”

“Thanks for the invitation.” I stuffed the towel beside the shampoo and conditioner in my swim bag. “Do you know when the pool will open again?”

“It’s not open now.” She paused. “I’m looking at the schedule. It will open at eleven for lap swim.”

Open at eleven for lap swim? “Great!” I pulled the towel out of my bag. “I’ll jump in the car and race right up.”

She chuckled. “The pool will be open when you get here.”

The pool was open with four of my buddies swimming laps.

I hustled in and pushed off the side for breast stroke.

Fifty-five minutes later, I stopped for cool down stretches.

Eva, the swimmer who hobbles to the pool then swims like a silver streak, stopped at the end of an adjacent lane and pulled off her goggles. “Wasn’t that something about the pool closing Monday?”

Nodding, I pushed my goggles to the top of my head. “Did the roof really fall in?”

“No!” She lay on her back, reached her hands over her shoulders to grab the side of the pool, and pedaled with her feet. “A leak from a sink or a toilet up there made the tiles soggy. Three fell into the pool.” She pointed to the door where people in wheel chairs enter the YMCA. “I came around and looked through that open door. A lot of dirt and debris floated in the pool. The mess must have been up in the ceiling for ages.”

No wonder the pool opened in less than a week. “I swam at the MARC Tuesday because the Facebook page said the pool was closed. Did you?”

“Facebook was wrong.” She switched to her stomach and doggy paddled in place. “I called Tuesday morning and waited a looooooooooooong time for the receptionist to find out if the pool was open. It was. I swam here Tuesday.”

After all I went through, the YMCA pool had opened Tuesday? Sheesh!

Roman Candle

Reflections on the Second Week of Summer – Blue and Green

#5 Blue and Green Framing

“What are you doing about your blog this week?” My son Charlie stacked the playing cards after our second game of cribbage on the porch Friday morning.

I dropped the pegs into the cribbage case. “I don’t know. I only have a lame idea.”

He stuck the cards in the case. “Well, what are you planning for the weekend?”

Turning my head, I gazed over the north garden to the blue, blue sky and the green, green landscape. “Nothing―except writing my blog.”

He chuckled. “You’ve got to have a better plan than that.”

Leaning back in the wicker chair, I inhaled the intense perfume of milkweed flowers in the field and listened to the phoebe lead the rollicking bird chorus. “Summer’s here. Because the sky’s so blue and the landscape’s so green, I want to be outside. I challenged myself to do ten activities outside this week Ten different activities. Weeding ten times wouldn’t celebrate summer.”

“Yeaaaaaaah.” Charlie waved his hand in a circle. “What have you done so far?”

#1 Yoga

Holding one hand palm up, I touched the thumb with the index finger of the other hand. “I did yoga on the deck twice, but that only counts once.

#2 Read

I read on the love seat during a thunderstorm, stencil bleached

#3 Stencil Bleach

butterflies for a patchwork purse, and coaxed you out onto the porch to play cribbage.” I scrunched my forehead. “That’s only four. And a list doesn’t make a story.”

#4 Cribbage

His eyes sparkled. “There’s your arc. You get frustrated, think you’re going to fail, then force yourself to make it work. Start with me asking what you’re doing for your blog and you not having any idea.” He shifted on the love seat. “Count our talk about framing the story out here on the porch as number five.”

He had the frustration and failure right. “What about humor? I like to sprinkle humor in the blog.”

He grinned. “Forcing the blog has implicit humor.”

Forcing a blog sounded like torture to me. Maybe he meant watching me struggle would be humorous.

He grabbed the arm of the love seat and straightened his back. “Add ten photos, one for each activity.”

Okay. He’d strung the idea too far this time. “My friend Catherine from the Meadville Pennwriters group said to limit photos to three in a blog.”

He stood and stretched. “I’m sure she had a good reason for the story you were writing at the time, but this blog is different. Adding ten photos will make it funnier. Trust me.” He walked into the house, returned with his gear, and got into his car.

Leaning over the porch railing, I waved him off for his drive to work at UPS in Seneca.

Maybe Charlie had a point.

Besides, I didn’t want to go inside. I fetched my laptop and returned to the porch. Sitting in his spot on the love seat, I raced to input notes before I forgot what he’d said. Then I roughed out the beginning of his blog idea―activity six.

#6 Rough Draft

A field sparrow sang  an ode to summer, wind chimes tinkled in the breeze, and great spangled fritillaries  sipped milkweed nectar in the field. I tapped keys. Sunshine inched across the porch, over my feet, and up my shins. Toasted, I shut the laptop.

Before retreating into the cooler log house, I calculated the next piece of getting the blog together. I needed four more activities. With Saturday’s forecast of sunny and warm, I could manage three outdoor activities. But six plus three equaled nine not ten.

Maybe Charlie’s photo idea wasn’t so daft. Dashing inside to exchange the laptop for my camera and props, I created still lifes on the deck and porch―activity seven.

#7 Photos

Saturday dawned sunny, warm, and with my husband Spence at home where he could assist if I needed help―my three prerequisite conditions for washing windows. The half inside, half outside task could count as number eight for the blog. Starting at 9:00 a.m. so I’d finish by lunch, I collected rags, window cleaner, and a bucket of water. I turned to Spence. “Is it okay if I wash screens on the deck?”

His eyebrows rose two inches. “I’m waiting for the deck dry so I can stain it.”

“Okay. I’ll wash them on the porch.”

Washing screens with a dripping wet rag made a sound, like a giant zipper opening and closing, and drove robins off their porch nests. I let the screens dry in the sunshine and the robins return to their nests while I washed our two section windows inside. Each section of the window folded inward so I could reach the outside of the window. Pressing the plastic track and yanking the window toward me only worked three of four times. That fourth time I shouted, “I need your help, Spence.”

“I’m you’re guy,” he said again and again even when I called him in from the north garden.

Due to the generous coatings of dust, thistle fluff, and dead bugs, I didn’t finish until 3:45 p.m. The blazing sun had roasted the air temperature to 91ºF (33ºC). I wiped sweat off every part of my body, resigned myself to accomplishing only two outside tasks that day, and processed photos inside.

#8 Wash Windows and Screens

After dinner, the sun dipped behind the trees and I stepped outside. “I’m going to work in the garden,” I told Spence who was spraying himself with tick repellent. “What can I weed for you?”

He handed the spray can to me. “I’ve got the perfect job for you. Not weeding.”

I sprayed.

He pointed to the three covered cherry trees. “Take the cover cloth off the cherries. Untie the halves to get six sections. Use one to cover each blueberry bush in the south garden.”

“Don’t those blueberries need weeded.” I slipped on my garden gloves.

He shrugged. “Only if you want. The plants set their fruit. They’re going to do what they’re going to do.”

After unfastening and pulling the cover cloths off the cherry trees, I walked to the south garden and peered into the blueberry cages. Thistles, wild grass, and ground ivy grew through pine straw mulch. I yanked the weeds before wrapping the tops with cover cloth.

Spence brush hogged the field below me. He paused to walk over and make sure I was managing. The fifth time, he said, “Time to go inside. You can finish tomorrow.”

I’d only wrapped three of the six cages, but said, “I can’t work on the blueberries tomorrow. I have to write my blog. I didn’t write anything today.”

“Just relax.” He patted my shoulder. “You can finish the cover cloth Monday or Tuesday. The berries won’t ripen that fast.”

#9 Garden Work

So steamy hot, Sunday morning, I dragged my laptop to the porch and extended the rough draft―not activity ten because I’d counted drafting the blog as number six. I just couldn’t resist the blue sky and green trees.

Then a bird squawked its distress from a Douglas fir in the tree nursery twelve feet in front of me.

Baby morning doves sitting on the ends of a Canada fir turned their heads toward the commotion. A goldfinch landed on top of a pine. A sparrow and chickadee bounced on branches near the doves. Carrying a worm in its beak, robin fluttered up from the ground. Turkeys clucked in the woods. And, walking back from the garden, Spence stared at the tree. “Some bird’s in distress. A predator's in there. Maybe a snake crawled up the tree.”

“The squawking isn’t going to bother a snake.” I said and stared at the computer screen determined to finish the draft. Which I did after the squealing stopped and way past lunchtime.

I still had one activity to go.

Forgetting the challenge and scrubbing cat litter boxes in the cool basement tempted me. But an image of Charlie floated through my mind. His eyes glowed like sparklers, and his infectious grin made my mother’s heart quiver. I wouldn’t give up.

The sun glared throughout the afternoon. I stayed inside, polished the story, and drank quarts of water. 

After dinner, the sun set behind the woods. Birds sang their evening chorus. On the porch, I squinted at my laptop to upload text, insert photos, and create links. I published my blog, activity ten.

The pieces―pegging out Charlie’s frame, writing up cards on activities, and tucking everything into a neat case, so to speak―came together in activity ten. I’d completed Charlie’s recommendations for blue and green reflections on the second week of summer.

#10 Publish Blog

What’s a country girl do on the seventh day of summer?

Bakes pie.

She bakes a cherry pie. 

3 trees + 9 years = 4 cups of pitted cherries for 1 pie

Reflections on the First Week of Summer – What’s a country girl do on the first day of summer?

4-18-09 Dwarf North Star Cherry and Four Other New Trees

What’s a country girl do on the first day of summer?

Pit cherries.

 

She pits cherries that took nine years to grow.

On April 18, 2009, a sunny Saturday, a catbird sang while my husband Spence and I lugged a shovel, post hole digger, bone meal, and a package from Miller’s Nursery containing five fruit trees. After setting the load behind our new Wells Wood garage, we ripped the paper off two Dwarf North Star cherry trees, two Black Gold cherry trees, and a Moorpark apricot like the one in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park.

Spence dug.

The post hole digger scraped against rocks and released the aroma of fresh earth.

I knelt, reached into the hole, and formed a pyramid of soil to support the tree’s bare roots. “I’m going to bake a cherry pie with the North Star cherries,” I said sprinkling bone meal.

Spence shoveled in composted horse manure. “You’ll have to wait five years.”

He had a point. The plants looked more like sticks for roasting hot dogs than trees ready to bear fruit. While I filled the holes, I broke up clumps of soil, tossed stones to the gravel driveway behind the garage, and figured, with luck, I might bake a pie when I retired in four years.

No luck.

By 2013, cold winters, nibbling deer, and infestations of insects and worms killed the sweet cherries and the apricot. The sour cherries struggled to survive. Spence planted a Montmorency cherry tree in place of the dead apricot and put the Dwarf North Star trees on life support.

• He pruned branches like a beaver gathering sticks for a dam.
• He sprayed BT on tent worms.
• He sprayed Serenade to battle fungus.
• And he sprayed Neem oil then Spinosad to control other insects.

Holding the sprayer in one hand, he pointed to the smaller Dwarf North Star with the other hand and said, “This is my favorite tree. I saved it when it gasped its death rattle.” 

Okay. I had three surviving cherry trees. I’d have cherry pie the year after I retired.

In April 2014 and during the following two Aprils, cherry trees sported white flowers with a light, sweet, fruity scent. But before the trees set fruit, a killing frost nipped every chance for a cherry season after season. 

No luck.

4-21-17 Dwarf North Star Cherry Blossoms

In April 2017, the cherry trees bore so many blossoms they rivaled the display in Washington D.C. Frosts held off until the fruits set―a promise of many cherries.

On walks, I circled the cherry trees. Giggling, I rubbed my tummy and visualized a crisscross crust atop a bubbling cherry pie.

“Something’s eating the cherries,” Spence said during dinner one June evening, “and they’re still green.”

I carried the dishes to the sink, dunked my hands in soapy water, and gazed out the window. Our Norway spruce blocked the view of the North Star trees, but I saw robins flapping on the branches of the Montmorency cherry. Sheesh. With their beaks, they didn’t need to wait for the cherries to ripen.

No luck.

This year, a cold April postponed cherry blossoms, and Spence tried a new tactic―protect the green cherries with cover cloth.

On windy June 14, we lugged cover cloth, scissors, plastic ties, and bull clips to the cherry trees.

“Take that end.” Spence held one end of a seven by thirty foot piece of cover cloth and pointed to the other hand. “Walk around the tree with it.”

“Shouldn’t we put it on top of the tree not around?” I muttered but picked up the opposite end of the cloth and walked to the other side of the Montmorency cherry.

“That’s it. Stop a hundred eighty degrees from me.” He grinned, and the cloth billowed in the wind. “Now lift.”

We lifted, the wind changed directions, and the cloth stuck against the side branches.

“If I had a pole . . .” I picked up a two foot garden stake.

Dropping his end of the cloth, Spence stepped to the old tomato patch, disconnected a five foot section of PVC pipe, and walked back. “Use this.”

Cloth in my right hand and the pole in my left, I poked the middle of the cloth with the pole.

Spence said “Lift.”

I lifted both hands. The wind billowed the cloth, and I pole-steered the floating cloth to the tree’s apex. I didn’t sing ta-da.

The cloth looked like the stripe down a skunk’s back―too narrow. Besides, the ends flapped like a great blue heron at take off. We pulled the cloth off the tree.

“We can weigh the ends with short garden stakes.” Spence bent to pick up the stake I’d rejected for lifting.

“And we can tie on a second section to widen the cloth.” I spread cover cloth on the ground and cut a second section the same size.

On hands and knees, we attached the second cloth and the garden stakes with plastic ties. Maneuvering to get the wind at our backs, we hoisted and pole-lifted the adjusted cloth until the center seam lay across the tree’s apex. Then we clamped the edges of the cloth around the branches and moved onto the Dwarf North Star Cherries.  

An hour later, I chuckled and picked up the supplies. “They look like lollipops,” I said and handed the lifting pole to Spence.

“Or ghosts.” He tossed the pole toward the old tomato patch.

The lollipop covers worked―not counting the head shake our son Charlie made when he pulled into the driveway and stared at the covered trees. Did he contemplate texting his sister about their parents’ latest fiasco? I didn’t ask, and he didn’t say.

Cherries ripened.

Wearing long sleeves, a garden hat, and tick spray, I ducked under the cover cloth two days before summer solstice. Cherry branches knocked my hat off―fine for the Montmorency cherry wrap which towered several feet over my head but worrisome inside the shorter Dwarf North Star wrap. Wasps, bumblebees, and a variety of black bugs buzzed six inches above my hair in a vain attempt to escape through the top. I didn’t help them out the bottom. Butt tight against the cover cloth and tummy sucked to its minimum, I waded through the knee-high weeds that Spence couldn’t cut because his hand mower broke―again. Cherries plinked into the metal picking bucket.

While I finished picking in the third tree―the tightest wrap but tall enough to keep the hovering bugs at a comfortable distance―Spence drove his tractor into the garage. He walked me back to the log house and said, “It really does look like a ghost when someone’s in there. It moves.”

So on the first day of summer, I pitted the plateful of cherries I’d harvested from Wells Wood trees. During the tedious task of cutting around the pit with the tip of a paring knife, twisting the cherry to separate the halves, and flicking out the pit with the knife tip, I contemplated buying a pitter. Tiny white worms in three cherries changed my mind. I preferred to inspect the insides of anything I put in my mouth. I set the cherries, that passed my visual test, in rows and columns on a tray from a long dead toaster oven then shoved all but one of the cherry halves into the freezer. I popped that last half cherry into my mouth for an almost-as-sour-as-lemon sensation with just a hint of a sweet cherry flavor. Great for a pie.

I pitted a second plateful two days later. If the rain stops long enough so I can pick a third plateful of cherries, I’ll have enough to bake the pie I dreamed about nine years ago.

6-19-18 Covered Cherry Trees