Ducklings on Duck Cove!

The President and Mrs. Obama had an evening out without the children Saturday, and then the family went home on Sunday morning. It was nice to have them here (they vacation busily!) but the Island seems calmer without them, too, which is also nice.

Sunday Papa Bear watched the Tour de France while Mama Bear went to worship at St. John's. The Rev. George Swanson presided. For the sermon, he invited the congregation to reflect on what are our necessities. The word is from the Collect for the day, and the response from the congregation was largely centered on the Gospel text, the story of Mary and Martha. Many felt we do not celebrate the Martha's enough for what they do. Rev. George shared with me after the service that in the Middle Ages, the Cloud of Witness was struck by the fact that Jesus spoke to Martha: for that to happen was, at the time, a huge honor. One congregant wanted Jesus to say something like, "Martha: I recognize you have been working hard. Take a moment and join us and I will help you clean up later." But Jesus did not, and apparently moved far outside the normal conventions of the time even speaking to Martha. Much to ponder here.

We played at home and Papa Bear watched the Red Sox that afternoon.

On Monday, Mama Bear did her run/walk, we did some cleaning, and Papa Bear made strawberry sorbet. We used a new recipe: I like Boo Boo's recipe better, though both are good. We also did our grocery shopping early this week, and stopped by the vet in Bar Harbor to obtain some cat food. Still have not found the Real Pickles Dills for which we are searching. One of the stores carried them when we first arrived, but no longer does. These pickles are amazing and if we cannot find them soon, we will be ordering them.

We saw ducklings on Duck Cove! They seemed to having a great time!! (See picture at beginning of this blog entry.)


And we found Maine blueberries!!! They are so sweet and so small and so great!!! Mama Bear has had them with local raspberries (also great) and with a lovely peach, too, as well as all by themselves. We have a few blueberries on a bush near the street and what appear to be raspberries growing, too, though ours have yet to ripen so they could be something else.

Tuesday a.m. we took a bike ride under a blue and scattered cloud sky. It was cool and comfortable and so much fun. We await the delivery of desks later today and need to gather what we need for the trip to Chicago soon. The Cat and Mama Bear took a stroll to the cove. Mama Bear sat on a rock and surrounded The Cat with her arms while The Cat looked around. The Cat eventually took some tentative steps from Mama Bear's arms to the rock, and then Mama Bear and The Cat went back to the House on the Cove.

Weather forecast is for a nice day today, a nice day tomorrow, some rain overnight, and then more nice days. Life is, despite the predictions of an apocalypic event on 21 December 2012 on the television program on the Discovery channel, simply grand!