Next Swims: Thurs & Fri 6am
Last Swim: Wednesday 06/13, 6am
Water Temp: 59.6
Clarity: zero
Waves: flat as glass
Crew: Kahuna, Mitch, Scooby, Showgirl, Mike (first swim with the Kru!), and Diablo was working the early shift
Skin/Suit: 2.5/3
Kahuna said I should lie about the temperature so that more people would come to swim. I said that if people came and experienced the real water temp thinking it should be warmer, they wouldn't come back. This is just another incident in a long line of Kahuna-Showgirl lakeside disputes. Please reference the False Phlox Brouhaha of 2016, where, as I recall, one of the parties ultimately conceded. And it wasn't me.
But I digress.
It was such a beautiful morning. The sun was already high above the horizon and the air was balmy and humid. The water was flat with occasional ruffles. We swam north. Along the way we educated our newest swimmer, Mike from L.A., about the sewer pipe (Kahuna-Showgirl altercation #2 of the morning: he prefers "downspout") and then swam on to the birches.
Back in the parking lot, Kahuna and I came to our first agreement of the morning, and we declare that morning swims are ON for 2018.
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Speaking of Phlox, I’m sure you’ll be interested to know that Matriarch’s great-great-grandfather was an original settler and considered to be a founder of Phlox, Wisconsin, a small north woods town near Antigo. When he died the priest would not allow him to be buried in the parish cemetery. It’s not clear why exactly, but I can’t say I’m surprised as I’ve observed a strong strain of contrarion pigheadedness in Matriarch’s family. Whatever the reason, he was buried elsewhere, but a few days later his sons dug him up and secretly reburied him in the parish cemetery.
I believe they call that gumption! Great story.
When one is riding along the OLT these days, looking at all the tall pretty flowers along the trail with white, pink or purple flowers, do not refer to them as wild phlox, because while they may look a lot like phlox (especially at the speeds I bike), they are actually dame's rocket (which one can easily ascertain, if one is a pokey-speed biker, like Showgirl).
More on making the morphological distinction:
"Lots of people mistake dame's rocket for wild phlox, but there are a few easy ways to tell the difference. For one thing, any wild phlox growing around here would be in good rich soil, not just anywhere there's open ground, and phlox blooms later in the summer. If you look closely at the flowers you'll see that dame's rocket flowers have four petals and phlox will have five, matching the number of letters in their names. And also dame's rocket leaves are positioned alternately along its stems, not opposite like phlox leaves. The position of a plant's leaves on its stems can often help with difficult identifications."
For more on dame's rocket, and to find out about its edibility, and aphrodisiac properties (not to mention its usefulness in "curing freckles" and treating snake bites), see this link: https://www.motherearthliving.com/plant-profile/an-herb-to-know-dames-rocket. (As an aside, freckles are not something that need to be "cured," IMO.)
One thing Showgirl was right about though is that it was a lovely morning for a refreshing swim.
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