October 15, 2021
It was dark. It was pitch black and only seven o’clock in the evening. But it was October and Thanksgiving in Canada and time to close the cottage. It is an annual ritual. We usually close the cottage by Thanksgiving. The good thing about being dark early is that I can set a fire in the fireplace that creates a warm ambiance altho one does not need the heat: it is still warm. But, the day we arrived to close the cottage, we needed the heat. We jumped into the lake in the afternoon, with our short wet suits on, and had a refreshing swim. I am not sure why, but the cold water always puts me in a positive and energetic mood; one has to swim hard to keep warm in the cold water. When I came out of the water, I did not feel cold at all. It comes half an hour later when your body fully registers the cooling effect of the water. By that time, my fire was roaring and the tiles in the stove were radiating warm air.
We discuss when to close the cottage every year. On the island where we have the cottage, it is very inviting to stay late into the Fall: few people are around; the leaves are turning many colors, and we see the occasional deer. Walking is a refreshing way to pass time there. And since we bought wetsuits, we challenge ourselves to keep going into the lake later and later in the season. Especially when in October there are hardly any boats and the water is perfectly still like a mirror, inviting you for a dip. But city activities start and I do not want to miss my friends at the gym and the community center playing bridge. On balance, though, we end up at the cottage a few days longer, the swims and walks win out.
This year, we had an unpleasant start arriving at the cottage for closing it; the boat would not start. The cottage is on an island, and we take a boat from the marina to get to the island. The battery had no power to start the boat. It was a Friday night when the marina was closed. We felt abandoned and considered going home. But Kathy negotiated with some other islanders who just arrived that they could drop us off at their cottage and we would walk on the island to get to ours. Fortunately for us, our friends, marina workers living next to the marina, were going out to Kingston, saw us stranded, and obliged us by changing the battery before they left.
Although we used to have turkey for Thanksgiving, the last few years we skipped it; there is much to be done without carrying food to the island and then taking the leftovers home. Instead, we prefer to use up what we have in the fridge. But a memory came back to me. I remembered the time when I prepared a turkey at the cottage only to find that our stove element burned out. Lateral thinking triggered unexpected action. Take the large dish with the turkey in it to a neighbor’s kitchen. The neighbors were not there. I climbed thru a window to take the turkey into the neighbor’s house, to cook. I hoped the neighbors would not show up. After the turkey was cooked, I opened all the windows to get rid of the smells, hoping nobody would arrive until the next day.
Cottage closing is usually the last visit to the cottage for the year. This year, I had already done some closing chores: took off the “sail” sunshade that was over the deck and returned the aluminum fishing boat to the marina for winter storage, leaving us the inboard/outboard boat for moving back and forth between the cottage and the marina. And I have already disconnected the portable air-conditioner. But we had to lay the carpet and arrange the furniture in the sleeping cabin, which just received a new roof the previous week. A few weeks ago, we pulled up the carpet and moved the furniture to avoid water damage awaiting roof replacement.
But the closing of the cottage is much more than the physical work of wrapping up the outdoor furniture, placing the kayaks and canoes next to each other, putting away the paddles, lifting the swimming ladder onto the dock, cleaning inside, etc. It is a mind shift from summer to fall activities. It is the end of a season where many friends came out to the cottage and shared good times with us when we discussed politics with those who would discuss it without getting into useless arguments and enjoyed BBQs on the deck overlooking the lake. It is the end of the hot season when all the fans in the cottage worked to keep us moderately comfortable without dipping into the lake to cool off. It is the end of boating, sailboarding, waterskiing, and just taking long swims across the bay to visit our friends, who offered us a gin and tonic while standing up in the water in front of their cottage. As well, this year we welcomed back our American friends who could not come to Canada the previous year because of Covid but appeared the first day they were allowed in on August 9. Closing the cottage means the end of summer activities. But it also means the beginning of planning the Fall activities going forward Xmas. We thought of visiting family in the US for Thanksgiving. That was a troublesome thought since the US border was not open for car travel by Canadians, but just last night the White House announced that they’ll open the Canadian border to fully vaccinated Canadians in early November. So now we can plan our trip South. We covered the furniture in the cottage with plastic sheets to protect it from dust that would accumulate for the next six months; emptied the bar fridge and the food fridge, and shut the main breaker. The last item leaving the cottage was to place mice poison in a couple of locations.
andrasthehun.ca 