Tag: swimming

Summer Reflections: Closing the Cottage Experience

October 8, 2025

It is a bittersweet event. This past summer experienced record-high temperatures, resulting in lake conditions suitable for extended periods of comfortable swimming. Family visited, and friends came, to enjoy the water activities. As we near the end of the summer, the forecast indicates colder weather next week. Although we swam with our short wetsuits on this weekend, the water cooled us off, and our stay in the water was brief. But we kayaked every day when the lake was smooth as ice and went for walks in the back.

With the leaves falling, we saw much more sky than during the summer. We have giant maple trees around us. But now with much of the foliage falling, the ground was bathed in sunlight, and the leaves formed a thick, carpet-like cover. And there were no bugs, no mosquitoes, no ticks. Nevertheless, I still wore my tick-proof jacket and long pants for protection from nasty bugs, just in case.

I saw a massive fungus on an old and diseased tree; the fungus must be over a foot in diameter, with a yellowish color and parallel lines across its surface, making it artsy. While walking through the forest after leaf fall, we observed prominent burls, mushrooms, and lichens on the trees, which were readily apparent.  And I recognized the sounds of many birds, such as the black-capped chickadee, Canada geese, American crows, blue jays, and an app on my iPhone identified the yellow-rumped warbler. The loudest, of course, were the loons on the lake.

Crossing the large green pasture, we met three deer, looking at us. They always notice you before you see them. They hear the crunch of the leaves under our feet, while they remain quiet in their movements in the forest, avoiding attention from people passing by. And they always stand sideways with their heads turned, looking at us, waiting to see if we’re going to chase them or feed them. We stopped and took some pictures of them facing us sideways. I know the fellow who lives next to the pasture most of the year and feeds the deer. That is why they are friendly towards people.

Kayaking around the lake is a friendly affair; we always chat with people sitting on their decks. And there are the fishermen who talk about the number of fish caught that day. Yesterday, the surprising social event on the water was meeting three women standing in the water. They proudly announced that that day was a record for them in terms of being in the water this late in the season. I admired them for cheerfully chattering, but surely they were suffering the pain of standing in the cold water

But it was time to close the cottage despite the summer-like weather. All the neighbors were gone except a handful of fishermen on the lake.

Closing the cottage is a process that we have done many times, and it follows a routine. I unhooked the seats in the kayaks and pulled them up onto the shore, storing them upside down along with the windsurfers and canoes. I stored the seats and paddles in the storage hut. Covering the outdoor furniture with tarps was next, while Kathy cleared out the main fridge.

The final closing steps are moving all the stuff we take home to the boat and turning off the hot water tank and pump. My friend Jeff drains the water lines and adds antifreeze to the plumbing for winter.  And a local contractor pulls my floating dock around into quiet waters to protect it from breaking from the harsh winter ice.

The last activity is to place mouse poison around the cottage. Every ten years, there is a mouse invasion. We experienced it once and try to avoid it.

We drove the boat slowly to the marina, feeling the sun on our backs and watching the shore, one final enjoyment on the lake this year. Oh, and we’ll have to let the marina know that our propeller needs straightening; we had the misfortune of hitting a rock a week ago in the extremely shallow water resulting from the hot and dry summer.

A Day at the Cottage. Idle Thoughts.

August 28, 2022

The lake was smooth, and I was sipping my first cup of coffee on the deck early in the morning. The grumble of a starting boat engine woke me from my meditation, which is usually to think of nothing. How inconsiderate, waking everybody up at 7 am. The large inboard/outboard ambled out of the bay and slowly coasted down close to the shore in front of me. I was having my second cup when I saw the boat coming back and then turning direction again, with a young male standing at the wheel but not fishing. That was surprising. What was he doing? Then an aluminum boat appeared and circled the other one and the two boaters talked with each other. I thought that was strange, a meeting early morning on the lake. It appeared to me the first boater was waiting for the other and just coasted on the lake until the other one arrived. The Ozark episodes on Netflix came to my mind where drugs were distributed to boats on a lake while a preacher gave a sermon to the anchored boaters. Oh, shut up. Your imagination is running wild. Probably just two friends from Toronto discovered that both have a place on the same lake and arranged to meet.

We came up to the cottage on Birch Island the night before, to relax after family visits and to eat up the leftovers. We did not have anything to carry over to the cottage and did not use the carts at the marina for moving stuff to the boat. But we saw the weekenders had begun to arrive and fill the parking lot. Disturbing was a couple of young people bringing, what looked like a huge sound system. Sound travels far on the lake and we do not cherish late-night parties. A worse scenario is when we see cases of beer carried onto the boats.

But it was a quiet night, and the morning was relaxing on the deck, punctuated by the two motorboats trolling now along the lake in front of me, with the two young people fishing. I decided to go for a walk on the island.

Walking, I came upon one nice cottage and was confronted by its owner standing on the path and bemoaning the loss of shade trees, providing privacy to her cottage.  She told me: “Ontario Hydro cut down my cedars that I planted fifty years ago”. I looked at the cuts that showed tree trunks of over a foot in diameter. Ontario Hydro maintains the right-of-way of the power line paralleling the path by cutting down vegetation along it. I empathized with her but remarked that at least we have electricity here.

With the heat rising by now, the lake beckoned me, and I returned to ponder a swim. My son-in-law brought me a swimming buddy, a red balloon that you tie onto your waist, so the boats can see you in the water. I blew up the swimming buddy, attached it to my waist, and jumped into the water, avoiding the wannabe water skiers.

Life on the water is, to me, the essence of cottage life on a lake. Kathy grew up in Wales on the waterfront close to Porthmadog in Caernarfonshire and I grew up in Hungary, where we spent our summers on the Danube. We both enjoy water-related activities and getting the cottage was a joint venture.

Another favorite activity is dinners with the family on the deck after a day of playing on and in the water. With long daylight and no mosquitoes until sundown, the deck provides the ideal space for freewheeling discussions on career choices for our grandchildren or how much our healthcare system sucks: wait a minute, we discuss both sides of the healthcare challenges we face today.

Tonight, the grandchildren prepared the meal and the third choice was tacos and burritos. It is interesting to me that although I do not cook much, all my children and grandchildren can and some even enjoy cooking. Quite a change from the old days. After the meal, the grandchildren washed the dishes, and under the threat of missing dessert, it is not democratic at the cottage. Sundown and the arrival of mosquitoes pushed us into the cottage. And we heard the loons on our lake providing the background music before the crickets took over.

One needs money and time for a cottage: cottagers are people, in my experience, with an established career and a family. Limited by the seasons and vacation time, people have cottages on our island that stay vacant most of the time. When I survey all this vacant real estate, I think that this is extravagant or perhaps indecent from a societal point of view. I really enjoy it though.