End of the 2014 Cottage season

The end of the 2014 cottaging season quickly approaches, about a month earlier this year than other years. The weather this year has been cold and wet, and I while I've spent a lot of time working on the cottage, I haven't really done much.

This year, the big project was the dock. After the ice busted up our old dock, twenty years or so ago, Mom never was able to put in a real replacement. She had a variety of hand-me-down floating docks, and spent much of her time constructing a "spit" of land that she hoped would serve as a dock, but nothing ever really worked.

My intention this year was to build a new, permanent dock with two rock cribs, in a design similar to the original dock. I'm not the woodsman and carpenter that my father was, and this dock would be built out of dimensional lumber, trucked in. With that lumber, I would use power tools to build two large cribs, position them in the lake, connect them with a lumber "bridge", and fill them with rocks. Once sufficiently anchored, I would plank the bridge, making it into the deck of a permanent dock. That was the plan.

But, the plan went awry. The weather didn't co-operate, and the overly frequent rain prevented me from using power tools (no on wants to work in the rain, especially if they might get electrocuted by their tools). Add to that a lack of lumber (no one sells untreated 6x6 spruce posts; they are either pressure treated with arsenic, or made of expensive cedar). Not wanting to poison the lake with the arsenic from pressure-treated wood, and lacking the funds to build support structures out of expensive cedar, I elected to cut and dress my own posts from the trees on the property. That took time out of my schedule, and delayed me further.

But, with all the delays, the weather, and the materials, I built and properly weighted down one of the two cribs. The other, I guess, will have to wait for 2015.

I didn't have any other "big" projects around the cottage. Instead, I took care of a handful of medium-sized projects.

I planted a Lilac bush on the property, in honour of my mother. Lilac was her favourite flowering bush, and she always wanted one. Now, she has one all of her own.

Someone has shot holes in two of the back bedroom windows. I spent some time replacing the broken panes, and cleaning up the windows. Now the back bedroom has solid windows, and new window coverings. The loft window also got new window coverings, just to complete the look.

The boathouse had 6 broken windows; five had been shot out, and the sixth had cracked. I replaced these as well. But, the boathouse will need a lot more attention; carpenter ants have made swiss-cheese out of the foundation and the beams. The boathouse should last for a few years yet, but I will have to either rip it down or repair it.

The old floating docks finally came apart this spring, and I rescued the wood. There's now a neat pile of waterlogged planks resting under the trees by the shore. I'll have to move these up to the woodpile, and see if they will dry out enough to be useful as firewood.

I replaced the cheap chandelier over the table with a suspended Tiffany-style lamp. This took some (small) demolition to remove the old lamp, and some rewiring to position the electrical for the new lamp. But, it looks great, and gives the cottage a bit more of a classy look.

Finally, I felled some dead trees on the property, and filled the wood crib with enough Maple logs to keep the fire going for spring and fall next year.

Soon, I will close the cottage for 2014. I'm already looking forward to the spring of 2015, and opening the cottage again.