Cottage Heaven

Cottage living is simply the best livin', really. There is always work to be done at the cottage, but somehow, it doesn't feel like work. Opening the cottage is a ton of work, especially for my sister and her hubby.. who drag an entire van full of stuff to the cottage each day for a couple of days, just to get it open. Bedding, towels, food, the TV, sewing stuff, cleaning stuff... etc. Gail spends the whole day making beds, vacuuming, hanging curtains, dusting and washing all the flat surfaces, stocking cupboards and the bathroom. Her hubby does repairs of winter damage, fools with the water and hoses, the pumps, the lawn furniture, the yard... etc

But finally, after a week or so, it is ready for the fun stuff.... my visit!!! Meanwhile, at my house, I am digging up plants, making suppers, finding my garden gloves and tools... and this year was no different.. I was soooooooo excited to hit the road and drive 6 hours for the cottage. I had plans of gardening, digging up stuff, yard work to clean up the lake damage! Spending time with my sister and my daughter were the bonuses to the weekend.

We arrived late Friday night after a long rainy drive... and went to bed shortly after we got there... all excited for a day of outside fun in the morning....

And it rained... rained all day.... cold.... windy... rain. There was no hope of doing any outside work, so we sat. We talked, we planned, we waited for Michelle and Scott. And we drank coffee... we sat... we talked....

One of the things we noticed was.... we had no Internet. When we talked about quilt plans... we couldn't search for the proper pattern. We planned some Grammie camp events... and we couldn't search for ideas.... We couldn't skype with Stephanie, or Patience..... we couldn't email Michelle and ask when she was coming... I couldn't show Gail Pinterest..... we couldn't check the weather forecast or find out information on movies coming up at the show. After a while, we seemed to be obsessed with how we could get the Internet at the cottage without it costing an arm and a leg! We couldn't wait for Scott to arrive, so he could tell us how to get it.... alas, when he came.. he had no good news on the subject. We said the entire morning, afternoon and evening... waiting for the rain to stop... And, finally... we went to bed.!

Sunday morning, arrived... cold and grey... but it wasn't raining. It didn't take long for the whole house to eat breakfast and get dressed and we were outside... in the chilly weather, and we started cleaning the yard and gardening.

The lake comes up pretty high every spring, and most of this flowerbed gets covered in water and eventually all the mulch floats away, along with loose soil. We usually have to rebury most of the plants, and top with more mulch. This year, even though the water was high, it didn't cover this garden!

After about 2 hours, and 6 of us working, we got everything pretty well looking great. We spent the rest of the day doing fun cottage stuff... the boys fished, and we worked inside the cottage, and on the deck. Michelle learned some great jewelry making lessons from Gail and got hooked on making bracelets.. She is now recruited for our Grammie camp to teach the kids a new craft!

Just before supper, Scott, Terry and I headed out on the kayaks and went for an hour's paddle. The water was so high, we had the opportunity to paddle through tree branches about 5 feet in the air! This was an adventure that Scott has always wanted to do, and he took a pretty intense shortcut through a pretty thick stand of trees and came out the other side soakin' wet. He had a few tricky spots to get through, but he loved it just the same! Boys will be boys!.

I always love the cottage.