Owning a cottage is a wonderful thing. You have an oasis to escape to, breathing in the smells of the woods, the lake, a nightly bonfire and basking in the wonders of the natural world.
Your blissful retreat gives you a sense of comfort. It's pure joy on a hot, summer day or in the fall with a cozy sweater and hot drink in hand while you walk trails and canoe to quiet water sounds. Even when it rains at the cottage it's an excuse to read a good book and curl up in a blanket and watch the storm across the lake.
This picture would be wonderful if it all stopped there and all the other necessities of cottage ownership just figured themselves out behind the scenes without you.
When I first bought my cottage, I was in this giddy, almost childlike state. I think I repeated the word "wow" every hour on the hour as I sat on my dock, then my deck, then the dock again.
A week later I was instantly brought back into reality. In one weekend, my septic pump seized and almost exploded and my dock broke. Uncharacteristic I'm sure, but as I worked to figure out who I needed to call and what I could do myself, I was hit with the understanding that this was not only another property to maintain, but it came with a whole new set of rules and responsibilities.
A lake pump isn't like municipal water, wood heat requires wood, chopping, and piling, and a place to store it. Septic systems require pumping and maintenance. Trees grow...a lot and fast and need to be trimmed if you don't want your cottage to become a blood sucking festival for mosquitoes.
Contractors and trades people are on their own cottage time and see no urgency to get there but they will, eventually. Machines like ATVs and Snowmobiles are finicky and you'll find you often keep a full assortment of liquids at the ready - antifreeze, oil, gas, oil and gas mixture, chainsaw oil and the like. (Oh, and learning to use a chainsaw? Crazy scary and somehow unbelievably rewarding). I won't intimidate you with the lengthy list of other items you'll need to learn.
The benefits are certainly still worth the costs, but you need to be prepared. More important than getting your hands dirty and learning all the nuances, is meeting all the surrounding community people who know who does what and establishing a good group of friends nearby. You'll help them, and they'll help you - and without them, everything seems a little overwhelming to do on your own.
Friends love to do projects when they come for a visit, so I've employed a project list and let everyone decide if they want to help and with what. Turns out that chopping wood is a favourite cathartic activity - followed by jumping in the lake.
This weekend, we took down and split three enormous Maple Trees that were starting to rot - 4 cottages got a ton of new wood for burning and we all go a great workout. I had the trailer and the hitch, they had the splitter and together we had the manpower. We coupled this work with a few runs to the brush dump to clear out some old limbs and debris and helping move some sand. All in all, we got a lot done and helped each other get the work done in less time.
The best part? We all had dinner together, drank some adult beverages and listened to the loons on the lake on a beautiful summer evening.
Play your cards right and be prepared - then even the work at the cottage will actually seem like fun.
Your blissful retreat gives you a sense of comfort. It's pure joy on a hot, summer day or in the fall with a cozy sweater and hot drink in hand while you walk trails and canoe to quiet water sounds. Even when it rains at the cottage it's an excuse to read a good book and curl up in a blanket and watch the storm across the lake.
This picture would be wonderful if it all stopped there and all the other necessities of cottage ownership just figured themselves out behind the scenes without you.
When I first bought my cottage, I was in this giddy, almost childlike state. I think I repeated the word "wow" every hour on the hour as I sat on my dock, then my deck, then the dock again.
A week later I was instantly brought back into reality. In one weekend, my septic pump seized and almost exploded and my dock broke. Uncharacteristic I'm sure, but as I worked to figure out who I needed to call and what I could do myself, I was hit with the understanding that this was not only another property to maintain, but it came with a whole new set of rules and responsibilities.
A lake pump isn't like municipal water, wood heat requires wood, chopping, and piling, and a place to store it. Septic systems require pumping and maintenance. Trees grow...a lot and fast and need to be trimmed if you don't want your cottage to become a blood sucking festival for mosquitoes.
Contractors and trades people are on their own cottage time and see no urgency to get there but they will, eventually. Machines like ATVs and Snowmobiles are finicky and you'll find you often keep a full assortment of liquids at the ready - antifreeze, oil, gas, oil and gas mixture, chainsaw oil and the like. (Oh, and learning to use a chainsaw? Crazy scary and somehow unbelievably rewarding). I won't intimidate you with the lengthy list of other items you'll need to learn.
The benefits are certainly still worth the costs, but you need to be prepared. More important than getting your hands dirty and learning all the nuances, is meeting all the surrounding community people who know who does what and establishing a good group of friends nearby. You'll help them, and they'll help you - and without them, everything seems a little overwhelming to do on your own.
Friends love to do projects when they come for a visit, so I've employed a project list and let everyone decide if they want to help and with what. Turns out that chopping wood is a favourite cathartic activity - followed by jumping in the lake.
This weekend, we took down and split three enormous Maple Trees that were starting to rot - 4 cottages got a ton of new wood for burning and we all go a great workout. I had the trailer and the hitch, they had the splitter and together we had the manpower. We coupled this work with a few runs to the brush dump to clear out some old limbs and debris and helping move some sand. All in all, we got a lot done and helped each other get the work done in less time.
The best part? We all had dinner together, drank some adult beverages and listened to the loons on the lake on a beautiful summer evening.
Play your cards right and be prepared - then even the work at the cottage will actually seem like fun.
Comments
Post a Comment