Cottage Daze (13 page)

I believe I'm being smart in my shirking. In retrospect, I think my wife had a plan all along, a blueprint to get me to agree to a kitchen re-do, to make this part of the cottage more functional and to update the circa 1960 kitchen accents and decor. Things were working perfectly, until, on one such evening, I carried the “bad back” charade too far and unwittingly made the comment, “If only the kitchen counter and sinks were constructed at a proper height.”

Immediately, as if she had long been patiently waiting for such an error in judgment, my wife dropped a heap of kitchen renovation literature into my lap: “Martha Stewart's Cottage Kitchens,” “Kitchens and Bathrooms,” “Kitchen and Outhouse Designs,” and “Dr. Phil Reveals — How to Get Your Husband to Share in More of the Household Duties.” I had opened my big mouth, and now I was trapped.

And so began the cottage kitchen renovation. My brother-in-law and sister joined us in the venture. He had a leather pouch around his waist from which dangled all his tools. I filled my jean pockets with nails, only to scream in agony when I bent over. I actually enjoyed the demolition, attacking the old cabinets and framework with a pry bar, jumping quickly on any long-lost coins that appeared, and reminiscing over any memorabilia that turned up from our youthful cottage days.

After we had torn everything apart, it came time to rebuild. We first laid down a rich red slate tile floor. With my chainsaw and drawknife, I was put in charge of the kitchen framework, which we had decided would be done in cedar log. The ladies worked outside in the sunshine fiercely whacking away at a solid pine countertop with a chain — “distressing” the wood for an antique look — something they had apparently learned from the John and Jon show. When I commented that they should be good at distressing things, I was forced to dart around the cabin, running for my life just ahead of two chain-wielding maniacs. My brother-in-law laughed at my predicament. He was in charge of the finicky finishing work.

An aged pier piling foraged from the relics of an old dam that once controlled the river inlet at the north end of the lake was hung from the cottage's kitchen ceiling with logging chains. Here, utensils, pots, and cast iron cookware hang from hooks high above the central kitchen island. It is a unique and charming piece of timber, sculpted from years of water rushing over it.

At the end of the day, we sat back pleased with what we had accomplished: a functional, charming, and rustic kitchen that fit in well with the atmosphere of the cottage.

Cottaging on a remote island can provide certain obstacles. One can not so readily hop in the car and head to town for a box of nails or the lumber for a cottage project. The marvellous sense of isolation peculiar to island cottages demands self-sufficiency and forethought.

While some cottages are really second homes, lakeside dwellings with all of the comforts, we prefer the charming rusticity of a low-maintenance escape. It is comfortable and homey, and reflects the happiness born of years of summer fun.

Our Garden Patch

Two ravens sat on a branch outside the cottage window. They sat close together while the wind rustled their head feathers and they shifted the grip of their feet. I was supposed to be working, but instead watched them with interest. These birds had always fascinated me, ever since my young days when I read Edgar Allan Poe.

The image of the raven sitting black against a bleak sky on the gnarled branch of a twisted, dead tree is ingrained in our subconscious — as much an image of horror as the thunderstorm outside the creepy, abandoned, haunted house on the hill. They mix hoarse screeches and squawks with deep-throated gurgles and garbles, while hiding in thick spruce treetops. Their human-like language is interesting in the day and spooky after dark. Their intelligence is uncanny. I have watched them steal my dog's food from his dish. One raven will hop up to the resting husky and pull on his tail. As the dog lurches unsuccessfully for the bird, another will swoop in to heist a kibble. Then they switch assignments.

These two large crows on the branch seemed to be scheming. They were staring out towards our little cottage garden patch, where my wife has tried to cultivate a few herbs, rhubarb, some lettuce, and green onions. This is no easy feat at the best of times. In fact, some would say that it is an act of folly, trying to maintain a garden anywhere in cottage country, where you are battling the Canadian Shield. She is trying to plant and maintain a garden on our three-acre mound of rock and pine, on an infertile island situated in the middle of a lake in the northern woods. The ground is nothing but a plush bed of needles and moss.

Still, she has tried. We pack over some bags of topsoil each spring and mix it with compost. We weed and plant, and weed some more. We gather stones from the lake bottom to border our patch of soil. We bring up water from the lake each day in our watering can and keep the plants wet. And the garden grows. It is great to be able to pick some lettuce for sandwiches or salads, or to harvest some herbs for the evening stew.

Then, there are the ravens. They see the garden as their own personal buffet. My wife sees all her stubborn, hard work being undermined by these birds, whom she has tried just about everything to outwit.

The other day I looked out from the cabin to the garden patch and was horrified to see myself amongst the basil and leafy vegetables, arms outstretched in a hideous manner. A floppy hat hid my face, but I could tell it was me by the manner in which I was dressed — in my good plaid shirt and my favourite ripped and torn pair of faded Levi's.

The grotesque likeness scared me, but apparently not the ravens, who flew down and perched themselves on the rigid arms. They sat calmly surveying the little garden and contemplating their lunch. At that moment my gentle wife came running up from the dock, flailing her arms and screaming like a banshee. The glossy black birds scattered in fright, winging it for the forest. Her actions panicked me as well, and I backpedalled from the window towards the safety of the cottage depths.

My wife's frightful success in scaring off the birds, where my scarecrow likeness propped amongst the vegetables had failed, caused me to later unwittingly suggest that perhaps she should spend more time standing in the garden. Oops … “If I only had a brain!”

Chirpy's Diner

I have been battling with a squirrel all day. I know what you're thinking, how could someone with my advanced intellect have any trouble outwitting a little rodent? It is a point well made, but he is a persistent little beggar.

I bought a new bird feeder for the cottage. It is called a Planet Earth Feeder, and has a spaceship design and a sloping copper roof. It also brags about holding six pounds of seed, which means I won't have to pull the ladder out as often. A weekly sanitary wipe down and a refill is all that is required. I also checked out the design with its slippery sloped metal roof, and decided that old Chirpy the squirrel would never figure this out.

It took him about one minute and twenty-two seconds.

I had hung the feeder in the fork of a long, slender branch, about twelve feet off the ground, filled it with sunflower seeds, and then I went into the cottage to brag about it to my wife. “I have finally found a squirrel-proof feeder,” I said. “I've finally won over Chirpy — victory is mine!”

I led my wife to the cabin window and gave her a cocky “Ta-dah!” while pointing out the dangling feed station. She saw Chirpy sitting in it chewing on seeds, smiling, his bushy tail held erect like a victory pennant.

I ran out, throwing sticks and pine cones in his general direction. He chirped merrily away. I moved the feeder out farther on the slender branch, as far as I dared with its six pounds of seed. The squirrel ran out a side stringer and stretched his slender body across to the perch, using his tiny front feet to pull himself aboard.

I pruned back the side branches. Chirpy ran out on an upper branch, using his weight to drop it down like a drawbridge, landing him gracefully on the seed. I trimmed the upper branch. Chirpy pulled on some spandex leotards (or should have) and did his best Cirque du Soleil impression. He swung off a higher branch like a trapeze artist, before tucking his body and acrobatically performing a double revolving somersault, landing lightly amongst the birdseed.

At this point, I ran out screaming like a banshee. He went into the higher branches and chittered excitedly. My family laughed along. I brought out the chainsaw, but was warned off by my spouse.

“Just a little trimming, I could sculpt it like a Japanese bonsai tree.” That would leave the beautiful mountain ash with just one spindly branch to hold the feeder.

At the sight of the saw, Chirpy ran out with full cheeks into the nearby forest. I followed; I had an idea. I took a small bag of birdseed and set it out for him under a sweeping pine. That ought to keep him happy for a while, I thought. I came back to the cottage porch announcing haughtily that the problem was solved. No sooner had I gotten the words out of my mouth than the kids giggled and pointed to Chirpy, up in the feeder.

I threw a stick of firewood, striking the feeder and sending it crashing earthward. The glass globe shattered, the copper metal roof was bent and mangled, and the squirrel sat in the midst of the destruction stuffing seeds into the pockets of his woolly coat before prancing away into the forest.

I picked up the feeder and walked slowly, purposely into the shed, knowing that all the while my family's smiles were following me. I straightened the copper roof, gently removed all shards of glass, and then filled the lower feed bowl with seed. I grabbed a brush and some black paint and wrote on the feeder with a flourish. Then I returned it to the tree.

“Open, Chirpy's Diner.”

Hunting for Hidden Treasure

It is Indiana Jones without the danger, The Da Vinci Code without the Vatican, or Treasure Island without Long John Silver. It is a touch of mystery, some problem solving, and some adventure. Mostly, its just a test of the imagination and something that can be done at the cottage, but not at home.

At our cottage it's lately become a tradition, not yet passed through the generations, but perhaps that will come. I am not sure why, or even exactly when it started. Like most cottage traditions it has simply evolved. For six or seven years now, when the cousins are all gathered at the cottage together, we set aside a summer's day for what the youngsters fondly call the “Treasure Hunt.”

Clues lead on to clues, riddles are solved, word scrambles untangled, and anagrams deciphered. At the end of the day, the children have solved all the puzzles and find a cryptic map that leads to buried treasure. Like movie sequels, we try to make each year a little better, different, and certainly more outrageous than the previous.

The treasure itself usually is a wooden chest that contains things like little toys, water games, a new ski rope, and treats, though the booty at the end has become not nearly as important to the kids as the hunt. Even the younger children will say that the journey is more fun than the final destination, and they are sad when it is over. They say, “Dad, can you make the clues harder next time?”

Answering the call of the dinner gong.

I spend the better part of a day writing out clues in the form of quatrains or rhyming couplets. To find a clue pinned under the dock, a riddle might state: “Out over the water with a crib for my bed, look underneath and a clue can be read.” And there the children find a new puzzle: “Never in one place but usually following you around, grab leather to hold me, a clue here is found.” The children chase a confused dog around to find a clue taped to its collar. You get the idea — bad poetry, but lots of fun.

In the morning, with the children still sleeping, the adults hide all the clues. In the afternoon, with our work done, we relax and watch the children wander from the forest to the cabin, from the swim rock to the dock, from the boathouse to the outhouse.

The seven cousins range in age from six to seventeen, so we allow different level clues for each. The ones designated for the youngest are a little simpler. The oldest is hit with clues that would challenge Indiana Jones. Off the kids go in a single line, meandering around the island from clue to clue. They solve the riddles, codes, and puzzles, each solution moving them closer to the ultimate prize.

Though the hunt started out strictly as a dry land exercise, it has now evolved into an anything goes affair. Often the children must don their masks and snorkels to scour the lake bottom. Bricks with letters on them are brought to the surface, then organized into words that lead the group onward. A riddle directs them to the canoes for a paddle to nearby Sawdust Island. Another clue gets them swimming out to the anchored raft, where a map is found in a bottle floating past. The pirate map has them counting paces from forked trees or rock piles, following the shadow from an old pine at sixteen hundred hours to the place where X marks the spot.

If there is any negative aspect of the hunt, it comes in the mental anguish I suffer as a result of the fifty or more clues I am forced to pen. The poetry tends to infest my brain — so I go around for days after, talking in rhymes. Like the best Shakespearean dandy, I approach my wife with a romantic ditty: “Hello, my good wife, can you please be a dear; Go up to the cottage and fetch me a beer.” Her retort is a little less lyrical, and certainly does not rhyme one bit, but it does serve to break the “Treasure Hunt” spell.