I Love How Beautiful Fall is at the Lake

We load up the boat at the dock we rent on the mainland and head out through the bay into the lake.

It only takes a few minutes before we have turned the corner and are approaching our little island. Most of the year it is hard to spot our cottage but once the trees start to lose their leaves the white cottage starts to pop out. The large rock out from really shows up too.

Here we are approaching the dock and cottage and if you look carefully you can spot

our big white dog, Jasper, waiting for us. The line of white along the dock is a series of bumpers to protect both the side of our new dock and our boat.

Moondance for an Autumn Night

Looking across the bay during Moon Rise

Well, it’s a marvelous night for a moondance

With the stars up above in your eyes

A fantabulous night to make romance

’Neath the cover of October skies

And all the leaves on the trees are falling

To the sound of the breezes that blow

And I’m trying to please to the calling

Of your heartstrings that play soft and low...

              ~Van Morrison, "Moondance,

I couldn't find a good video with Van Morrison but I really do love listening to Michael Buble!

Fall in the Raised Bed Gardens

Welcome!

We have a little raised bed garden on the side of the cottage. It is a bit of a learning curve for us but we are having a lot of fun with it. The climate at the cottage tends to be quite variable and we are not always there to water it or protect it from chipmunks and possibly beavers.

One bed is mainly herbs and we also tried for garlic but that just didn't work out. We have been using the herbs a bit but, more often than not, I forget that that is a cooking option out here! The herbs actually do pretty spectacularly. We put them pretty close together and the Parsley and Cilantro kind of crowded the other herbs but they still did fine.

I tried adding some lettuce seeds, purchased at Dollarama, to the spot where the garlic didn't grow.  I keep reading about how you can have two crops a year of  spring types of plants so I thought I would experiment.  They have popped up and look cute but really, it could freeze any night now.

This is our poor little squash which is still making efforts even though it is too late for this year. 

 Not even one flower was sucessful this year!

Here we have the beginnings of a delicious pasta sauce at the Lake Cottage!

Our Fall Bedroom

Welcome to our Bedroom in the Fall. Here is what our bedroom is looking like this year.

We have family pics on the wall, my fall quilt and pillow shams on the bed.

The window looks out onto the screen porch.. 

Here is my side of the bed. The 3 pics on the wall are some of Bob’s nature Photography. 

The small dresser was in left in the cottage when we took possession. I love the round mirror and the dresser is the perfect size to fit between the closet wall and the open door.
My kids each stained a wooden candle sticks for me 25 years ago for my birthday. There is a .Battery powered candle , fall floral in a vase I got when we were first married. 

Last is that little copper bowl has a few pinecones and a red fleece heart ❤️ my 10 year old grand daughter sewed just for me when she was at the cottage this past August!

Little Round Mushrooms

I am always amazed by the variety of mushrooms that pop up on the island during the different seasons. I believe these are called Puff mushrooms, but I am not confident enough to cook them.

Closing the Cottage for Winter

It is October 15th and the cottage is closed for another season. I am always sad to shut it up, but at the same time I usually feel ready to get on with life in the city. All the fall activities are long underway and I am wearing out from wanting to be at both of our places at the same time.

As Fall goes on the weather becomes not only colder in lake country but much windier. The boat ride can get down right hellish. I get pretty panicky when the water is very rough and find myself muttering prayers under my breath the whole way. Yesterday we were banging so hard that I wound up with a sore back and a headache. Our poor little blue boat doesn't have shock resistant seats.


We were going to go out on the Friday. Our oldest girl drove out that direction earlier in the day and came home  without ever getting to our boat because the winds were obviously not safe when she looked across the water on one of the highway's bridge crossings.  Saturday morning there was a lull in the winds so four of us went out for the day and we just got on with closing it up.  The winds were NW 30 k/hour and the temperature was a chilly but tolerable 8 degrees C   (winds of 20 miles/ hour and temperature of 46 degrees F )


 Closing up the cottage is actually pretty easy. We are not in a location where we are terribly worried about waves and winter weather damage. Our big fear, because of past experience, is rodents. We have the cutest little mice on the island but inside they have chewed through food containers, eaten holes in a couch and destroyed our bedding. One little creature fell into Bob's rubber boot  and didn't make it out. The boot was quickly disposed of but smell lingered for a long time.  Rodents in our area can carry a respiratory disease that can affect humans, so it isn't just property damage that I am concerned with.


We drained the water tank and poured an RV antifreeze down the drains. We packed up anything food like to go home and made sure all cooking surfaces smelled more like disinfectant than  lingering peanut butter. We put the majority of the dishes off our open shelves into Rubbermaid tubs, and we took the linens and pillows and put some of them into the two trunks we have and tied the rest of it into a bunch of big garbage bags. We packed up the half read novels, the guitar and the clothing we might want over the winter. Bob packed up our little Honda generator, the pressure washer and any glues or paints or water seal that should not be left to freeze.  We grabbed my two pots of herbs and loaded up the boat to leave one last time.


We got to the cottage around one in the afternoon and we left there around 5 pm. We pulled the boat out at our mainland docking area in Poplar Bay where we will be leaving it on shore for the winter. Bob and the girls winterized the boat and tied down the boat cover; it was almost two more hours before we were ready to head for home again.

Dinner was at Drifters, a truck stop in Lac du Bonnet, and we got home a couple of hours later.


Now we get to figure out what to do with all the stuff we hauled home for the winter. We will sit and  make plans for what to take back int he spring and make plans for all the projects and adventures we want to have in lake country next year!

Moonrise

One of our final nights of the season.
The leaves are gone and the nights are frosty.

Sundial in Fall

We have a cute little sundial in the front yard of the cottage. It kind of blends into the rock and I hardly ever notice it. I really should line it up properly and use it to tell time.

In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary.
~Aaron Rose

Haze on the Shore

A Line of Haze by the Shore

Alicia captured these lovely images on an early Fall day, just as dusk was approaching and the temperature started to fall. She was standing on our island dock looking toward the mainland.