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!

July Flowers

Flowers for the beginning of July

'Tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes!
~William Wordsworth, "Lines Written in Early Spring," Lyrical Ballads, 1798

The Beauty of the Rock

We have a large rock outcropping at the front of the island. It is part of the dock and where we stand to swim sometimes. It is really a defining part of being at the cottage. When we see it  from the water we know our cottage is located there and we can stand on it to see out into the rest of  the lake. The moss, lichen and other plants add texture and life to this space and they help to shape the erosion of the land.


The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks. ~Tennessee Williams

Spring Flower

The first wild-flower of the year is like land after sea. 

                                              ~Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Yellow flowers by the water's edge. I love the tiny details. I was particularly interested in the flowers with white details on the petals.

Arriving at the cottage

 

 

 

When we approach the cottage we slow down and do a little bit of maneuvering to get lined up at our island dock. I must admit my heart does a bit of a pit-a-pat when we get near, I love this view of the island and the cottage.  Maybe it is not because of the look of this spot but more the memories it evokes.

 

See that white building? That is the cottage peaking out from the trees.

 

 There is  Ol' Blue.. our old boat taking up one spot on our dock. You can see Bob's flag and flag pole by the dock and the ladder coming down from the dock when we can climb down for a little swim or to catch crayfish. The huge rock out front of the cottage is a pretty amazing feature too.  There are enough levels and layers that it is easy to climb down to the water and when you reach the water you realize there are more layers hidden under the surface just right for wading.

 

You can see the shore line behind the dock wrap over to a rock wall that is part of the reason our dock is in such a nice calm tiny little harbour.  You can see sensational views of the lake from the top of that rocky out cropping.

 

This is the point of our trip to the lake when I have a sense of coming home. 

 

Reflections

The water plants grow under the water in the cooler days of early summer and then as summer months pass by, they send out tall stocks with a few flowers.

The reflections of the leaves in the still water are beautiful.

July Flowers on the Island

 

The plants of summer are blooming...

 I just took a few quick  and somewhat fuzzy pictures with my phone so I could share the beauty. All of these lovelies are within a few meters of my cottage door.

 

 

 

Saskatoon Berries were everywhere this year.

Lovely lavender colored Harebells Campanula rotundifolia

Raspberries were lovely and full.

Clover

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.
   ~Emily Dickinson, 

Oh What Tangled Webs We Weave!

Happy Halloween from the Lake

The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line.

~Alexander Pope

Guess What This Is?

I was impressed with this find at the cottage.

Can you identify what you see in the pictures?

*
*
*
*
*
*

*
*
*
*
*
*

*
*
*
*
*
*

It is a whole miniature little world in a tub!

We use this container of sand each fall when we celebrate a couple of birthdays and the long weekend with a little fireworks show. We just left the tub outside, behind our porch, last year after our celebrations. I didn't give it another thought until this summer.
When I looked in the tub this year I was amazed at the beauty of this tiny world.
We thought the pencil would help give you an idea of the true scale of my lilliputian moss world.

Spring Flora

"A flower's appeal is in its contradictions - so delicate in form yet strong in fragrance, so small in size yet big in beauty, so short in life yet long on effect." ~Terri Guillemets










Photographed May 2010 on the island. Copyright Bob Cooper