Innholdsfortegnelse for September/October 2022 i Cottage Life

How low can you go? I loved the article “Get Your Game Face On” (Aug ’22)—it was the first time I had seen the words “bum darts” since my university days when we played it as a drinking game. I’d like to add “bite the bag” to the list. Each person needs a paper bag and a pair of scissors. Open the bag and place it on the floor. The goal is to pick the bag up using only your mouth; your hands and knees cannot touch the bag or the floor. After everyone has a turn, cut an inch off the bag and go again with the successful people. It makes for a lot of laughs and a few face plants. —Todd and Janet Watkins, Buckshot Lake, Ont. Chip,…

“PERFECT ANGEL” RENTER Halo + Wings + Own bedding + Being quiet CHEERLEADER FOR SAFE BOATING Pompoms + Running shoes + PFD + Spreading awareness OVERBEARING MUMMY-IN-LAW Toilet paper + Sunken eyes + Large handbag filled with tissue packages + Unsolicited opinions COTTAGE GUEST ACTING LIKE A PRINCESS Tiara + Pink bathing suit + Facial mist spray + Complaining (about everything) MAD SCIENTIST STUDYING BLUE-GREEN ALGAE Lab coat + Test tubes + Hip waders + Wild-eyed expression FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER COTTAGE Large cardboard box + Green face paint + Neck bolts + Groaning (about hydro bills)…

WHEN THE SUN goes down, the forest doesn’t sleep. There’s a whole night shift of creatures that use the cover of darkness to survive. For both predators and prey, nighttime has advantages and disadvantages. Early mammals, for example, likely evolved for living in the dark because most dinosaurs were active during the day. But, while moving in the darkness may help you escape the notice of a scary diurnal T. rex, you may miss out on a meal that is visually prominent, such as a brightly coloured fruit. These selective pressures likely helped develop an incredible sense of smell that isn’t dependent on light: you don’t see the fruit, but you can still find it with your nose. We as daytime mammals can’t smell our way to our next meal…

THE KEY WAS UNDER the flowerpot, a galvanized water bucket I’d painted white with green trim to match the house. All the pansies in it were dead. I lifted the bucket, and a clot of centipedes writhed in the damp ring on the boards of the well cover. They slithered over each other, the legs a blur, spilling down the cracks between the wooden planks covering the well, dropping into the water below. Their weightless bodies hitting the surface soundlessly. Not even a distant plink. Everything was very still. There was no wind. It was dead quiet. The tide was out, and the waves were listless, as thin as paper, creeping up over the sand in jagged lines of flaring silver, until they sank into the sand, staining it dark.…

LIKE MANY CANADIANS, Margie Manthey, a long-time angler and the fishing director of the Wolfe Lake Association, sees the loon as an iconic symbol. And like many cottagers, she knows that our loon populations are at risk because of multiple threats. Lead tackle poisoning is among the deadliest. “It’s estimated that in some regions, up to 42 per cent of loons are dying from lead tackle ingestion,” she says. Since lead contains a neurotoxin, “a small piece can kill an adult loon,” she says. Loons often ingest fishing tackle accidentally—the prey they eat may have a line with a lead tackle stuck to it, they may mistake a lead tackle for a pebble (which they swallow to improve digestion), or they may even chase down an angler’s lure and accidentally…

The search: Toronto couple Jen Pogue and Warren Sonoda had been saving to buy property downtown. It had taken years—working in the film industry means that their income comes in on a job-to-job basis. Then, in early 2021, Jen was diagnosed with an incurable form of stage 4 metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. “With a diagnosis like that, it changes your priorities,” says Warren. It accelerated their property hunt, but the couple wasn’t impressed with what $500,000-$600,000 afforded them in the city. So, they expanded their search to cottage country. That summer, while renting on Lake Kennisis, Ont., they found a riverfront, three-season, A-frame for $499,000. “We offered $570,000 thinking, that’s competitive,” says Warren. It wasn’t—the property sold for $830,000. The couple enlisted the help of realtor Carl Laudan, a former…

ABOUT 90 PER CENT of small-engine problems are fuel related. Stop by any repair shop in spring and you’ll see two-stroke (or two-cycle) chainsaws, blowers, mowers, trimmers, and so on, all waiting for service because they won’t start or won’t run properly. Even when an engine is run dry before winter storage, some fuel remains in the fuel lines and the carburetor bowl (if there is one). This gas mixes with air and moisture and deteriorates, leaving a gummy, varnish-like residue that can clog the carburetor. You can avoid varnishing by leaving the fuel system full of stabilized gas over the winter. Problem is, pretty well all gas-station gasoline, regardless of grade, contains ethanol in varying and inconsistent amounts. That ethanol is quick to separate and may attract moisture into…

Q: Last October, I was out on our dock when I noticed three seagulls, one flying and shrieking, and two others harassing two loons in the water. Every time they dove, the seagulls would do a flap-jump type of lift and then settle beside the loons when they emerged. I have never seen this before. Were they fighting over the same food?—Trudy O’Brien, Lake Newboro, Ont. A: Bingo! Well, probably bingo. “This sounds like a feeding issue of some sort,” says Kathy Jones, the volunteer manager of the Birds Canada Canadian Lakes Loon Survey. “Both species eat fish.” Beyond that, “I can’t say for sure what was happening,” she says. “Perhaps the loons were on a particularly good raft of fish and the gulls wanted to use it? Perhaps the…

THE HAMMOCK IS THE ultimate symbol of slack time. When you’ve got nowhere to go and nothing to do, it is always there for you. Bring a book, bring a beer, bring nothing at all. The hammock, the chesterfield of chill, welcomes you as you are. It’s where the art of doing nothing reaches its pinnacle. Cameron and Celissa Vipond’s cottage doesn’t have a hammock—it has two. The cottage is a modest, 800 sq. ft. cedar build, and its hammocks lie in the shade just off the deck, strung to trees atop a cliff overlooking the serene bay on the east side of Christian Island. It’s one of about a dozen cottages along the cliff, their decks providing vistas of southern Georgian Bay. The cottages here are collectively known as…

TO SWIM OR not to swim, that was the question. I stand in front of the clothesline, listening to the lulling sound of laughter floating out from inside the cottage behind me. An orange glow spills out through the windows, casting bars of light between the towels, bars that stretch out towards the inky dark forest. I don’t need to swim, I think, grateful for the sweatshirt and jeans I’m wearing on this August night—bug-less but cool—the last night before we all disperse back to our lives after a week together. I’ll just go down and hang out for a bit on the dock. I grab my towel. I walk down the long path to the lake, the air thick with the sound of crickets, the smells of the forest soil…

Q: “Everyone in my family brings their old stuff to the cottage. Basically any used item they don’t need gets sent up to the lake. They think they are making contributions, but I feel like I’m the only one who sees this stuff piling up. Who needs three hot-air popcorn poppers? My sister just dragged in a child-sized ceramic garden gnome because it has ‘kitsch factor.’ How can I stop this madness?” A: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” specifically refers to cottage “givers,” those generous friends, family, and relative strangers who selflessly donate second- and third-hand goods to their favourite weekend places. Pretty much every cottager does this, but when taken to extremes, it can turn a lakeside retreat into a landfill for multiple threadbare sofas,…

OVERWHELMED AT THE cheese counter? Don’t overthink it. Ace Cheeseboard 101 with a few simple tips: hit our must-have categories, shop your pantry for nibbles, and pair with anything bubbly (beer and cider included). Try different textures, flavours, and milk types. And, obey the golden rule: take the cheese out of the fridge (still wrapped) 30 to 60 minutes before serving so it comes to room temperature to bring out its full flavour. 1 BRIE-STYLE Start approachable but decadent. Melt-in-the-mouth creaminess and nuanced flavours are traits of brie-style cheeses (think soft texture and a white “bloomy” rind). They pair wonderfully with prosecco or Champagne. Look for a French Brie de Meaux, a decadent triple cream like Délice de Bourgogne, or a soft goat’s milk-style like Ashley Goat (Ontario). On our…