sweet summer

The joys of toddler sized life jackets and wild roses in little baby hands.

The grandkids were at the lake recently.
What a joy to see all the surprises and the treasures of the island through their eyes.

The Lost Chair

We arrived at our island dock to find a chair sitting there. It is an an Adirondack chair or Muskoka Chair depending on your point of view.

We were a little worried at first.. was someone on the island? Was the cottage still secure? We wondered if the chair was left behind by someone who had been fishing off of our dock recently. Perhaps the chair has been floating around the lake for a while and someone fished it out and threw it on the dock to keep it out of the way of unsuspecting boaters.

I left it right where we found it on the dock this week. Perhaps it's owner will come back and claim it. However, just in case it isn't gone by next week, we will take out a sander, and some stain and I plan to be ready to make this old lost chair one of our own.

We will probably never know the whole story behind this beat up old chair, but maybe we will provide it with a future.

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

Our Boat

"Big Blue" at our dock

We have a big blue boat. My current challenge is how to get in and out of the boat at the boat launch, and how to get in and out of it on our dock at the island. Both docks are secure and don't move - but the boat sure does when you try and get in and out of it. I have been getting to the cottage over the past two years but it has involved a lot of panic on my part and muscle strain on my family's part. We have been experimenting at the therapy pool, we have been shopping for ladders at the pool store, we even looked at what the adaptive equipment store might have. There are still no good solutions.

I do want to enjoy boating again and it would sure be nice to be a little more independent. Once I figure this out I am shopping for a Kayak or maybe a paddle boat!

From our dock to the main land shore.



Waiting patiently at the boat launch



Launching the boat






Hang on to your hat .. we are on our way!

Welcome to Our Cottage

The Cottage in the Autumn

Our cottage is about 40 years old and located about 2 hours from our home in the city. It is the only cottage located on a small island near the shore of a mid-sized lake. We purchased it on a whim 28 years ago and we have been trying to figure out what to do with it ever since.

The cottage is not fancy. It was made of strange bits of recycled materials and still has kind of an unfinished look all these years later. The doors are big glass store style doors with metal pulls, the porch is made from telephone pole cross ties and heaven only knows where most of the other materials started out from. It doesn't have phone lines or electrical power going to the cottage, so we depend on solar power for part of our electrical energy, and a gasoline powered generator for our backup source of energy. The antique propane fridge isn't safe so we don't even have it hooked up and the old, lovely propane stove keeps on going -- no matter what.

Our Island is beautiful and challenging. Despite all of our difficulties getting to the cottage because of the weather, and endless problems launching and storing our boat, we love our island vacation home dearly .