Another Long Weekend

I'm off to the cottage for the next couple of days, Monday is a holiday here in Ontario.  My friend Taylor wanted to know a little more about it, so I thought I tell you a bit about our "summer place."

It's about a two hour drive from where I live, which is just long enough to do on a regular basis without getting bogged down by the commute.  Usually I can make it all the way there without a bathroom or snack break but there are places to stop along the way if needed.  My mom, sister and I tend to go there almost every weekend in the summer months.  It's only a half hour drive from where my mom lives.

My family has owned this cottage since the fall of 1974, or was it 1975?  There was one previous owner, who built the cottage in the mid 1950's.  It's nothing fancy but it's located on a large freshwater lake that measures 16 km long and averages about 3 km wide, although that width varies because of the many curves along its shoreline.  We swim in the lake and use its water for showers and washing dishes but tend to drink bottled water in recent years.

We have four buildings on our property - the main cottage, which has three bedrooms, a bathroom, dining room, kitchen and living room with a beautiful stone fireplace, a workshop, a sleeping cabin (which is mostly used for storage these days - it's just the right size for keeping the canoe, lawn mower, windsurfer and various other large items that need a place to be kept) and another little building that we call the "empty shed" which we tend to use for storage as well.  None of these buildings are insulated, so we can only use the property for about six months of the year, from May to October.

The nearest town is about a 5 minute drive away, which makes it easy to pop in for any groceries we might need, or a visit to the local bank, post office, hardware store, liquor or beer stores.

It's a great place to go to relax, get away from the city and be surrounded by nature. We have made a lot of friends there over the years so it can be quite social at times. Other times, it seems like it's just us and the trees, the birds and a chipmunk or two.  We are lucky to have a western exposure so we are treated to beautiful sunsets every day, depending on the weather.

There you have it, a few details about our little slice of heaven by the water.