Season Opener

It's still raining and grey today, but not as much as it was yesterday when hubby and I made our first visit of the season to our cottage. The mission was simple: make ready our cosy little hideaway - drop the water lines into the lake; connect the water pump; free the mattresses from their protective plastic; make the beds up; get the indoor plumbing working; stock the fridge and medicine cabinet for the weeks to come - rain or shine. So of course, nature tested us and we did it in the pouring rain, with the ground around our cottage so saturated and muddy that I practically canonized my hardware grade black rubber boots.

My expectations were low; I wasn't sure how the uninsulated cottage would fare through the frigid Canadian winter. So when I opened the door and was met with fresh smelling air, not a hint of must or damp, and a neat little cabin with all packets of mouse poison totally untouched - it was not only a relief but a spot of happy.

I sung as I fitted the fresh organic covers over the down duvets, plumped the pillows and stocked the fridge. I peered from the kitchen sink down to the lake and couldn't help but chuckle at the sight of hubby, hood pulled up over his head, rain teeming down as he maneuvered himself with paddle in one hand, the water lines in the other, trying to find the optimal spot to drop them in. It was comical, and when he appeared proudly in the doorway, soaking wet, water rolling off his clothes and nose, we both had a good laugh about it. I snapped the budding trees, the red and white trilliums that so beautifully carpeted the forest floor and the desolate landscape that will - in a few short weeks - contrast with the summer variety.

We came and went in the same day; the cottage is ready for our return next weekend and will certainly be more hospitable than she was this weekend. This was a sampler of good things to come. Lucky me; lucky us. We are living our dreams with more joy than sometimes I feel I deserve. But then I remember ... there is no such thing.

Trying to coax the old snapping turtle off the middle of the road.