The end of another year is upon us, and the only thing sadder than not being able to come out to the cottage every weekend, is the thought that I have to pack up my seadoos for the winter. These last few weeks of the summer lake season are spent doing all the closing up tasks, and cleaning and fixing that the cottage and all the lake toys require after another fun summer. It’s not all that bad though, because the cleanup and fixing that is done in the fall just means an easy job of opening the cottage in the spring.
Once the days become too chilly to enjoy our personal water crafts, I start to take them out. I take out the least popular or least used first. As I take each out of the water, I take the time to give it a good cleaning and make any minor repairs. Sometimes I need to sand and re-varnish paddles while other times the canoe or peddle boat might need a small fiberglass patch.
Once the PWCs are cleaned and repaired, I move them to their designated winter storage area and make sure they are securely covered for winter. Some watercraft have a special cover, for example my Seadoo PWC has a special Seadoo cover. Others are covered by durable tarps that I can fasten with bungee cords or ropes. All accessories such as paddles are stored in the rafters of the boathouse.
Among the other winterizing chores that I find to do in the fall is cleaning up any trees that have fallen over the summer. If do the clean up in the fall it’s easy to get to the branches because the weeds are starting to die back. I also find that I can split and stack this wood under the overhang at the end of the cottage, and it will have a chance to dry out for the spring when we use the wood stove during the first few cold weekends at the cottage, and also for the occasional winter sleepover.
We also spend a lot of time working on our naturalized landscaping. There are no manicured flower beds or anything like that, but we have planted a lot of bulbs and hostas and creeping ground cover that give our cottage a wonderful natural landscape. At the edges of the lawn and driveway are some banks of wildflowers that self seed and give the lot beautiful color through the season. I like to cut back any plants and bulb leaves that are starting to die back, so there is less cleanup to do in the spring. I add the clippings to our compost pile, and then take a bit of the ready compost and amend any beds that I think need it. Cutting the lawn one last time lets us enjoy the tiny spring bulbs that we’ve planted, without getting lost in long dead grass.
I never find any shortage of jobs to do in order to get the cottage ready for the winter, but it makes me happy knowing that the work I do at the end of the season means less maintenance and cleanup work that I will have to do in the spring. First thing next year I’ll be able to bring out the pwcs, unpack the seadoo covers and head straight out to the lake.
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