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| Packing Up The Seadoos And Cottage For Winter |
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| Written by Samual M. Adams |
| Wednesday, 30 September 2009 08:54 |
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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 fall hits, it is still great weather to enjoy the cottage, but I start to lose interest in riding the seadoos on the lake anymore. It's just more fun to putter around the cottage with a mug of coffee and work on packing everything away, rather than bearing the cold water and dreading every cloud in the sky that blocks the sun, preventing the last bits of summer sun from warming my chilly wetsuit. Anyway, it's time to pull the seadoos out of the water and give them the end of season scrub down to get rid of any lakewater. While washing them down, I take the time to fully inspect everything, and before they get packed away I'll fix up any scrapes or dings, or replace any worn or broken parts. After each PWC has been cleaned and fixed, they get towed to their winter storage spot. I have a great oversized garage where there is room at the end for me to store my trailer with the pwcs on it for the winter. At the cottage I get the seadoo covers on for hauling back to the house, and then they are set for the winter (unless of course it was a wet day when I hauled them back, then I need to dry them out and recover them later). As for the other boats at the cottage, the canoe has a little frame that it sits upside down on under the cottage, and all the paddles get brought into the cottage so the animals don't decide to use them as toothpicks over the winter. Another job that I enjoy is finding and splitting deadwood. We don't use a lot of firewood to heat the cottage but we do have a wood stove and the first few weekends of the cottage season (just after Easter) can be chilly. It's nice to open up the cottage and have some ready wood to throw into the woodstove. We don't often come up during the winter but if we do the wood is ready. I also like to chop back any perennials we have like hosta and flowering phlox. At the cottage we have what could be referred to as an English style wild flower garden. It doesn't take much care and tends to self seed. However, if the large hosta leaves are allowed to lay on the ground over winter they make great bedrooms for slugs and other undesirables. By getting rid of the hosta leaves in the autumn the garden will be ready to re-sprout in the spring. 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. About the Author: To read more about seadoos for the cottage, please visit this great site where you will find all kinds of cottage how-tos and tips. Kindly provided by MoneyHunter.org You are welcome to use this article on your own website, if you include the link just before this text. |
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