Keywaybeek: 2019 Cottage Notes

Dad & I got there August 24th. It wasn't a sure thing. One of us (not me) forgot to renew a passport. Fortunately, the Canadian border guard at Sarnia said she once "had a boyfriend from Burk's Falls", so she waved us through. (Hmmm, not sure if true, but OK.)

That last picture is Dad & Alice (98) in Ludington, MI the day after we got back from Keywaybeek.

The first two days were pretty good weather-wise. After that, it was full-time windy or rainy, or both during the day. It was too windy to fish, and the old front porch was already where I had in mind, so there wasn't a whole lot to do. It's good that no wood needed splitting. My sore back would've vetoed it. We left on the 31st, right when the weather turned nice again.

Two or three days in, we got word that Holly & Kip would be arriving later on the day we left. Other than vacuuming and burning the biffy bag, Dad & I didn't do any shutdown stuff.

OBSERVATIONS AND NEW STUFF:

The new attic ladder rope is pretty slippery and thin. It's easy to lose your grip. I did, then caught it, which cost me a little bit of skin on my wrist. Not enough to draw blood, but ouch. Better rope or grippy gloves?

The belt for the good (blue) vacuum still hasn't been replaced, or if it had, it was broken before we got there. You can read back two years on this blog if you want the belt model number to order. Any more mentions would qualify as nagging.

I added about 1200 new tunes to the jukebox. Fans of Oingo Boingo, the Black Keys, Gary Clarke Jr., Courtney Barnett, Bob Dylan and Kings of Leon should be pleased. It's at 37,715 tunes now.

There's a new winter cap for the flagpole base. Doug said the old one had rusted out. It lasted about 12 years, so the new one should be good for a while. I had to buy some conical rubber washers at Home Hardware for US$1.74. The tab for the last three years (electrical, lights, Canadian flags, washers) is at US$61.22.

The small appliances in the upstairs box were checked out for functionality. The toaster and the kettle are still working. The kettle is slow to boil, and the toaster is a little finicky, but they're good backups in case of future breakfast failures. The hotplate wasn't fixable. Too many boilovers made the contacts under the burner corrode. It could've been fixed, but not with the available parts, and definitely not safely.

The BBQ was moved around to the driveway side out of necessity. The wind was nuts while we were there. On the front porch, the BBQ was almost impossible to light. It barely worked back behind the cottage because the wind carried the heat away so fast. I also noticed some grease stains on the new porch, and opted not to contribute to the problem.

2017

2019

I was kind of shocked to find that the back porch shelf I spent about 6 or 7 hours making, had been dismantled and replaced. That's more time than we got to actively use it after the paint dried back in 2017 (when I also suggested it be repainted a darker colour). I won't bore everybody arguing the merits of a semi-triangular vs. rectangular shape in that particular application. I'll just say the following: Doug, if your goal was to piss me off, mission accomplished. Now that the lighting and electrical stuff is done, I'm reluctant to take on any new projects knowing that they might be undone on a whim. Very rude, dude.

I'm about 80% sure I saw a wolf come out from around the bay side of the biffy at night. It ran off when I said "Hello Doggie" from the porch. (I didn't have my glasses on.) I heard some movement out in the woods for a while and fetched my glasses and Dad's cop-grade flashlight. It crossed back in front of the biffy again a while later, and I got a much better look. Big with a fluffy, non-waggy tail. There was chewed up evidence the next morning that "Doggie" was after a bloody plastic bag that the wind had taken while I was barbequeing chicken the day before.

Here, have some flags:

It's Michigan State Spartans, the Scottish Royal flag, Mexico, Washington State Cougars and Pre-WW1 Prussia. #'s 2,3 & 4 were from a garage sale enthusiast I know, who has a tendency to take a casual gift suggestion and run it into the ground.

That's about it. Questions, comments, objections and obfuscations can all go to the usual places.

-Jim

Oh wait, here's some cat pix: