Cottage Daze

by James Ross

  I wandered into the cottage looking woeful and forlorn, and my wife could tell instantly something had happened.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “He’s gone,” I croaked. “Can you throw those steaks on the broiler?”

  Boat Launch

  It was a bit of a Mr. Bean moment. I had unstrapped the boat from the trailer and then backed it down into the water at the public boat launch. I jumped out of the car, went around back, released the winch, and unhooked the winch rope from the ring on the boat’s bow. It was then that I realized that I had not backed up quite far enough to get the boat afloat and free from the trailer. So I jumped back into the vehicle and inched it another foot backwards into the lake. The boat drifted free and floated out into the bay.

  I stood there with my hands on my hips looking at my boat floating fifteen feet off shore. I tried to coax it in. “Come here, little boat,” I muttered. I thought about paddling my hands in the water, drawing them inwards to create a current that would pull the boat in, but decided that, although this technique works in the bathtub with my toy battleships or yellow ducky, it was not likely to work here in this big lake with a sixteen-foot runabout.

  I used to be pretty good with a lariat in my horseman days, but the only rope I had of any length was stowed neatly in the boat’s storage locker. What to do? The breeze seemed to be picking up, ruffling the water and pushing the boat away. I didn’t even have my swim shorts with me. I looked around: nobody was there, no one was around to bear witness to my foolhardiness. In that respect, at least, it was my lucky day. I removed my shoes, rolled up my jeans, and stepped gingerly into the lake.

  I thought if I were able to walk out to my knees and then stretch my arms fully, I might just be able to reach. I sloshed out deeper, but the boat seemed to be drifting away at the same speed. I was past my knees, then the cold water was cooling my tender regions, causing me to walk on tiptoes. Soon I was swimming, doing the breast stroke until I reached a dragging boat line. I turned and towed the boat towards shore.

  I remembered the time when I had been so excited, and in such a rush to get over to our island cottage, that I had arrived at the launch and backed the boat in, forgetting to put the plug in the vessel. I backed it down into the water, unhooked it, got it started, and ran it over to the dock to load our gear and provisions. An old-timer standing there with a fishing line in the water, barely giving me any notice, mumbled almost incoherently, “Yer boat seems to be ridin’ low, young fella.” A pause to spit some tobacco. “Appears to be sinking — sure you ’membered the plug?”

  As I swam, fully clothed, for shore, I consoled myself with the fact that at least this time, my act of stupidity had gone unseen. Too soon, as it turned out. I was halfway back, stretching my toes to feel the bottom, when I heard an approaching truck. I panicked and swam hard. Unfortunately, tugging a boat along slows you down. I was still a ways out when the vehicle came into view. I froze and dropped low in the water: “Please don’t look this way.”

  A sister’s boat is asking to be hijacked.

  My heart sank. It was the Brat and his grandpa, the same grandpa we had rented a boat from when our boat had broken down in the middle of the lake. It was the same precocious youngster who had called me a dummy, who had said that I didn’t know what I was doing when it came to boats.

  The truck stopped and their heads slowly, and in unison, turned my way. Realizing that hiding was futile, I gave them a little wave, like I take my boat for a swim everyday.

  “Grandpa, what’s that dummy doing now?” I heard the Brat’s voice through the truck’s open window.

  “Hush,” said Grandpa. And then he yelled out the window to me, “Need a hand?”

  “No. No, I’m good. Just checking for leaks,” I tried, knowing all too well that by evening, at the latest, my folly would be common knowledge around the lake.

  “Grandpa?”

  “Hush,” he said again, and they drove on.

  The Robin

  Once upon a midday dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore. While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at my cottage door.

  I heard the tapping, but could not immediately place the noise. It sounded like one of the kids playing a joke, tapping on the cabin door and interrupting my work. I yelled for quiet, but then realized I was being dim-witted: I was at the cottage myself this time. Still, my bellow had the desired effect and the outside world was once again peaceful.

  I peered out the big dining room window at the front porch of the cabin, but seeing nothing I returned to my work. Before too long, the noise started up again, tap, tap, tap.

  I got up from the table and looked out the window … nothing. With a furrowed brow I threw open the door. On the porch stood a robin — just a robin and nothing more. I jumped back with a start. Not that I am afraid of a robin, of course, but having such a bird knocking at my cottage door was slightly eerie. The robin, seeing me, also gave a start, dropped a thread of dead grass from her beak, and flew off with a squawk.

  I looked around, smiled, then shut the door. I returned to my laptop and began tapping away myself. With no repeat of the rapping on the door, I soon got back into the rhythm of my work. During a brief pause and deep in thought, I gazed out over the beautiful lake. Suddenly I was greeted by the horrifying spectacle of a dark shape hurtling itself against the large window. I jumped up and ran to look, expecting to see a poor, stunned bird lying dying on the cottage porch.

  Instead, I saw my robin. She hopped up on the armrest of the hewn log rocking chair, peered briefly in at me, and then suddenly assaulted the windowpane once again. I stared wide-eyed. Again and again she repeated the manoeuvre, hurtling herself at the window, falling back on the wood porch, and hopping back on the chair, before doing it all again.

  The robin was stark raving mad, I was convinced of that. She was half cuckoo bird.

  I had a sudden, horrible vision of her breaking the glass window and then attacking me where I stood, pecking me to death. I opened the door and shooed her away. She flew to a nearby tree and from there screeched at me, as if I were the crazy one.

  I returned to my table but could no longer focus on any work. Time and time again, the robin returned to the porch, repeating her ridiculous attacks on the window. I tried shutting the curtains, to no avail. I tried moving the chair away, but this only served to eliminate one stage of her attack. I found a roll of masking tape and stuck strips across the glass panes, but this only slowed her for a while.

  I looked around for ideas. I contemplated taping a photo of my wife to the window, but knew instinctively that even if this worked I would lose. I took the book jacket off a Rick Mercer Report book I was reading and taped the photo of Rick onto the glass. All was quiet. I looked out: the robin had retreated into the trees.

  I felt quite alone the rest of the day and evening, and suffered through a restless night. I was up early the next morning, and when I opened the door a crack to look out I scared the robin away from her window perch. She had built a neat nest on the ledge, under the cover photo of Rick Mercer, his forehead only slightly whitewashed.

  I had come up to the cottage by myself this time to do some cottage chores and to get some peaceful work time in, before the kids were out of school for summer holidays. I realize now why I have always insisted the cottage is meant to be a family place — it is a scary place to visit alone.

  The Nesting Box

  A neighbouring cottager gave me a nesting box a few years back. It was of simple wood construction, two feet high, one foot wide, and one foot deep, with an entry hole cut out in the upper front and a slanted roof that could be removed for cleaning. Following his instructions, I filled the box with clean straw in the autumn and nailed it onto a leaning birch tree, about ten feet from the ground and six feet back from the lakeshore. I’m not sure I expected anything.

  The following spring
, upon our return to the cottage and after all our opening chores were done, I spied the lonely box high in the tree and decided it was vacant. I wondered about hanging an “Apartment for Rent” sign. I climbed the rickety cottage ladder to see if anything, any animal or bird, had taken the time to check out the premises. I peered in the round entry door and was immediately taken aback by two glowing eyes and a terrifying hiss from within, a demonic sound that had me falling backwards from my stoop into the shallow lake waters.

  For three springs running, the box was occupied. Each fall I would clean it and fill it with fresh straw, and each spring the female would be nesting. It is wonderful having a family of mergansers darting this way and that in our quiet bay, hiding out under the boathouse or in the grass and shrubs along the shoreline, a string of little chicks trailing after an attentive mother. This summer, our mergansers are absent.

  My dog smelled the problem first. I saw her sitting at the foot of the birch, staring up at the wooden box, tilting her head this way and that and sniffing the air. At first I thought there must be a mother with chicks, and ordered the dog away. Then I smelled the sulfury stench of bad eggs. I carefully climbed the ladder and peered in. Sadly, I found nine eggs in the nest, abandoned and rotting. Either the mother had simply left her eggs or, more likely, she had met an unfortunate end: a fox, wolf, angry loon, or crazed boater. As landlord and owner of the nesting box, I felt partially responsible for the loss.

  Build it, and they will come.

  We try to help out Mother Nature in little ways. Feeders are hung from tree branches, their seed kept replenished for the songbirds that sing the praises of each new day. Hummingbird stations are kept filled with sweet nectar and hung off the porch. Bat houses are built to attract the night flyers, who in turn keep the mosquito population in check. Nesting boxes are strategically placed on trees along the rocky shoreline. All are kept clean, fresh, sanitized, and in good repair.

  At my previous home, a ranch in British Columbia, I built several mountain bluebird nesting boxes and fixed them, according to instructions, five feet from the ground, south-facing, on fence posts. I was proud when a pretty female bluebird took up residence. She started bringing in little sprigs of grass in her delicate beak to make a nest.

  I bragged to my wife about my new tenant. I gloated to her about my important position as nature’s aide. That is, until my wife beckoned me outside the following morning. I was horrified to see my wily old barn cat, Charlie, perched on the nesting box roof with a paw raised, ready to swat the unfortunate bird when she departed. I chased the cat away, evicted the little renter for her own good, and removed the box. Domestic cats tend to take full advantage of our generosity towards birds.

  As cottagers, we tend to at least think we have a closer connection with nature, and we want to help out in any small way we can. We do things with all good intentions, to the best of our ability, and with all available information. Still, we can fail and discover that nature might have fared better without our intervention.

  That is how I felt when I discovered the abandoned eggs. My wise, glass-half-full wife pointed out our successes, and the many young mergansers who began their lives in our little nesting box. Hopefully a talented young merganser mother will take up residence next spring, and when we see that young brood following their mother around the bay, we can be proud.

  Time Moves On

  I attended my oldest daughter’s Grade 8 graduation during the last week of school. It was one of those bittersweet moments. As she received her diploma, wobbling across the stage in high heels that proved themselves far more difficult than the usual runners or flip-flops, I beamed with a father’s pride. My little girl had grown up.

  At the same time, I took in the ceremony with a somewhat heavy heart. Sure she had grown, but how fleeting those childhood days seem now. Was it not just yesterday that I carried her around on my shoulders and bounced her on my knee? She walked in my footsteps. I was her hero and she was my princess — well, no, she was never a princess. Now, she worries that I may embarrass her — and I undoubtedly have by even mentioning her in this space.

  Life moves on and you can’t change that.

  Time moves on and she has grown up, and for this special night at least, she has traded her jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers for an elegant dress. I looked at her, and it frightened me. She was beautiful. My daughter was no longer a child, she was a woman, and I was in trouble. I looked around me, and I am sure this is a sentiment most of the parents shared when seeing their daughters and sons maturing like this.

  When I said that I would like to get her a graduation present, she suggested a cellphone, something that many of her friends have received. I considered it for a moment and then bought her a kayak. I think she was quite pleased with the surprise, and if she is anything like me, she does not really like talking on a phone anyway.

  So, with the school year behind us, we head to the cottage with our graduate’s new toy strapped to the car roof. She quickly catches on to the movement and rhythm of the craft. When she rises in the morning, she takes it out into the little bay in front of the cottage and paddles effortlessly around in circles and figure eights. She paddles around the island. Her strokes are smooth and powerful. She becomes more proficient, so the paddle seems to become an extension of her arms and the kayak becomes part of her lower body. The movement is elegant and silent, and I realize why many people get addicted to such travel.

  When I brought a good report home in Grade 1, my dad built me a little wooden paddleboat called Flipper, named after the television series about a dolphin. Flipper was like a surfboard that you sat on and propelled yourself along with a double-bladed paddle. I enjoyed exploring on my little boat. Flipper is still around, but is used now as a bench in the children’s fort.

  I love sitting on the dock in the morning with my coffee, watching the kayak glide quietly across the water. My oldest will be off to high school in the fall. I know time passes quickly and soon she will be getting a summer job, graduating from high school, and perhaps leaving for university. Friends and commitments will lessen her time at the cottage. I don’t look forward to those days. I like having the whole family here with me. But such is life, and it will happen to each of my children in turn, just as it happened to me and my parents. Life moves on, and you can’t change that.

  For now I’ll enjoy watching a young lady and her kayak — and I’m happy that cellphones don’t work out here.

  Summertime Escape

  Leave It to Beaver

  A friend of mine was attacked by a beaver. Now, don’t laugh, it’s true. He told us so himself. We were at the cottage and there were a few of us, outdoor types, sitting around the campfire exchanging bear stories, when he joins in to tell us how he was nearly mauled by this plump rodent. You can imagine our mirth at his little yarn — we all shared a good laugh. He was serious, though, and visibly shaken recalling the experience.

  This friend is a forestry worker, a consultant. As such, he spends much of his time in the outdoors. He is in the bush through all seasons and in any weather, sunshine, rain, and snow. Until the time of the attack, his only worries were the occasional black bear, and the blackflies and mosquitoes that torment him each spring.

  He has a dog that accompanies him on his wilderness treks, a Siberian husky that loves the outdoors, the adventure, and the exercise. Well, not too long ago, as he was busy working in the bush, our friend heard the dog barking nearby. Now, huskies are not natural barkers, so he deemed the disturbance worth investigating.

  He found the dog facing off with a rather large beaver — the beaver was confidently eyeing the canine. Fearing for the beaver’s well-being, this caring forestry worker called off his well-behaved husky and ordered it to stay at a distance. He was fascinated to see this beaver so far from any water. There was no pond, lake, or river in the near vicinity. As he was admiring the pluck of the adventurous mammal, he was shocked to find himself under attack.

  The beaver charged,
and our poor friend was quickly backpedalling. The awkward-looking attacker darted in with more speed than seemed possible. Our hero dipped and dodged, weaved and wobbled, until he found himself with his back to a tree. The beaver gnashed his large front teeth. It seemed like curtains for our friend, but like a well-written movie, he found a large stick lying by his right hand. Just in the nick of time, he stuck out the broken branch and held the ferocious creature at bay.

  The beaver backed off a little, and, seizing the opportunity, our brave forester sprinted off. He did not look behind him, did not worry about his dog, did not stop until he had reached the safety of his truck. You can imagine how we laughed when we heard this campfire tale, giggled until our bellies hurt. I feel sorry for laughing now.

  I have shared my friend’s scary account with others around the lake, and in turn have been given several similar stories of suspense involving the ferocious flat-tailed tree-eater. One poor fellow required stitches in his backside. A beaver had blocked his way over a bridge. He left the safety of his vehicle to gently shoo the cute critter from his path. The beaver charged, and the man turned and ran. The fleet-footed furball caught him, pinning the man between truck and bridge guard rail as he struggled to open his door. The beaver latched on to the startled victim’s posterior, gnawing on it like it was a poplar tree.

  An old rancher friend from the west told me of his own experience. When out riding his horse, repairing fence, he caught site of a beaver far from any pond. Before the cowboy could spit a tobacco plug, the creature had lunged at his mount’s front legs. The beaver put the run on the horse in such an expert fashion that the cowpoke considered training the agile rodent for cutting cattle.

  Now, we all have our cottage stories of Castor canadensis — of the damage they cause, the trees they thin, the marsh systems they help create, or simply the sound of their wide tails smacking water on a still summer’s night. What has put me in mind of these violent tales is that today, as I am writing this, it is Canada Day, a day when we salute our country and feel pride for our flag. It is true we often complain that, as national symbols, the Americans have their bald eagle, the Russians their fearsome bear, and the Brits their king of the beasts, the lion. We have our amphibious rodent. Though these bucktoothed engineers may be industrious, hard-working, and skilled, they have never been credited as ferocious warriors.