Cottage Life by Janice Carter

It's almost the end of June and finally I'm settled in at the cottage.  In the days before retirement (how sweet to say those words!), the move from city to island was hectic and drawn-out. A few weeks before the end of school, our family would make the three hour drive from home to Garden Island near Kingston, Ontario, transporting clothes, books, toys, some cooking utensils and kitchen staples. All of this would be loaded into our station wagon, then loaded into our small-ish boat for the 15 minute ride across the St.Lawrence, then unloaded into wheelbarrows and rolled down the long lane to our cottage. Then the unpacking, organizing and cleaning would begin. The whole process would be repeated for at least three weekends until we were finally ensconced for the summer. Of course, the reverse would occur in mid-October on our Thanksgiving weekend. Think holiday traffic and add another hour and a half to the trip back! But now, thanks to retirement, all of that can be accomplished - like everything else in my life these days - at a leisurely pace.
     I've written about Garden Island and its history before in this blog, but just to recap for newcomers, the island has been privately owned since the late 1800s by a family (sadly, not mine!) whose ancestors operated a ship building company that constructed sail and steam ships, along with giant timber rafts, on this 65 acre island. There once was a village of 750 people here! When the company closed down after WWI, the family converted it into a holiday retreat, using the remaining buildings - a schoolhouse, a post office, workers' houses, a dining hall - into rental cottages. Although none of us own our cottages (except the real owners), we're allowed to keep our places from year to year. That means we can leave all of our stuff here all the time. We've been in our place for 34 years! 

our cottage in the fall

the living room

    There are many wonderful aspects to island living,but the best is the community that shares the island with us. Our children were lucky to spend whole summers here, thanks to my job as a teacher. We've never had a TV and only got the internet a few years ago, so the kids spent their days biking down the lane, producing and performing plays like a comic spoof of Pride and Prejudice written by one of my daughters called Dimwits and Damsels, attended by the whole island. There was an island newspaper - the Garden Island Gazette - for a few seasons and the kids played night games (tag, hide-and-seek) in the apple orchard, camped out in the walnut grove, swam (always with an adult - the only island rule for kids) and went treasure hunting.
         

More treasure

A treasure box

The adults organized - and still do - an annual Canada Day 'cocktail' party (July 1st) on a cottage lawn, a Thanksgiving pot luck in the former sail loft and a pumpkin carving contest. Nowadays with more retired cottagers staying here for longer periods of time, we also have rotating retiree dinners.
    My husband (who surely must have been a farmer in his former life) plants huge veggie and flower gardens, keeps beehives and raises chickens, which are given to a farmer on the mainland every fall when we leave for the city.
 

a swarm of bees

 

Beekeeper husband collecting swarm

  I like to pick the flowers and veggies 😊 cook and bake family favorites (Asian flank steak, fruit pies, any kind of pickle...you get the picture),

pickled turnips

rhubarb pie

 write romance novels while listening to the chatter and songs of the large variety of birds on the island or simply sit in an Adirondack and daydream.
   

cool refuge on a hot day

    In spite of some inconveniences - an outdoor privy, the need to ferry drinking water - and some critters that many people don't like (non- poisonous garter and water snakes plus more species of spiders than one can have nightmares about) we enjoy meadow, marsh, woods and shore with no traffic, other than bikes, wheelbarrows and occasionally, a tractor.
    We've known the community of people here for so long they are like extensions of our own family and we've watched their children and grandchildren grow up here, too.  It's not so much cottage life, as a way of life and the perfect antidote to the stresses of the city.

Where and what is your healing place?

Thanks for joining me today!

Janice Carter