Putting it all to bed for winter

Gratuitous Fall Lake Colour shot

Item A: Boat

Each year we try some new variation of getting the boat out of the water without actually owning a boat trailer and trying to do as little damage to the boat as possible.  This year may be our best effort!!

First of all our boat is a very old (kind of a theme here I think) pontoon boat that in a former life was a rental at a summer resort.  It is absolutely bare bones, without seats or any redeeming attractiveness.  On the other hand it is not a precious object which is a criteria for use here.

The fact that we do not own a boat trailer has been a nuisance and for some reason we resist the urge to purchase one every year.  This year we constructed a sort of trailer/chariot out of a couple of funny tire things, some old wood and a couple of logs

McGyver style boat trailer

So the idea was to float the boat over top of this thing and then use it to pull the boat out of the water

Boat being floated over the "trailer/chariot" by 2 local helpers

Securing it to the Kubota

It actually seemed to work quite well. Lifted out smoothly, rolled up and over the edge of the lake, and on to land.

lifting up, up, up

and on to dry land

All was well till the very end when we had to make a decision as to where the tongue end goes......

Trusty picnic table to the rescue.  (this might be an improvement for next year)

resting on a highly functional picnic table

Item B :  Wood

Behind every warm spring and fall is a major pile of dry and stacked firewood.  It is surprising each year how much wood it actually takes to keep our little place warm and cozy.  Prior to living here, we had central heat (in the city of course) and used our fireplace mostly for ambiance.

Now as our only source of heat the onus is on us to fell those trees, remove the branches and cut, split and stack that would for drying and ultimately use in our fearless wood stove.

Generally after the cutting, splitting and stacking the wood sits outdoors for a year or so to do the majority of its drying in the warm breezes of summer.  (The wet falls of snow don’t help, so the stacks are usually covered with tarps all winter.)

Once a reasonable time has passed the racks are trundled off into the “green building” (a fabric type building used as a wood shed) and from the there we bring over a scoop at a time using the Kubota.

Anyway, check out this year’s input…. I am already feeling warm….