Early Spring at the Cottage

Well, it has been a fantabulous weekend here in Ottawa. The temperatures have been mild (15 °C) with brilliant cloudless blue skies. The snows have mostly receded to those shady areas where the days just aren’t hot enough to penetrate.

We decided to drive up to the cottage, to see how things had come through the winter, to see how far the snow had melted (45 minutes North of town) and just generally to get out into the country a bit to enjoy the weather.

Of course, I had to bring along my camera (recently described as my third arm — except it disables an arm instead of adding one). The light was excellent and I got a few good shots.

Side of the boathouse

One of the coolest things at the cottage was that the lake was partially iced over on the surface, but also seemed to have a submerged layer of ice that came right up to the shoreline. Generally the lake has quite a steep dropoff, but the submerged shelf of ice (about 1m under the surface) hid that, and looked quite cool in the sunlight through the water. That’s why the “bottom” looks so cool in the shots above and below.

This little guy caused some consternation, but is not poison ivy. My poison ivy detector fires exclusively on the basis of leaf pattern, and this red-berried beauty fit the bill; it was, however, nestled among its four- and five-leafed brethren. So it was safe… and highly appealing.

The light was perfect, the snow was white, the moss was green, the dirt was brown, the wood was peeling… I like this photo!

A neighbour’s trash attracted attention…

Rustic cottages offer so much great texture. Both of these shots are of the boathouse.

All in all, a highly pleasing day at the cottage. A few more weeks and we’ll be able to put in the water system and start grillin’!

return to cmh blog

2005-04-10 17:49   ...2