Innehållsförteckning för June/July 2020 från Cottage Life

Come outback any time We love Canada, but there’s something about Australian landscapes that is so intriguing. Spend a little time down under with Michael McCoy (above), the host of Dream Gardens and one of Australia’s leading landscape designers, as he helps homeowners transform their gardens with imaginative and challenging outdoor designs (sure to give you a little inspiration for the cottage). A new season premieres Saturday, June 6, at 8 p.m. ET/PT. Visit tv.cottagelife.com for details. Yes, we plan! You read Cottage Life and saw a project that you loved (such as this outdoor shower), but you never built it, and now you can’t find the plans anywhere. This summer, we’ll have our library of DIY plans available for purchase on cottagelife.com, right at your fingertips. Hear ye, hear…

Wayne Lennox found his way to Cottage Life readers by way of a treasure hunt. His first story for the magazine outlined the game that he created for his son and daughter. And it remains a cottage tradition he continues for his three granddaughters. In the roughly quarter-century since the first treasure hunt, Wayne has guided cottage DIYers through many projects, including an outhouse, a foldable picnic table, and a storage shed. And while he has a larger work space at his home in Orillia, Ont., it is his cottage workshop, on Wahwashkesh Lake near Parry Sound, that offers up lake views, a clear breeze, and plenty of inspiration. A dedicated home for tools and supplies also makes it much easier for him to stay on top of cottage maintenance.…

Q: Our new puppy loves to eat the mushrooms on our property. She does, however, avoid certain mushrooms. Do dogs have an instinct for avoiding the poisonous ones? Can you provide us with more information on mushrooms that aren’t safe for our puppy to eat? —DARCY, BLINDFOLD LAKE, ONT. A: “The majority of mushrooms are not toxic,” says Paul Kroeger of the Vancouver Mycological Society. Well, that’s good news. Except…there are thousands of species of wild mushrooms, so that still leaves a whole bunch that are toxic. And, while mushroom poisoning isn’t a major cause of mortality in pets, says Kroeger, “it is fairly frequently reported in dogs.” Depending on the mushroom and its toxicity, symptoms range from lethargy and uncoordinated movement to gastrointestinal problems, seizures, and coma. “Sometimes, serious…

It’s time to paint the cottage, inside or out, and you should know that there’ve been a few changes in the paint can, and not just that 2017’s Millennial Pink has come and (almost) gone. From the dominance of water-based paints to reduced volatile chemicals and no more lead at all, understanding more about paint and how it works can help your paint job look better for longer. THE SCIENCE All paint has four basic ingredients: solvent, pigment, binder, and additives. The solvent, or vehicle, is what evaporates as the paint cures. These days, about 95 per cent of the house paint sold is latex, using water as its solvent. Even many alkyd paints, the formerly stinky ones we used to call “oil,” have been reformulated as “hybrid” paints that…

Sleeping cabin. Bunkie. Guest cottage. There are as many terms for the building where you stash overflow slumber partiers as there are for cottages themselves. In a scan across the country, we also found numerous variations on the rules for adding a sleeping cabin. Here are just a few examples to help you know what to ask when you research your own project. Who’s the boss? Though regional bylaws are anchored by provincial building codes, municipalities layer on their own rules in the form of zoning bylaws. Those bylaws tell you if you’re allowed to build—how many sleeping cabins you can put on your property, for example, and where you can site them. Building codes specify how these must be constructed—whether they’re required to have insulation, say, or a septic…

When splicing 12-volt wires in your boat, a super-strong, watertight soldered connection beats crimp-on connectors hands down. You’ll need wire strippers, heat-shrink tubing, a soldering iron, and rosin-cored electrical solder (not plumbing solder). Strip about 1" of insulation from each wire, and slide a length of heat-shrink tubing over one wire a few inches away from the connection. Unravel each wire end, push the strands together to intermesh, and twist tightly. Or, twist the strands on each end tight, then overlap and twist tightly together, spinning one set of wires around the other. Make sure to tuck in any loose strands. With the wire supported by a vise, a clamp, or something similar, heat the bottom of the joint with a soldering iron until the solder melts and flows when…

How many times have you sat on a deck and looked across the lake—only to see the railing instead of the horizon? On many low decks, a set of steps on all sides can eliminate the need for a railing altogether. Angled, “wraparound” steps improve access and better integrate deck with land. And softening a deck corner with two 45° angles, instead of one 90°, isn’t that difficult for anyone with a good mitre saw, a square, some basic carpentry skills, and the know-how to cut stringers from 2x12s. 1 Map out your stringers How many stringers you need depends on the treads. For 2x6 tread boards, which are sturdier than 5/4 deck boards, space stringers 16" on centre. After cutting the stringers, usually with a 7" rise over 11"…

Caroline Brooks expects noise at her home in Toronto. But after the drive and boat ride to her in-laws’ place on Lake Rosseau, Ont., she wants to hear little more than wind in the pines and the gentle lap of waves against rock. Caroline, a musician, craves quiet. But quiet at the lake, she says, is hard to find. As I sit in my cottage on Lake Huron—writing this story on quiet and the value in preserving it where we’ve, historically, sought it—I take note of the sounds around me. Yes, there are the calls of throaty tree frogs, which grow more insistent as the sun melts into the lake. There is what my uncle, who’d lived in seven countries over his lifetime, insisted was the quintessentially Southern Ontario sound…

Don Scott is standing beside a knee-high table he built from wood and bone. White pine, to be specific, and the antlers of moose and white-tailed deer. It’s topped with glass and beneath that is a magical jumble of specimens and keepsakes: crooked knives, rocks, snakeskins, the skull of a bird. There are also whale vertebrae scavenged from a beach in Newfoundland and arrow points plucked from the shores of the very lake, east of North Bay, where Don, his wife Beth, and their three kids, have summered for the past 25 years. “European aristocracy in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries would keep what they call a ‘wonder cabinet’ in their house,” Don explains. These mini museums, also called cabinets of curiosities, could fill the wall of a home…

1 MAKE A SWITCH HIT. Buffalo Cauliflower SERVES 4 AS A MAIN, 6 AS A SIDE Delicious and easy, this recipe doubles well, and you can prep the cauliflower with spice mix the day before and store it covered in the fridge until the barbecue is fired up for a no-fuss meal. Serve with Smoky Sesame Edamame to amp up the protein. You can swap in regular butter and ranch dressing if you don’t need it to be vegan. 1 head cauliflower, about 500 g, leaves removed, core trimmed Buffalo Spice Mix ⅓ cup vegetable oil2 tbsp brown sugar, packed1 tsp each ground cumin, cayenne pepper, dry mustard, smoked paprika, salt Buffalo Sauce ⅓ cup vegan butter, melted⅓ cup hot sauce (e.g., Frank’s)2 tsp soy sauce1 tsp garlic powder1 cup…

Recharge with the simple life My wife and I are front-line physicians in Kingston, Ont., during this COVID-19 pandemic. It has been extremely busy for the last few weeks as we prepare for our health care resources potentially being overwhelmed. For us, our cottage on Buck Lake, just north of our city home, has always been an escape where we can go to forget about life for a while. That’s even more important now so we can recharge our batteries for the coming weeks. The ice is gone, the loons are back, and the kayaks are on the rack. The May ’20 issue of Cottage Life, celebrating “the simple pleasures of life at the lake,” is timely to help remind us there’s more to life than the current pandemic and…

You can never have too many fly swatters at the cottage. Ours stocks them in sunset colours: red, yellow, and orange. In summers past, when my grandfather was alive, every afternoon snack on the deck called into duty at least one swatter, usually the red. It would inevitably rest with him or the youngest child present, and the results would inevitably be the same: one lucky kill would instill greater confidence and daring in whoever was on patrol, and soon people, plates, and cups would receive a few whacks from the 30-year-old, never-been-washed flap of rubber. Snackers’ focus shifted from eyeing the biggest barbecued chip left in the bowl to fending off increasingly liberal swats. The final blow to snack time came when the slugger, who had only two hits…

Inconsistent water levels and the slippery shores of Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay made finding a safe spot to launch canoes and kayaks a challenge at Ron Legault’s cottage. “I went to help my wife, Marilyn, launch the kayak one day, and she flipped over and fell in the water trying to get in,” says Ron. It was clear—they needed a better way to get into their canoe and six kayaks. “At that point, Marilyn said, ‘This has to be number one on our to-do list,’” says Ron. Ron is a retired chartered accountant, but has always loved carpentry, so he designed a prototype for a launch pad that would sit on top of the rocks. Using pressure-treated wood, he constructed the outer frame with 2x8 boards and then added 2x8s…

Q: “Cottage repairs are expensive, and I am not handy. Is it possible to learn how to be one of those fix-it-yourself people?” A: If I were a smart-ass, the answer would be: Of course, anything is possible! Like the way it’s possible that I could become an Olympic gymnast with a balance beam specialty or that the LCBO will one day have a massive 50%-off sale. Which is to say probably not. The problem is that handiness is not something you can just buy like a Pleasure Craft Operator Card. You need actual knowledge and experience, most of it gained from fixing and building stuff for decades. I consider myself to be pretty handy, as are most of my friends, and when I asked them how they developed handy…

It doesn’t matter if you’re restoring habitat for wildlife or raising money for a worthy cause: doing good feels good. And doing good as part of a group feels even better. “It’s a very common phenomenon,” says Sam Klarreich, a psychologist in Toronto. “We’re social creatures. We always have been.” Joining a group, and volunteering with that group, wards off loneliness and depression—no surprise there—but research even suggests that it has physical health benefits, including lower blood pressure and increased longevity. It’s not just the act of doing the work, or the satisfaction that comes with making a contribution, that will give someone a boost. Group volunteerism helpfully ticks off most of the categories in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (remember first-year psychology?): safety and security; belongingness; esteem; even self-actualization. “People…