Prepping for 2015 Dock Work.

Last Sunday: "We've done more since, and I'll go over that in the next post..."

That's what I'm doing now.

Aside from the standard closing jobs of boarding the windows and what-not, our last visit included setting ourselves up for replacing the dock next year.

With Christine out in Halifax one weekend in mid-October (congrats again, Kath!), I went up with my folks for an overnighter. Christine left us a list of tasks to complete, which was good because I was bound to forget at least one.

One of those jobs was to trim the concrete "ramp" leading into the water from the lower level. There were a couple of metal pipes sticking out from the rocks that looked just hideous and dangerous. One popped right out, the other required a fair bit more work. But they're gone now, so the area looks like this:

It looks...like a pile of rocks and concrete.  Not impressive in and of itself, but it's an improvement, trust us. Interestingly, if you look towards bottom right, you'll see that at some point there had been stairs built in.  I think I'd like to try to restore that somewhat down the road.

So that done, on a subsequent day trip to close the place down for the year, Christine and I removed the legs off the dock and shoved that heavy bastard (yes, another one) over to the side.

I wasn't really looking forward to this, but Christine pointed out that I'll be looking forward to it even less in the spring when I have to do it in icy, chin-deep water.  Strong argument.

In a way, it was easier than we expected.  Turned out that the legs were more responsible for the overall weight than we thought. The dock itself was pretty manageable. The issue was more one of balance. We had to move it forward towards the water side while avoiding tipping it into the drink.

We're going to be buying a new leaner, lighter dock and installing it early next year.  But there are plans for the old one too. We are going to dismantle our eyesore of a shed and replace it with one that is slightly narrower and not quite as deep, then move it forward a foot or two.  That will enable us to use the old dock as a deck or low platform behind the shed and boat house (I still don't like the word "bunkie") overlooking our 16 inches or so of beach, where the pedal boat is currently resting.

You can never have too many sitting areas around the place.

No posts in October???

I didn't realize it had been that long.  Why didn't one of you say something??? ;-)

It turns out that the last few weekends of cottage season were largely uneventful (which, you know, is kind of nice from time to time...). We had made some plans but they feel through so we were left with leaves to burn and animals to feed (and villains to capture in the Batman series of video games but no cares about that. For the record though, I'm THAT much closer to catching that Riddler jerk. I WILL get him).

I may look pretty miserable there but truth is I'm seldom happier than in front of a fire in the fall (indoor or outdoor). Maybe I'm happier when the RedBlacks win.  So like I said, seldom.

Still, some things got done. We did have Kathy over on a lovely Thanksgiving weekend...

...a visit which was kicked off by replacing the leather couch in the dining room.

Now pardon me, but...that was one heavy bastard. It was a sofa bed, all wood and old, cracked leather...Just dreadful. Comfy enough, mind you! But still. It was time to see what my old friend Dumpmaster Gary was up to.

Kathy delivered replacement couch and for the life of me, I can not find a picture of it now. I could have sworn I'd taken one but I just can't seem to come across it. Whatever. I'll have plenty of opportunity to get one another day because THAT couch isn't going anywhere any time soon.

Another minor project got taken care of earlier that day. Remember those fence posts I "made"?

We had one 12-foot length of wood remaining (always better to have too much than not enough). So I cut it in half, then split one of the halves down the middle to make a frame of sorts for the kitchen garden.

I like that kind of job because it sounds a fair bit harder than it actually is. Then I have the choice to either a) make it sound like a terrible ordeal or b) make it sound like it would be a terrible ordeal for anyone else, but it wasn't for me. I choose based on my desired outcome.

Anyway, it's not exactly the sort of change that will set property values soaring, but the garden looks a bit more organized now and we have a bit of a path to the compost box.

We've done more since, and I'll go over that in the next post, but in the meantime here are some results of the animal feeding referred to earlier.