Summer is such a funny time up at the cottage. Yes, it’s often the best season – for some anyway – but it also seems so short, and all the other seasons get in your head and crowd out your summer days.

For instance, you spend summer weekends on your dock, and you notice a few boards have shifted because of the ice in the winter. And you think, “Hmm, maybe I should find a guy to come and fix the dock this fall.” So you start planning for the fall. On a gorgeous summer weekend.

And then there’s the wood. (Have I mentioned my obsession with wood before?)

We have just come off the hottest week on the planet in history. Never before has the world been so hot…EVERYWHERE! The humidity finally broke on the weekend, which gave me a small window of a bearable temperature. So that I could stack wood. So that I will be warm. In the winter time.

You see? In the summer, I always seem to be thinking about other seasons. I’m thinking of what bulbs to plant in late summer/early fall so that I will have spring flowers. Every season there is something to do in order to have the cottage livable and happy during those precious summer months. And yet…

Yes. I’m the ant in the fable of the ant and the grasshopper. I want so much to be the grasshopper, but I’m thinking of the inevitable winter. Which means I have to plan for things in fall. And make a note to get my wood earlier next year – the spring – so that I don’t have to stack it on the hottest day of the summer.

Other than all that, summer cottage life is good. When I have time to think about it. Thoughts? Anyone?

Thanks and good luck.