Sunday Snippet: The Opening Weekend Edition with Chicks and Ducklings and Turkeys…Oh My!

There’s a particular scent that always pervades the first weekend of being at the lake–it’s a mixture of citronella and watermelon candles, mothballs (to keep the critters away) and pink antifreeze, bleach, and a slight mustiness that means you’re at the lake. This year, it hit us as soon as we opened the front door. We both inhaled deeply and grinned at each other and said, in unison, “We’re at the lake!” Pic is Husband in his happy place–the lake!

We’ve been working most of the past two days getting the cottage ready for another summer. Husband turned on the water (which involves more than turning a knob–he has to lie on the ground under the house, and reach down into a pipe to turn a valve and then come inside and turn another valve) and then he has turn on a couple of faucets so the clean water can blow out all the antifreeze we put in last fall (remember the pink bucket?).

While he’s doing the water thing, I uncover the furniture and fold and put away the covers. I check all the kitchen drawers for signs of mice–last year we didn’t see any signs that we’d had a mouse come to live in our cottage over the winter. This year … well, damn … Despite all our best efforts–mothballs under the cottage, little sonar-y things that make a sound only a mouse can hear, dryer sheets in the lower cupboards, basil leaves, peppermint spray, stuffing steel wool into every possible crevice, and traps under every sink–one of the little suckers found a way in.

Usually that means a day of washing every dish, every utensil, wiping out drawers, replacing shelf paper–it’s tiring and frustrating. This year, though, the only sign we saw were a couple of mousie-sized poops in the bread basket on the counter. Nothing else. Not a single sign we’d had rodent company over the winter. But when husband checked the round trap under the kitchen sink, there was our visitor. He didn’t stink so he hadn’t been there too long, and although there were signs he’d been under the sink by the trap, otherwise not another sign of his wandering. We figure he squeezed around the water pipes near the trap, ran up to check for food, found nothing, left a deposit in the bread basket in disgust, and then went back to where he smelled the peanut butter in the trap and voila! He was caught. I tossed the bread basket, wiped the counters down with sanitizing wipes, did the same under the sink and said a few words of thanks to the universe for things not being any worse than that.

After we were opened up enough, we went into town to restock our fridge and pantry of essentials and things are starting to feel pretty well ready for summer.

The kids came up to open up their cottage, too, so I got to do the huge opening-up trip to town twice in one weekend. We hit the  Kroger and the Rural King (our town’s local farm store) for all the stuff they needed to restock. And that’s where I got a first-for-me experience that I never knew was available. We’ve had our cottage for fourteen summers, and never once have I ever checked out the spring chicks, ducks, and rabbits at the Rural King. I mean who knew?

The kids led me back to the animal care part of the store and there were ten stock tanks with lights attached to the edges, and each one contained a different variety of baby chickens, ducks and even a tank of baby turkeys (They’re called poults–I looked it up.)! I’d never seen a baby turkey before. DIL and I ooohed and ahhhed over the sweet little birds who were cheeping and falling all over each others in the tanks. Sadly, the bunnies were all gone–Easter, I guess. But it was a treat to see the bird babies and I texted pictures to Husband for his vicarious pleasure. I needed a something new in my life for the week, and there it was in a stock tank in the Rural King.

We’re excited to have both places open and available for sunny summer days. We’ll have friends up for long lovely lake days with a boat ride, lake swimming, and deck sitting with glasses of wine or margaritas (Husband makes the very best ones that are sugar-free and carb-free!). Grandboy and I are planning a weeklong writing/reading camp in July that will be good fun. Husband and Son will fish and DIL and Grandboy and I will swim with Mo and the others up here. Summertime is nearly upon us… yay!

Gratitude for This Week: Got a shot in my arthritic right knee and it’s helping; cleaned up the lake house yard and weeded all the gardens; lake house is open; discovered a very nice zinfandel on our last trip to Total Wine; progress on current WIP is being helped by sprints each weekday morning. 

Stay well, soak in spring sunshine, stay vigilant to what is happening in the world around you, and most of all, mes amis, stay grateful!