Cottage Daze. James Ross

down from one generation to the next and updated and perfected yearly. Little notations are penned in the margins. We use it as a guideline and get ourselves more organized than we will be for any other event throughout the entire year.

      My list is actually meant to remind me of what I need at the cottage. It contains items like: “Don’t forget the chainsaw, sharpen it, fill the propane bottles, clean the barbecue, and bring tools, paint, brushes, and caulking for the windows. Don’t forget the cabin key! Nor should you forget the starter key or the plug for the boat.”

      The list is also a reminder of the process I must follow after arriving. “Do a walk-around of the island and cottage, to both remind you how lucky you are and to see if anything is amiss. Turn on the propane, clean and start the fridge, assemble and prime the pump, take off the metal window screens, start barbecue, bring Muskoka chairs to dock, and then sit down and smile at wife and share a nice beverage.”

      My wife sees the “Opening of the Cottage Checklist” in an entirely different light. For her it is a shopping list. She takes the list as my blessing for her to go to the store to buy new things: romantic candles, tea towels, elegant yet rustic photo frames, bedding, pillows, lanterns, comforters with a bear motif, scented candles, wine glasses, candle holders, and a new opening-up-the-cabin outfit for herself. Then she looks around the garage, where we are making things ready, and decides that cardboard boxes are not really nice enough to carry these things. For this regal purpose, she knows we need those fancy plastic storage bins, those which are dreaded by husbands everywhere.

      Weeks before our trip, my darling wife has everything we need stored in its place, labelled and stacked neatly ready for me to load. One plastic bin is full of linens, towels, and a couple bottles of red wine. Another contains food, and a third bin holds flashlights, candles, matches, bug spray, mousetraps, batteries, and a bottle of her favourite wine. A clear plastic bin is stacked full of toilet paper. A tall one, with newfangled locking lid latches that pop open whenever you pick it up, is crammed with every cleaning supply imaginable, and a bottle of her favourite wine.

      Then there is a low, rectangular plastic bin with FIRST-AID SUPPLIES written in black marker on the top, and Band-Aids, Advil, wine, and an old Scrabble game stowed within. The Scrabble game is the same one she has been trying to beat me on for over a decade, without success. The wine is for the “without success” part.

      The Advil? I believe it’s for me. Most of the containers have those lids that snap shut and are purportedly childproof. When you want inside them, you are forced to use a claw hammer or pry bar to work them loose. Yet when you are transporting them across the lake in the front of your boat, the top invariably careens off and saucers through the air like a Frisbee or an ancient ninja weapon, either hitting me square on the forehead or careening higher still and clipping the tail feathers of a mallard in flight.

      We won’t need to eat the downed duck, however. With the lid off the bin, I’m able to see that my wife has gathered enough culinary provisions to feed an army, or to at least allow her to survive until rescued, should the lid of a container come flying off and behead me like Oddjob’s bowler hat in a James Bond movie.

      Start the Day

      It has become known as the Cottage Breakfast. Nothing fancy, mind you, nothing gourmet. Certainly not something that you would have to suffer through, watching how to prepare it on the Food Network. Our traditional morning breakfast at the cabin is just bacon, cooked to perfection, and set gently on an English muffin, toasted golden-brown. That is it. Sometimes you can add an egg for variety. Simple, but delicious, just a traditional slice of cottage life.

      It is a wonderful way to start a new day, sitting down on the dock in the early morning, watching the goings-on in the little bay out front of the cabin, while enjoying a coffee and eating this simple breakfast. Like many meals cooked at the cottage, or out on a camping trip, it tastes fantastic. Cook it at home and it just isn’t the same.

      My wife and I are opening up the cabin this week, and on this chilly spring morning, while I boil up some cowboy coffee and sneak in a tot of Irish cream, my wife puts the finishing touches on our first Cottage Breakfast of the year.

      “It just isn’t the same as when Grandpa makes it,” she complains. It tastes pretty darn good to me this morning, but I know what she means. The traditional breakfast is really something that my dad started, and he is very particular about how he makes it. Grandpa does the breakfast with fastidious care. First he gets the fire going in the wood-burning cookstove, coaxing it to the proper temperature. He contends that the propane stove just won’t do. Each portion is done individually. He fries up the two pieces of bacon in the cast iron frying pan and sets the English muffin halves under the broiler.

      There are two minor problems associated with the Cottage Breakfast. One, cooked individually and with such attention to detail, the breakfast hour can stretch long into the late morning. His meticulous method can be a little problematic when everyone is up at the cottage at the same time, six to eight adults and seven to nine kids.

      Just as Grandpa finishes feeding the early risers, the tantalizing aroma from the grill wafts into the interior of the big wall tent where the kids are sleeping, waking them in a most pleasant manner. It certainly seems to work much better than the morning alarm clock’s shrill buzz that is meant to beckon them to school. One by one they will wander down to the dock and place their order. Each time that Grandpa thinks his morning task is complete, along comes another mouth to feed. Even though he complains, I think he relishes his reputation as breakfast chef extraordinaire.

      The second problem? Grandpa has a certain misguided sense of chivalry. What should be first-come first-served turns into ladies first. How old-fashioned!

      I try to get up early and out to the dock to be first in line. Otherwise the smoky smell of bacon frying in the skillet can drive one crazy. I have learned to bring my wife coffee in bed, hand over her book, tell her that it is still a little chilly out on the dock. “Nobody is up yet,” I’ll say. “Call me when you want another coffee. I’ll even bring you breakfast when Grandpa gets up.”

      “You’re not fooling anybody,” she responds. “I can smell the bacon from here.”

      Just as the master chef is wandering down the stony path to the dock with my hot breakfast in his hand, my darling wife comes out of the boathouse bunkie, stretching and yawning.

      “Oh, good morning! You’re just in time, a breakfast for you,” offers my charming dad. “And I’m sure your husband would love to get you a coffee,” he will add.

      I stomp up to the cabin. “Is that you growling, or just your stomach,” teases my sensitive spouse.

      It is marvellous how much we enjoy these simple pleasures in our cottage life, and interesting how things become cottage traditions. We may greet the morning with pancakes, scrambled eggs and sausages, or cereal and toast, but when that Cottage Breakfast is handed out, all of us who have spent time at our paradise experience a wonderful sense of place.

      In search of those elusive trout.

      Of Mice and Men

      For us it’s an annual battle, a constant war waged over ownership of the cottage. I’m reminded of Bill Murray’s role in the movie Caddyshack, as a beleaguered greenskeeper trying to outwit the course-sabotaging gophers. Our nemeses are the mice that look to our cabin for shelter, comfort, and food, especially through the harsh winter months.

      Keeping the cabin free from invasion is a difficult task. Whether the cottage is a posh retreat or a simple lakeside shanty, the mice do not play favourites. No matter how hard we work to “mouse-proof” the place, it is hard to stop an animal that can slip through an entrance as small as a nickel.

      I was just a kid — perhaps thirteen. A mouse had been sneaking into our food cupboards, soiling the countertops, rustling the plastic bags of cereal, and waking us in the night. To catch him, I built a simple trap, a light linen cloth over a smooth-sided bucket and a cracker slathered with peanut butter for bait. Mouse, tea towel, and cracker fell into the bucket