COME TO THE LAKE

reflections on a cottage life

Immerse yourself in simple lake traditions
cured over time in an authentic 1920’s
Wisconsin Lake Cottage.

‘Come to the Lake’. Four words I have enjoyed as both guest and host for decades on Pleasant Lake.

Early on, I started taking notes. These notes have been tucked away for years with me occasionally feeling compelled to add to the pile. The pile evolved into a book.

After helping me sift through my notes, a friend suggested that I write three separate books with all my segmented and sentimental musings. I explained why that idea didn't work for me: Life at Pleasant Lake is a jumble of friends, families, adults, children, routines, traditions, activities, games and gatherings thrown together with endless communal meals amidst the magical backdrop of cottage lake life. Adding additional texture to this fabric is my singular relationship with Nature's daily offerings.

It is my hope that this lake life potpourri provides you with a pleasurable pause as you choose to sit a spell with us at Pleasant Lake.

Welcome.

EXCERPTS 

“THE SHELTER”

Kathryn (my mother in-law and dear friend, aka Kayo) was the original Pleasant Lake girl.  She blazed the path in full Lake Living.  

A grown woman with five young children, she led the way the summer they purchased the 1920's one room cottage (with boy and girl sleeping coveys), for a sizable eight-thousand dollar chunk of hard-earned 1950's cash.  She packed the station wagon the day school let out and checked her brood into the new (old) family cottage, christened The Shelter, by the name etched on the worn out ring buoy hanging above the wooden door frame. 

The station wagon disappeared back into town with her husband, Gerry, for the work week and life at the Lake began in earnest.  For Kathryn, that meant ritual swims across the lake, quick sails in the tricky, small-lake wind puffs (always a child or two in tow to absorb a basic lake-life skill),  paddles in the Old Town canoe and Projects. 

Projects included re-canvassing the 1940’s wooden canoe, collecting field stones of interest in order to build a corner fireplace and continually nurturing a blend of wild flowers and lovingly tended transplants to fortify the lakes’ first "naturalist approach" to shoreline maintenance.  (Not for Kayo the 1950's concrete and ruffled tin retaining walls that are now forever banned from choking a Wisconsin lake shoreline.)  While other women baked and cleaned and found sun solace on their piers, Kathryn would busy herself building a brick walkway or refinishing a treasured artifact to add to her collection of lake lore objects that slowly filled The Shelter as the years swam by.  

“SWAMPBOY”

My son Rob once informed us when we picked him up from a YMCA summer camp renowned for its outdoor adventure programs, “You, know I am not really that fond of Nature”.

I believe I know the moment in his life when he had this revelation. And in some ways, I can’t blame him.

The day he decided Nature wasn’t his friend is also the day I declared him my hero.

For several years, the Larson family checked into the Shelter as our guests. The first year, Robby, who was twelve, met Alison, who was eleven, he offered to show the Larsons the lake. And all 72 pounds of him insisted on commanding Matthew’s granddaddy kayak as he led an entourage of canoes, kayaks and a paddle boat off on their great explore.

Imagine my surprise when the contingency all returned minus one large green kayak and one fearless leader. I could not get in my kayak fast enough when I heard the reason why. We have a ‘nursery’ at the lake….an inner sanctum bay that one arrives to by going through the ‘secret passage’.

It’s where the Sandhill cranes, Great Northern herons, assorted turtles and hundreds of other species of both fauna and wildlife congregate to raise their young, feed, and find sanctuary. It becomes almost jungle-like, teaming with percolating boggy clumps and thick-as- carpet water lilies by the time August arrives. Paddling through the dense pads and tunnels of towering cat tails and marsh grasses reminds me of some far eastern rice paddy—definitely ‘other worldly’.

It was August when the Larson’s arrived. When Rob, in his bravado offered to escort the group through the secret passage, they assessed the situation and determined the boggy path impassable and turned back. My tenacious twelve year-old, determined to impress a certain little someone, sallied forth into the swamp.

“He’s where? And you left him?” I asked with my voice rising as I scrambled into my kayak and took off for the back bay. Half-way there, in the middle of the lake, I see a small bobbing head swimming towards me. And discover a very humbled Robby making his way home.

“Where’s Dad’s kayak?” I ask, not really relishing the answer. “In the middle of the swamp.”

Robby’s fierceness drove him into the middle of the bog, but his slight stature and fatigue did not allow him to paddle out of it. “So”, he explained to me, “I folded my clothes carefully and left them on the kayak so you would know that I had left the boat on purpose if you came looking for me and found the empty kayak”.

Which meant he entered a bottomless murk of spongy, pungent, mucky water (that at the highest point came up to his neck) with all sorts of slimy, creepy swamp paraphernalia attaching to him as he made his way through.

“You know, we have to go fetch the kayak”, I informed him, so he draped himself over my bow and we headed to the entrance of the secret passage.

And then we stopped.

I could not paddle through the floating carpet of muck to where Matthew’s kayak waited, cradled in the gurgling bosom of the bog. That’s when my boy became a man in front of my eyes, “I’ll go get it Mom, I left it”, and dang if he didn’t re-enter the quagmire, trudge through chest deep yuck and return with kayak towed in hand.

Only if Alison could have witnessed that feat! And that’s when he became my hero and he decided, down to his bones perhaps, that he really wasn’t that fond of Nature.

maybe you prefer to LISTEN?

TINY KITCHEN COOKING

One of the things I learned at my time in The Shelter was how to feed big groups from a small kitchen. Here is one of my favorite recipes from my Tiny Kitchen Cooking collection. This recipe is perfect for what to do with left over ears of corn in the pot.

Lynn’s Fresh Corn Salad

3 or more ears cooked corn, removed from cob
Diced ripe tomatoes, seeded, ¹⁄₃ ratio to corn
Diced sweet onion (equal amount to tomato)
2 tablespoons White Balsamic Vinegar
Raw Sugar
Fresh Basil (torn)
Salt and Pepper to taste
Mix sugar and vinegar in mixing bowl,
add corn, onion and tomato.
Toss and chill. Add basil right before
serving and add salt and pepper as desired

Kayak Waltz

A slow sunset dance in
the middle of the lake.
Our kayaks spin
as the light changes.

First, a brilliant glow
on the far shore
illuminating the last row of cottages
edged with dusty blue and deep green reflections.

The sun melts golden
into the horizon
as the light shifts to the west
and transforms into blood red orange.
Highlighted by smoky streaks of gray
sketched across the sky.

Billowy puffs turn the lake into
medallions of magenta
outlined with pools of shimmering silver.
Sky meets lake, reflects sky
and only the kayak edge separates the two.

Night after night, spin after spin
we do the sunset waltz...
And remain wonderstruck.

LISTEN: From Wisconsin Public Radio

Read a review of Come To The Lake at Book Trib, here.