first dip!

Squirrel on my feeder yesterday afternoon.


Had a sauna yesterday afternoon. I never used to like the cottage sauna that much; I found it too claustrophobic and stifling. Now it's one of my favourite cottage activities, go figure.

For me, it's an essential part of the first dip in the lake each year, making it possible to work up the nerve to jump into the chilly water.

So I sit and sweat and fry and sweat some more, and when I start feeling like one of those aliens on the movie "Mars Attacks" when their brains are about to explode, Jeff takes a peek to make sure it's clear (I'm sans swimsuit). Given the all-safe signal, I run outside, down the stairs onto the dock, then jump off the dock into the chilly lake, pulling my knees up to my chest. As usual, have a brief moment of "waitasec! I change my mind" mid-air, and then I hit the water.

I know the water's going to be cold, but HOW cold always catches me by surprise anyway. YOW. My skin goes numb immediately; the first time, my entire body always feels like it's contracting with shock, frantically sending my brain the urgent message, "WHAT THE HECK WERE YOU THINKING? GET ME OUTTA HERE!!!"

I gasp involuntarily, and when I breathe out again, it comes out as a shriek. Highly amused (he didn't go in the lake yesterday, but then again he already went in last month), Jeff is waiting by the edge of the dock to help me scramble up, and I am back in the sauna moments later. My heart is pounding, and for few seconds I can't feel the heat in the sauna at all; I'm floating in a cocoon of winter.

Then, very gradually, my limbs thaw as heat seeps back in. I lean back against the cedar planking, eyes closed, feeling the lake water evaporate off my skin.

Wow...that was AMAZING.

So I go back in another two times. :-)

I was wrong about it being too early to put in the water system, by the way. Jeff decided to put it in yesterday, or at least hook it up to the kitchen in the boathouse. Yay, this will make cleaning up after meals much less of a pain.



In recent years, Jeff has usually been the one
who puts in the water system at the cottage.
It was only with enormous reluctance that
JBR finally admitted that his son was able
to take over this cottage chore.




The foot valve, a vital part of the mysterious
process that is The Cottage Water System. It stops
water from flowing back out the intake.




After dragging one end of the water pipe up the hill,
Jeff pours water into the pipe as part of the priming process.




Jeff drags the other end out into the lake and drops the
end into the water, weighted down with a big rock
(the end, not Jeff).




Then he connects the unweighted end of the pipe to
the water pump, which is attached to the boathouse.




More primingstuff.




Connecting things up with the boathouse kitchen.
Cooooold water!



Uh oh! Something has gone wrong with one of the old
pipes under the sink!




The problem appears to be in this connection thingy.




Using special tape and ingenuity, Jeff successfully
manages to repair the connection thingy. Yay, we have
hot water in the kitchen now!

May 2004 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal