Building The Love Shack

The time seems to be flying by this year at the cottage. It’s hard to believe that August is knocking on the door leaving us only three more months of cottage time.

The heatwave in Southern Ontario keeps coming in with unmanageable temperatures making it difficult to work. It is also making it difficult to stay at the cottage with the fur babies.

Out of the three past weekends, I have only gone up the last one and had to come home early as it was too hot to have Romeo and Juliette outside and also in the cottage.

The outside temperatures hitting 33 Celcius and higher, then throw in humidity, have brought the inside temperature of the cottage up to 30 Celcius. I have added a dehumidifier along with the two air conditioners and a fan, and still, the day time temperatures are unbearable.

This is making the deck building a challenge.

Working in the heat requires twice as many breaks but we are at the halfway mark with the deck.

Husband who works outside every day of the year seems to be able to manage the heat the best. Personally, I don’t know how he does it. He makes me worry when it’s hot out there, even though he take lots of breaks and keeps hydrated, I find myself coming out to check on him. I keep trying to help him as much as I can and when he lets me. He knows the heat is worse than the cold when it comes to my fibromyalgia and sends me back inside with the dogs.

The Warriors have also been showing up to work. Rob spent the whole day Saturday laying down and screwing in boards. Sean, Karen, and Emilio poured stone and helped with the framing and Jodi helped dig those nineteen holes.

 

 

 

Besides the heat, we have had another challenge. Getting supplies. The Pandemic has made getting supplies difficult. We are presently out of lumber and waiting for the Home Depot to get some wood in. We are hoping for the shipment to come in today so we have it for the weekend.

We waited almost a month for the spindles but have finally been able to score the last two boxes that just came in. I’m thankful we did a large shipment of lumber early in the Spring or there would be no deck this year.

Southern Ontario has now hit level three with the Pandemic. With nowhere to go, Cottage Country is full of regular cottagers, and everyone is social distancing making it very quiet up there.

We are still getting regular visitors who stop by to see the progress of the deck while walking their dogs, standing along the road for short conversations. It certainly is a strange year and even though we are all up there, it seems like we’re alone and I truly miss the time with the ones we look so forward to seeing each year.

With all the challenges. I’m glad we decided to do this deck this year because, without it, there really wouldn’t be anything to do this Summer.

Like everyone else, we have had enough of this heat and the pandemic. And like everyone else we keep moving forward.

Husband is having his first full week of work this week after five months of short weeks or no work. My work is returning to normal. They are finally giving our staff a couple days off at a time for a much-needed break after months or many like myself who have not had a week off in almost a year. We are covering for each other to let the medical team and our other frontline workers get the deserved rest they need.

Canada is doing really well with our numbers of the Covid-19 and we are thankful for that and so we won’t complain and like everyone else, just keep doing what we need to do.

But hey, when this is all over, we’ll have a lovely deck to sit and share with the Warriors.

Oh yes, I’m still babysitting those plants I bought for the front of the cottage. The lack of rain and high heat is giving me a challenge there too.

2020 is not only become the year of the deck, but also the year of the challenges. On that note, I must get ready for work I’m heading in for an afternoon shift. Something I rarely do, but they need time off too.

We are looking forward to this coming weekend as we have the family birthday party at the cottage. It will be nice to see everyone as we haven’t seen some of them since Christmas. And of course, back to working on the deck.

Staff safe and cool. I hopefully will have more updates next week.