Muskoka Bloggers

How many bloggers do we have in Muskoka? Lots.
Four bloggers have been added to My Muskoka bloggers list!

Welsh Cakes: Book of Short Stories: Christmas Gift
By Judith Lawrence
In this fifth short story in part two of Welsh Cakes: Book of Short Stories, we find Amy Johnson hurrying to get to Muskoka on Christmas Eve to join her husband Michael and daughter Joan at their cottage.

Muskoka Seasons
Great photos. This post is 'End of the Road'

Painted Turtle Wooden Toys: Christmas is in 24 days!!!!
We met some amazing local artists and in the spirit of keeping Muskoka as an arts community, we have posted links to their sites on our website's Links page. We handcraft, healthy, completely non-toxic wooden toys--proudly made in Canada! 

des'igns: Finally some craft time
By Dee
Bracebridge, Ontario, Canada: I live in beautiful Muskoka that doubles it size in the summer. I have a wonderful husband and two great children, well three if you count the dog.

Algonquin Inn Nature and Photography blog.: wild Turkey
By Algonquin Lakeside Inn
This is our nature blog which we hope will enhance your stay or help you decide where to stay when you come to visit Algonquin Park and Muskoka.

Michele Basic Hendry
A Muskoka visual artist who blogs. Fabulous art work! She has been doing great business.

Beauview Cottage Resort Blog

Gord, Nancy Bell

Hospitality Marketing www.HospitalityMarketing.ca
Our websites are: www.Cottage-Resort.com www.Golf-Ontario.com
www.Travel-Canada.net www.BobtheTourist.com www.accu-window-weather.com
Winner of the Huntsville Lake of Bays Business Excellence Award - Company of
the Year

Bondi Village Resort
by Nancy Tapley
With over 240 hectares (600 acres) of wilderness woodlands surrounding the resort, just ten minutes from Algonquin Park, we feature over 400 metres (1200’) of waterfront and beach; boat rentals; summer hiking trails winding through fields and woods; 20 km. of groomed cross country ski trails and snowshoeing in winter; access to nearby snowmobile trails for sledders, and a toboggan hill for the young at heart.
BTW - As a kid, we used to go skiing there the last w/e in January. Grand memories! We popped in and visited last summer. What fun!

CottageBlog.ca - Stumbling in and around Muskoka Canada
by Ed Boutelier
Great shots of Muskoka, of a particular hue.

Cottage Blogger

By Cottage Guru - for rent-by-owner landlords! Lots of good advice and information.

Cottage News

New rental listings, special offers, late availability and rental tips

Cottage Daily.com
By Penny -infrequent posts, but good archive, recipes, too!

Cottage Life - Editor’s Blog

Thelma and John Jarvis - MuskokaBlog.ca
Muskoka Cottage Sales for April. May 6th, 2009 ... Let us assist you with your Muskoka Real Estate needs


DAN PINCKARD'S MUSKOKA REAL ESTATE BLOG: UPDATE
By Muskoka realtor
Well, I have cranked up my technology portfolio even more!

Escape to Huntsville
For more info on Huntsville, visit the blog Escape to Huntsville.

Muskoka Liblog: Blogging Tories questioning their support of ...
By Muskoka Liblog
About Me. Muskoka Liblog: I'm a former Tory who now supports the Liberals. The posts in this blog are my own views, and aren't reflective of the views of the Parry Sound-Muskoka Liberals.

MUSKOKA MOSQUITO & BLACK FLY BLOG: MOSQUITO-LESS
By Dave McMurray
MOSQUITO-Less is the base product that provides the Garlic Oil. Mosquito Control Application.

Father's Day Gift Ideas For The Angler And Hunter | Muskoka Outdoors
By Bill Anderson - who has written 800 posts on Muskoka Outdoors. Fishing and hunting is more about the people you are in the outdoors with, then the fish or game you catch. This is a outdoor truth I learned from fishing and hunting

Our Muskoka Update
By Gord
Loves Muskoka and currently lives on Lake Joseph - but that could change at any time :-) - UPDATE: Now lives on Lake Rosseau - Back on Lake Joseph.

You can never take too many pictures: Starflowers

My passion for photography and painting has brought me to this amazing area of Muskoka. It has truly been a Gift!to reside here full time...The beauty of the seasons, and the variety of wildlife never ceases to amaze me. Enjoy my blog.

Neighbourly Cottage Visitors -Dos of cottage life/boating

Neighbourly Cottage Visitors

1. My neighbours keep their music to themselves, know how far sound travels, and understand that we have different tastes in music and respect our bedtime.
2. When my neighbours build a fire they ensure that they don't let the smoke waft across our property. They check that there is no fire burning by-law in effect. They compost leaves, rather than burning them and putting hydrofluorocarbons in the air.
3. They only rent their property to people who keep their pets under control. They keep their dogs off of our property, and they don't let their pets chase the wildlife off of our lawn or scare our pets.
4. They teach renters about the etiquette of lake life and teach them how to paddle a canoe, run their boat properly, and sail our wee lake without ending up in trouble and requiring rescue! They waterski only during daylight hours and keep well away from sailboats & canoes. Traffic can be busy on busy weekends.
   
5. They refrain from lighting fireworks seven nights in a row, especially week nights they know that some of us have to go to work in the morning.
6. They have never fished thirty feet off of the dock of cottagers and respect the personal space. We only fear those who do, and their lures that get left at the bottom of our swimming area.
7. They don't cruise aimlessly up and down the lake, dumping gas into the lake from their boat or Personal Watercraft polluting the air and water with its gas smell and noise.
8. They stay away from our shoreline, keeping their speed low so as not to ruin vegetation, enervate us and dislodge wildlife from their shoreline habitat, respecting our Watch Your Wake� sign. In most provinces there is a 10 kph speed limit within 30 metres (100 feet) from shore. Fine is $125. Maximum fine is $500 or six months imprisonment. (Canada Shipping Act: Boating Restriction Regulations)
9. If they waterski they don't go into our lake's little lagoon, which is narrow and not suited to their noisy machines. They stay away from swimmers and only ski during daylight hours. They refrain from swearing and assaulting our ears with fouls language, which carries easily across the water, and respect our right to living in a peaceful Muskoka.
10. They keep their boat clean, and refrain from dumping pollutants in our waters. Many of our fellow cottagers must use lake water for their drinking and cooking.

What to remember: boating safety

1. Only swim with others. Swimmers are at great risk in cottage country. No one should be at the water unsupervised. Death by drowning cannot be a pretty sight.
2. Little kids should be supervised carefully. Last year I saw two little girls wandering around a barge deck at the end of the dock - 30m from mom on the cottage deck. They did not have lifejackets on.
3. Boating and drinking is still a concern. Safe boating is a vigilant practice. This is a self-inflicted wound and highly preventable by following the safe driving Transport Canada guidelines. Those who operate a boat must have operator cards. The Safe Boating Guide is required knowledge to pass this test.
4. Passengers cannot be sitting in front of drivers, especially small children.
   
5. Lifejackets are a must. Label yours as the wind can pick them up and take them down wind! Put on your life jacket. Emergency crews and neighbours do not want to have to rescue you! Life jackets need to be 'onboard' Personal Water Craft (PWC), but they are so very dangerous and cannot be accessed in an emergency.
6. Ensure that you bring clothes to allow for every weather condition. Life by the water can be cool in the night while hot in the day. We are often 5 degrees cooler than, for example, Toronto only a couple of hours to the south. Several sets of clothes are wise for kids. I know mine always had a 'soaker' within the first hour of their visit.
   
7. Be prepared with sun lotion, bug spray, and moisturizer for those inevitable dry skin or sun burn episodes. Band-aids and a First Aid kit are important tools.
8. Ensure that you have enough towels. Young kids get cold.
9. If you bring water toys buy a repair kit for an emergency.

renting your cottage

Be careful with renters. You need an agency that will monitor and weed out riff raff! Our neighbours have been renting, many are, and some have no respect for your cottage, neighbours, or property. The photo (left) shows a PWC harassing a loon. For my story, with a horror story/comment, read my Fireworks post!

One good source of info is here at Cottage Blogger. Heather writes a great blog, with valuable tips and information. There is a book for serious cottage owners who want to do this right. (She warns about guests with COLIC!) You need to educate tourists, used to the ways of city life, to the etiquette of Muskoka life.

One way to do it is to have a neighbour monitor guests, tell them whom to expect, and what to do in the event of trouble. I signed up with CottageLink, but there are many rental agencies and businesses that will arrange for renters. We had numerous phone calls, with little action last year. I took our place off of the market. Being semi-detached it just didn't work out for us.

The rental market was saturated last year: both in terms of quantity of rental properties available and rainfall! Renters had their choice of properties. They drag up high-speed PWCs for a week and zoom around - missing the beauty of a lake at sunset.

I look forward to seeing our seasonal visitors, not so much the tourists who have little respect for those of us who live here year round, work, and must get up in the mornings! I always breathe a sigh of relief in September!

Fireworks in Muskoka

Cottage life sure has changed. We walked into town and saw a view of Lake Muskoka. The boat traffic is significant, but on a large lake it is diffused across broad shores. On our wee lake the noise, smell and irritation of the day at the marine end of things ever larger boats, or smaller boats with larger engines, and PWC that can carry a passenger, spotter and a couple of kids on a tube, life is crazy. One PWC seemed to race another while dragging kids around.

Yesterday, as I quietly paddled along the shore, I came across a van parked by the water. The doors were wide open and the radio continues in the night. With cranked up in order for the young people to hear the music 300 m away, out in the middle of the lake. Now, I am not opposed to rock music, but there is a time and place for it. I do resent others thinking it their right to create an explosion of sound in a place where the deafening noise of the city is our escape. The noise by-laws apply all day, something of which most people are unaware. The fireworks continued in the evening. Literally.

Our former renter/partiers were much quieter their final night, thankfully, except that there were other folks on the lake who do not seem to realize that this is where some of us live. We have need or want to go to bed before 11:00 p.m. , sometimes even at 9:30 when they run fireworks on a nightly basis. The peculiar thing is that it is not just adults running fireworks for children. The renters I wrote about the other day appeared to be late 20-somethings, wannabe teenagers, with no respect for neighbours. Setting off fireworks on municipal property on our mutual road. So much for one's ecological footprint. All of our pets shudder in fear under beds; cannot imagine how the wildlife feels.

The Me-Generation has raised a segment of their generation who believe it is their right to blow things up at night, to use the lake as their playground, burn damp wood dumping hydrofluorocarbons into the air, and generally do what they want in the freedom of nature. What is with this? I once offered my cottage to a dying friend as a place for some respite care and peace and quiet of the county. That would have been a mistake. I wonder, when our (light-sleeper) infant granddaughter arrives for a holiday whether this will have an impact on *her* sleep patterns. There are several neighbours on our lake who live and work in this area and have to rise early for this purpose. It is a long drive to their employment.

Taxpayers fight for reduced taxes, in an ever more crowded tourist area, and the privilege of allowing their 20 and 30-somethings scream around lakes at all hours, dumping gas, as well as septic system waste, into at-risk ecosystems. The precious balance of humans and nature is one I will watch closely. There are those, apparently filthy rich young people, given the freedom of staying in the cottage for the weekend, who expect that they can drive a couple of hours up here from Toronto, throw all manners to the wind, and behave as if their Muskoka property is party central. I look forward to the shoulder seasons, when there will be peace and quiet again. In fact, rather than being a snowbird, I would like to be sunbird, and escape to the city while city-folk pollute the air, water and soil.

Renters

The joys of renting a cottage for a week, without the significant outlays of buying and maintaining a property (as well as property taxes) can be nullified by citiot renters around you. Beware of these city-folk, puerile and disrespectful of other cottagers and renters.

In our case, renters arrived next door on a Sunday, and they were fairly quiet. By Monday, a fairly hot day, they had the tunes cranked up, blasting down towards the shore. It was far louder than necessary, and really disturbed the peace. The noise by-laws apply all the time, but I didn't interfere, as it was 3:00 in the afternoon, and thought they were simply vegging by the lake. It was a mistake.

If you give someone an inch, they take a mile. Ooops, rewrite: cm and km! By Monday night they were down by the lake, singing old camp fire songs badly. Thank goodness they didn't have a fire, as the smoke in the evening lays on the land. With open windows on a hot summer night, it is hard to breath. At that time there were 3 vehicles in the driveway.

That night they quit early, but I should have phoned the police at that time! They were loud, singing and it was the first sign. The night after was quiet. I was lulled into a false sense of security.

Wednesday night it all began again around 10:00 p.m.: floodlights lighting up the entire area, loud raucous laughter, and three cars parked when only two couples were supposed to be renting the property. I e-mailed the owners of the rental property and explained what had gone on. I explained that I would be calling the police after 11:00.

At 11:15, after several sets of fireworks had gone off on municipal property, at the top of our common lane, they were down by the lake, again, where noise carries so easily. I felt that since they disrespected neighbours so much, what were they doing to the cottage itself?
I chose to phone the OPP: 1-888-310-1122. They were very positive and promised to look into it. At 11:50 more fireworks were set off, and then they began blasting rap music out on the lake, more singing, too.

The police arrived at 12:15 and spoke to them, giving them a warning. The music dulled, and then returned as they found their voices, deliberately ignoring police advice to cease and desist. Out on a boat in the lake, they were singing lustily out in the bay. By the time (12:45), I should have phoned our trusty officers. Drunk, in the lake at this hour would not bode well. We do not need to waste EMS crews on needless field trips and drownings. The costs to society, the grief for families, is pointles. That said, I closed the windows, and hoped things would calm down. Dumb move.

I walked up the driveway and found the remnants of the fireworks that had been boldly planted at the end of another property. I called the OPP back to ask if they had visited the property last night. They had, they said, and gave a warning. I should have asked that they get back to me after the first call. I would have known that the police had visited once and that we should keep on this.

The next morning I phoned our neighbours, the property owners who were in the city, and let them know what was going on.

In hindsight, I should have kept on it. Our pets were upset with the noise, other neighbour's pets were upset and barking at the fireworks. It really is unfair and intrusive when our by-laws are clear about respecting the quality and tranquility of life in cottage country. I felt powerless, when, in fact, our OPP were most responsive and have promised to be vigilant with this property, award a fine if it continues, and check on the marine end of things should they continue their ignorant behaviour.

What to bring

1. LIFEJACKETS are a must. Label yours as the wind can pick them up and take them down wind!
2. CLOTHING: Ensure that you bring clothes to allow for every weather condition. Life by the water can be cool in the night while hot in the day. We are often 5 degrees cooler than, for example, Toronto only a couple of hours to the south. Several sets of clothes are wise for kids. I know mine always had a 'soaker' within the first hour of their visit. Long sleeves are important -again- just in case! Boots, extra shoes, hats, rain gear, warm sweaters.
   
3. PHARMACEUTICALS: Be prepared with toiletries that include sun lotion, bug spray, and moisturizer for those inevitable dry skin or sun burn episodes. Band-aids and a First Aid kit are important tools. If you have allergies, bring antihistamines. Remember tylenol and other medications, just in case. Get regular Rx refilled, too. We take handkerchiefs, so as not to add to our garbage.
   
4. ENTERTAINMENT: I firmly believe that 'when in Rome do as the Romans do' - cottage life means Scrabble, Monopoly, Backgammon, Sorry, card games, activity books (Soduko or crosswords!) NOT computers and computer games. Writing and drawing pads. This is a great time to do a BIG puzzle - set it up out of the way and work on it when you feel like it.
   
5. READING MATERIALS: Visit the (local?) library and find some books. I save my magazines to read by the lake. There are many good books on Cottage Life that include information on wild life, crafts for kids, for example. If you visit a small, local book store you will find books by local authors.
   
6. FOOD: I used to bring peanut butter, jam, and other necessities in a cooler, which is always handy. Power outages can happen, especially in isolated cottages. If you rent ensure that you have flour, sugar, spices, etc. as well as tissues & toilet paper.