Summer neighbors

Summer is the busy time here on the lake. This weekend I actually have neighbors. They aren’t bad neighbors, as far as neighbors go. We aren’t feuding or arguing over things like boundary markers. It’s just that I hear people next door. Okay, their place is a good 350 feet away, but by local standards, they are close.

It took the dog some time to get used to the idea that people had a right to be next door. We got the pup in the fall. There was nobody around until late spring. She kept barking at them and trying to run them off. Pretty aggressive behavior for a 20 pound dog. It took a bit, but now the dog knows where our land ends and the neighbor’s begins.

My lovely wife and I took the sailboat out this afternoon. The lake was actually busy. There were big inboards on our little body of water and a couple large pontoon boats -what I call a booze and cruise. Plenty of smaller fishing boats boats were on the water too.

One couple in a good sized outboard came up along side. At first, I thought the guy was going to ram us, and I tried to give him some space. Yeah, a sailboat is supposed to have the right of way, but don’t count on it. The guy wanted me to explain to his wife why were zig zagging all over the lake. She didn’t understand that we couldn’t sail directly into the wind. He was unable to convince her so he pulled up along side so we could explain it to her. Go figure.

By Monday most of the crowd will be gone, including my neighbors. There will be less powerboats on the lake and more canoes, kayaks and sailboats. It’ll be a lot quieter.

The lake is only really busy about 10 weeks of the year. Even during those 10 weeks, it’s only the weekends that see a lot of activity. I’ve come to really enjoy the quiet times. Today the loons and osprey went somewhere else. I missed them more than I’ll miss my neighbors.

-Sixbears