At the cottage — ObjectsBlog

Shot under hazy pink wildfire-smoke sunlight.

A white enamel bucket floats in the dark water at sunset.

Enamel bucket
The “good bucket”.

Two weathered grey buckets sit by a pile of woodchips, one on its side with a few woodchips spilling out.

Buckets of woodchips
A small detail of the extensive cleanup necessary after last winter’s storms.

A weathered grey bucket with a variety of sticks sits on a wooden dock next to the water in the late afternoon sun.

Bucket of sticks

Stack of dry, bleached logs on a pink granite outcropping. Lake and trees in the background.

Pile of wood
Perfectly dried out by wind and sun in an exposed location over several years, this pile narrowly escaped high water in the spring.

Old dented bugle on a wooden deck, sun behind it casting a long shadow.

Bugle
A Chekhov’s gun for everyone getting woken up early in an annoying way. It’s always been around. Takes real effort to blow, and pitch control is a rare talent.

Glass oil lantern with a sheetmetal base and shade. The glass part smoothly flares out and tapers to a narrow top, mostly frosted white. The shade has radial ridges. It sits on a sun-drenched plywood floor.

Oil lamp with shade
The oil lamps have always been here too. In 2003, when I was five, they came in handy during the massive power outage across Ontario and New York. I remember the blackout being very exciting and generating a lot of discussion afterwards. School activities about energy conservation generated ideas like keeping fireflies in a jar as an alternative light source.

In a dim corner of a white-painted wooden room, an old hammered metal lamp with a lampshade containing scattered fibres glows softly. It sits on a small white table with a mug and a wristwatch.

Grandad’s lamp
We’re assuming he’s the one who made it, hammered from soft metal. Strangely there’s a hole near the base, but not another one near the socket, so the cable hangs down from near the top.

Flash photo of a tin cone-shaped lampshade hanging from a wooden ceiling.

Hallway fixtures
When I was thirteen or fourteen we entirely rebuilt the cottage as the 100-year-old building was closer to sliding into the lake every year. At this point it’s hard to remember where exactly things like these two fixtures were before but they definitely have the feel of the old place. Fitted with likely some of the last compact fluorescent bulbs in the world.

What appears to be a lightbulb full of amber liquid. It's held by a metal wall bracket, the front of which has an image of a firefighter and text explaining the use of the fire-gas product.

Fire gas bulb
This I remember distinctly, hanging above the entrance to the storage closet under the stairs marked with a scary-faced cloaked fireman, not to be messed with.

Loose stack of A5-sized paperbacks with yellowed sides of pages. There are no titles on the spines, only snippets of soft-coloured paintings.

Reader’s Digest back issues
There was always a stack of these in the bathroom, ranging from the late 50s to the mid 70s. Off the top of my head I remember article titles like Needed in Vietnam: the Will to Win, authored by a pre-presidency Nixon. Passively taking in this sort of garbage had me more worried about the Russian nuclear threat than a lot of kids in 2007. Nice ads too.

In a somewhat cluttered corner of a white-painted wooden room, a stack of old picture frames along with a folded white canvas with some white paint splatted on it.

Canvasses and frames
One of these is a painting from high school I haven’t unfolded in almost ten years. Others are rural scenes from grandad’s house.

A dark wood armchair made in the Thonet bentwood technique, but more rustic. The heavy wooden seat is contoured as though to fit someone's butt. Late afternoon sunlight casts its shadow on the plywood foor. Translucent curtains are pulled partly shut behind it.

Bentwood armchair

Flash photo in the darkened forest. A rough wooden bench with some lichen on it sits on the pine needle-covered ground. Pines and cedars in the background, and the lake and an island beyond.

Old bench
In an area with spongy moss underfoot. There used to be an identical one on the dock. I need to ask who built these.

Sedia 1 by Enzo Mari but slightly malproportioned, on a porch with a grey-painted wall and windows behind. The wood of the chair is visibly newer and more orange than that of the deck.

Autoprogettazione chair
Not unlike the bench. We built these last summer and they’re starting to feel like they belong. Lighter than if we’d followed the spec exactly. I’m looking forward to when the pine wood turns silver.

2000s black Sony CD boombox with a light grey remote in the sun on a plywood floor. Generally amorphous design with a speaker grille covering the pill-shaped front.

Sony CD/iPod boombox (model ZS-S2iP)
I am learning to appreciate the wisdom in every era of Sony industrial design. The iPod dock, which looks silly on so many compact stereos from this time, tucks away discreetly on this one. Subtle MEGA BASS.

Four aluminumum measuring spoons sit on wood planks. They are worn and in some cases slightly deformed. The smallest is shiny pink but the others are unfinished grey.

Measuring spoons
Very thin aluminum demands a thoughtful shape to stay more or less intact. The smallest is mysteriously gloss pink.

Two coloured glass mugs sit on a railing overlooking the water late in the day. They are light pink and dark turquoise, soft of a comfortable natural shape.

Fire-king mugs

A red cylindrical mug with a geometric full-height handle sinks into the black water.

Melamine mug

Two aluminum colanders sit on lichen-mottled rocks. The larger of the two has simple feet and handles.

Aluminum colanders
To be filled with blueberries.

Two small green containers on background of worn pine decking. One is moulded paper fibre with a few vertical openings on each site, and the other is plastic moulded in a grid, though not imitating the look of a woven basket.

Berry baskets
Green, in plastic and moulded pulp.

Large blue folding plastic crate sitting on a wooden dock right next to the water.

Collapsible blue crate
Transporting things between the city and the cottage as far back as I can remember.

On the ground in front of a pile of woodchips sits an old rusting milk crate, a cubic structure of metal bars or tubes. Inside is a bundle of rope and a tie-down strap.

Metal milk crate
Crazy heavy: everyone involved must have been so relieved when these were replaced with moulded plastic.

An old hammer leans against a white-painted stud in the late afternoon sun. The head has an even patina and the handle is wrapped in black leather, worn smooth with use.

Hammer
Our tool shed mysteriously burned to the ground last year when nobody was here, taking basically all my grandfather’s tools with it. It was a relief that my single favourite one happened to not be in there.

An aluminum pitcher sits on stone in front of the water. It has a large smoothly shaped spout and some texture on its lower section.

Aluminum pitcher
When I was a kid we had a dog, Summer, who we’d wash with this.

A more geometric pitcher — very round body and handle and a pointy spout. Hammered texture all over. It sits on lichen-covered natural pink granite.

Pewter pitcher

A clock showing three 3:00. It has simple straight hour and minute hands on a white dial with a red seconds hand. The numerals are set in Gill Sans, larger black numbers from 1–12 on the outside paired with smaller red numbers 13–24 on the inside.

Stopped clocks
Old classroom clocks marking times for morning coffee and for afternoon chips and beer.

A fluorescent green frisbee stuck in a tree. Flash photo with pine branches in the foreground and background, lake and sky visible all the way in the back.

Frisbee
Genuine Wham-O brand frisbee mostly for disc golf, hi-vis so it's easy to see when it’s stuck in a tree or slowly sinking into the lake.

Small straw hat with a blue band around it. It has three decorations: an abstract bird made of the same straw, a plastic cluster of palm trees, and a green plastic acoustic guitar. It sits on a wooden dock in the late afternoon sun.

Child’s tropical hat
Jaunty shape with a straw bird and plastic palm trees and guitar.

Binoculars

A pocket knife with an unusual shape to the blade and handle that dips in at the front before flaring out to form an almost teardrop-shaped blade. Inscribed on the blade is

Dad’s knife

Metal electrical conduit elegantly curves up and into a hole in the white-stained wooden wall.

Electrical conduit
The guy who did the conduit did a really clean job throughout the building, knowing it would all be visible on the unfinished walls.

A grey plastic box marked on-off with a switch faded almost to white.

Outdoor light switch
Feels sturdy. The red switch has faded in the sun.

An aluminum turnbuckle attaching a clothesline in the woods catches the light.

Turnbuckle
Machined aluminum, edges almost too sharp but somehow inspiring confidence. From the hardware store in town.

A stainless steel clothespeg with wavy metal jaws hangs on a clothesline in the woods.

Clothespeg
One of a couple we forgot to put back in the shed before the fire.

The same type of clothespeg, entirely burnt but not deformed, missing its spring. It sits on a lichen-covered granite outcropping.

Burnt clothespeg
One we didn’t.