10/30/07 – Cindy and I went for a (last?) paddle today. It was sunny and mild today but the weather is supposed to turn nasty tonight. We took the camera, but the batteries went dead on the first shot.
This is a special time of year for us. We are finally closed and all our wonderful crew have left. It gives us mixed feelings. It is nice to slow down the pace, sleep in a little, and take time for paddling – but we miss all our great customer/friends and the crew. We are already looking forward to next year.
The most common question that we get during the summer is “What do you do in the winter?” Well, we have been busy so far draining the summer water system, doing inventory (big job), repairing and preparing canoes for sale, and putting everything away for the winter. We do most of our ordering for next year now – in fact, some of our new canoes will be arriving in a couple of weeks. Soon we will start cutting firewood for our new energy system. We just installed a co-generation system that captures the heat from our electric generators (we are totally off the grid here) and also allows us to replace the burning of all propane with wood.
We will be watching the lakes carefully as they freeze for the opportunity to skate on “wild ice.” It doesn’t work out every year, but when it does, it’s sublime. – Bill