I’ve seen things no one should ever have to see. I live like you, just wishing to make it through my day without conflict and strife, to make it from this day to the next in perfect peace. Yet I, unlike you, drive around all day to make my living, and in this driving I see things that I wish I didn’t. Just two days ago I saw a semi-truck with a fully loaded trailer. On that trailer there were no fewer than five brand new pontoon boats, each wrapped in pontoon plastic, each heading to a new owner. It was as terrifying and troubling as you’d guess, and the image is one that even now, some two days later, I cannot shake.
This time of year, when I drive around this lake, I see interesting things. I see puzzling things and frightening things. As the leaves fall, homeowners do their best to rid their lawns of the leaves. Some wait for all of the leaves to drop, then they have companies come and sweep them into giant piles where they will be sucked up by giant truck based vacuum cleaners. Others rake and rake, but the rake is a futile tool on a large enough lawn where so many Maples loom overhead. But the rake is preferred compared to the other thing I see: The Electric Blower.
Thankfully, most of the things I see can be fixed through some good advice and some preparedness. Pontoons can be sold to people who live far from here, where they will be delivered to lakes where they are not relegated to the shadows. Electric blowers can be destroyed and thrown in the garbage. Perhaps the electric blower phenomenon is not something spawned of preference; perhaps it’s just that people don’t know any different. That’s why I feel it my duty to provide you with this short list. It’s a list of things any lake house needs. With the Holiday season rapidly approaching, and without further ado, that list of must-haves:
GAS POWERED BLOWER. This has to do with the electric blower problem. Electric blowers are horrible. As a child in the mid 1980s, all of my “remote-control” toys were corded. We still called them remote control cars or trucks, but they were just toys with a wire attached to a controller. If you wandered down some street today and saw a child playing with a cord-controlled toy, you’d immediately stop and pause. You’d take up donations from neighbors and rush to the store to buy this neglected child a proper remote controlled car. Electric blowers are like this. We don’t walk around house talking on our corded phone anymore, so why should we walk around the yard with a corded blower? We shouldn’t. It’s a ridiculous concept and those who use a blower like this should be ashamed. A proper Echo gas blower is only $149, so go buy one. The backpack version is superior, but that’s more involved and if you’re currently using an electric blower at your lake house you should choose the $149 model first, so you can ease into this modern world of internal combustion engines.
AN AXE. We can spell this either way, ax or axe, so I’ll alternate now to show flexibility. A proper ax is different from any old axe. We need one of these at a lake house for many reasons. What if Nanna gets locked in a room and there’s no time to wait for the locksmith? Axe. What if there’s a small rodent running around the house and there’s no time to wait for the exterminator? Ax. What if you want to chop some wood because you’re incredible? Axe. Very little beats chopping wood during the late fall and winter, as there’s something remarkably therapeutic about chopping wood, carrying that chopped wood into the house, then burning that wood to keep warm. Best Made Co has great axes, but any wood handled axe with some heft will do. Just make sure it’s a full sized ax and not some silly hatchet.
CELL PHONE DRYING BAG. Last week, my wife lost her cell phone. She lost it after walking to the end of our driveway to retrieve the mail. She looked everywhere. Everywhere! The phone was not found. Days passed, the phone was not found. I joined the hunt, and the phone was not found. It had to be somewhere, but it was nowhere. On Sunday I mowed my lawn, and narrowly avoided hitting something shiny. It was her phone, and it spent four days on that lawn. It rained all day one of those days, and the phone was likely destroyed. Thinking quickly, I removed the case and the battery and stashed it in a container of rice. The phone, a day later, worked just fine. Don’t use rice, use a proper kit because it’s cool and shows you’re prepared for the likelihood of a cell phone ending up in the lake. EVAP bags are cool, and you should have a handful of them at your lake house at all times. Your guests will thank you.
Of course this isn’t the most thorough list, but it is a list that will help your lake house be a better place. It’ll help you be a better person. It’ll help your lawn look better in the fall, your stack of firewood look taller in the winter, and your phone dry faster in the summer.