It was fall on Saturday and winter on Sunday. It’s winter today, and it’ll be winter tomorrow. In fact, the odds are stacked heavily in favor of it being winter for most of the days between now and spring. When the spring does arrive it’ll be nice, but it won’t be here until it’s been winter for so long that we’ll start to wonder if it’ll ever be. Spring. For now, it’s winter and it just started and so there are things that need reminding.
If you bought a lake house this year then that would make this your first winter. You should do some things to make sure you don’t ruin your first winter at the lake. Those things are the things that I’ve learned, even though most of the things aren’t something anyone would actually need to learn. They’re things we should all know but in the hustle and the bustle of a Holiday season we tend to forget. The lake house is for summer, that’s what some people think, and so when the winter comes they think of malls and of Zika Beaches and of other things. What they should be thinking about is the lake. Frozen or not.
That brings us to your exceptionally short to-do-list:
Don’t turn the heat down and leave. This is a common mistake. Buy a many million dollar lake house and then turn the heat to 55 and leave it for a month or two. This is a bad idea. It’s noble that you want to save the planet by consuming less natural gas, but let’s really consider what’s happening here. In Wisconsin it gets cold. It gets cold on a Tuesday and then it’s warmer by Thursday, and all the while you were at work doing the work things that we accomplish in winter. Your house is not a constant temperature in all of its various rooms and levels. It fluctuates, somewhat wildly. A thermostat set at 55 degrees will indeed keep the air around the thermostat at 55 degrees, but the air in the basement by that bathroom on the outside wall? 31. Don’t risk frozen pipes, just keep your heat at 62 or 65 and deal with the burden of an extra $50 on your monthly gas bill. It’s cheap insurance.
Along those lines, why haven’t you installed a Nest or Ecobee or anyone of the dozen wifi thermostats? Do that. Monitor your lake house when you’re not there. Keep an eye on things with a wifi security camera. Not because we have high crime, because we don’t, but because it feels good to sit at your desk and look in on the things that you work hard to own. Buy the thermostat, the camera, and maybe a wifi water sensor or two to install in the basement. Just do it and be smart about things. No matter how diligent your house check person may be, they can’t be at the house all the time, but your technology can be.
Buy some bird feeders. Put the bird feeders outside your house. Watch the birds. Winter birds are the real champions, unlike migratory birds that turn tail and leave when the going gets rough. It’s the winter birds that deserve our affection. Beat it Sandhill Cranes, you’re too soft for a Lake Geneva winter. Beat it, Bald Eagles that come and eat our small birds and then head south when our soft water turns hard. Love the local birds, feed them.
You don’t like coming up to the lake as often in the winter because there’s nothing to do? Are you serious? What, exactly, is there to do in the suburbs during winter that somehow trumps the Lake Geneva things to do? You have movie theaters? Big deal, so do we. You have a mall? So what? We have some shops. What you don’t have is a handful of ski hills, a giant frozen lake to skate on and snowshoe over and cross country ski atop. You also don’t have all of these bald eagles. Come to the lake this winter. Make a fire. Burn it all day. Make some soup. Be domestic. Stop needing something to do so often. Just be, and be at the lake. The meter is running on your lake house expenses, whether you’re here or not. It’s running a bit faster now, too, now that you’re not going to leave your heat at 55.