Empty cottages

In late fall, cottages are empty. Winter cottagers take the late fall off, probably to get their Christmas shopping done, and summer cottagers are long gone.

My daughter took me wandering down the beaches of Gull Lake, to show me all the interesting things she and her uncle had found (including a half eaten crayfish a raccoon had left.) We wandered through rows of empty cottages to a sand beach.

The beach was gloriously lit in a fiery and furious orange, as it directly opposed the sunset. We sat on a rock and watched the sun go down. The sky was wearing fall colours, a dark and strange purplish-blue, and the clouds were speckled with many shades between orange and this unusual blue. The pine trees all looked as though they were transformed into Tamarack, as the sun coloured them in orange.

We had to get up, go back to the cottage and get ready to leave. But I did not want to. I longed to sit there and watch the master artist at work.