Next year, people under 40 will remove the dock.

OK, this was fun to do once. But next year, the weekend before Halloween, we will have offspring here to do the heavy lifting. Once again, we had help from the Kreugers and Mark Miller, and Tom Turi came along with his 4-wheeler to help pull the boat lift out of the water.

Tom is spending the winter in Georgia, near two of his kids. Mark will be up all winter; Kreugers come up off and on, and Ken will be up a time or two more before he has the cottage winterized. But this is my last weekend - unless we have a miraculous Indian Summer weekend in November. Not holding my breath.

I spent some time around sunset standing in the water, rummaging through the landscape to see the beauty of the fall up close and personal. Got some photos I really like.

Fire in the fireplace now, and ratatouille on the stove. Ken left around 4 or 5; I'm staying over to make the most of my last weekend here. Just about to uncork a bottle of wine.