March 31, 2007 - Welcome to our blog!!

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Here's something new for our website - a blog!! Our goal is to keep you updated on an irregularly regular basis about what's happening at our quiet family cottage resort specifically and in our area in general. We've just returned from our (much needed) vacation and are revitalized and ready to tackle another great season in Muskoka. We were very surprised to return to almost no snow!!! It's a beautiful sunny day, the temperature is 9C and the ice on our lake, Lake of Bays, is starting to melt at the shore as well as where the rivers enter our bay. Last year, the ice was out by April 15th - lots of locals like to make friendly wagers to predict when the melting of the two rivers will meet in our bay...looks like it's going to be an early one this year!! Plans are underway to begin renovations in our "C" cottage (new bathroom) and "B" cottage (updated kitchen). Our "D" cottage had a bit of excitment in early December - one of our century trees came down in a bad storm and crushed one side of the roof as well as demolished our fence (not to mention landing on 2 of our newly planted trees). Oh, I forgot to mention that the tree also wiped out our garbage/recycling hut... Thanks to some hard work and local friends and neighbours, the damage was cleared quickly and all was repaired - so far it looks like the trees will make it, too. We have some additional plans for Spring renovations, if we are able to get to them before our guests start arriving daily... In the Fall, we began planting more trees (I call them "Christmas Trees") around the cottages and we will be continuing the planting of trees once the frost is out of the ground. We want to add more privacy between the cottages and from the driveway - as well as some much needed shade in the summer time! Our Spring clean-up begins this week. Not only does each cottage get the "once over", but the 7+ acres of property that we have here gets raked, fertilized and spruced up. Then, the gardening begins and the playground is set-up again, after having been put away for the winter to avoid any damage to the Little Tykes equipment. Our Summer reservations are well under way and, in fact, we are already 56% booked!! At this point, approximately 85% of the bookings are from guests who have stayed with us previously. We are extremely excited about this - we figure we must be doing something right!!! By the way, 2007 is the year we celebrate the 60th Anniversary of Logging Chain Lodge. The cottage resort was started as a bed and breakfast type lodge in 1947 by the current owner's Grandmother. Slowly, over the years, cottages were added to the comprise the existing 7 units. Let us know if you have any questions to post here - we'll answer them as best as we can!!