There are many added expenses to living on a lake. Many of the expenses may be considered luxury items to many people, but they are needed if you are going to enjoy your lake property. My husband and I have always enjoyed spending time at different lakes. We love to fish and take day or weekend trips around the area. We planned to retire by a lake, but we decided to make the move earlier because we found a house at a very good price.

When we moved in my husband told me that we needed a bigger boat in order to safely fish the lake we were living on. The lake is 60 miles around and 27 miles across, so the waves can become quite large. Along with a bigger boat we also needed to invest in boat covers for the new boat, as well as the small paddle boat that we bought. Plus we needed a boat lift to keep the boat out of water when it was down by the dock. One of our new neighbors tried to convince us to put a canopy over the top of the boat lift rather than invest in the boat covers. This seemed like a good idea at first, until we noticed all the bird droppings on the canopies of the surrounding neighbors. The birds liked to perch on the canopies as well as build nests underneath them. We decided that we would buy boat covers.

With measurements of the two boats in hand, we went to a marine dealer. The boat covers that they had in stock were not very good quality and they were generic so they would not fit very tight on the boats. The marine dealer told us that there were names of several people that made custom boat covers on the bulletin board. We wrote down several of the names and telephone numbers.

We called several of the custom canvas businesses. Most of them were booked with orders ahead of us. The quotes we were give for the boat covers were very high. My sister-in-law is a wonderful seamstress and I have done some sewing in the past. We decided that we would attempt to make the boat covers. It took us several hours to design a pattern and several more hours to sew the canvas, but we completed very nice, sturdy boat covers.

There are many things that bring my mother peace and some a of these things are her hummingbird feeders. She has a few of them hanging in various places in her yard, and she can spend quite a bit of time watching the hummingbirds coming in for a quick drink. There are only a couple different hummingbirds in her area, and she and my grandfather often joke that they are fighting over the same birds. They are quite fun to watch and I have even been able to take pictures of them while they were feeding.

My grandfather has his hummingbird feeders hanging near his plants, and he and my grandmother often sit and watch them out the big picture window they have. My mom does not have this luxury, so she has put one of her hummingbird feeders right next to her kitchen window. This is the best place because she spends a lot of her time in her kitchen. She can see them when they fly up for a drink and she can then watch them without spooking them. I’m not sure if they can see her or not, but she can walk right up to the window and they don’t budge. They didn’t spook when I took photos either.

The funniest part about the hummingbird feeders has to do with one of my mom’s cats. She has a large, orange cat named Otis who you might confuse with Garfield. He is a huge loveable guy, but still has his natural hunting instincts. Otis sits on her sink and watches the hummingbird feeder for hours on end. He has his ears back most of the time and his tail is twitching. The funny part is that even though he is right there through the glass, the hummingbirds come anyway and they don’t seem to think a thing of him. Perhaps they are not even aware that he is there.

If you want to have bird feeders in your yard, but you aren’t sure what you want, you might want to consider having hummingbird feeders instead. They are different from other feeders because they fill up with a sweet liquid rather than bird seed. Hummingbirds usually swoop in, take a quick drink and then fly off, but I have seen some hover around the feeders for quite a long time. We don’t know where they nest or where they go when they fly away, but we can always count on seeing them almost every day.