As mentioned last month in this cottageinmuskoka blog entry and this news story from the Huntsville Forester (Cottage Country Now), the decline of calcium in our lakes can affect our lakes recovery from acid rain as well as zooplankton in our lakes, which are are very sensitive to declining calcium levels. From the Muskoka Watershed … Read more
Mentioned in a number of Muskoka Watershed Council lectures over the past few years, calcium decline in Muskoka Lakes and in particular, the consequences of timber harvesting on lake calcium levels have been hinted at as a potential direct cause of declining health of our lakes in Muskoka. Here’s a past primer news story from the … Read more
Did you know that Gravenhurst Bay in Lake Muskoka is 4 to 5 times cleaner than it was 1970? Did you know that everyone alive in the 70’s had toxic levels of lead in their blood? Did you know that Muskoka has only half as many acid lakes as it once did? Well, how about … Read more
From the Muskoka Watershed Council Lecture Series I have just finished editing and have just posted this video on the Muskoka Watershed Council’s YouTube page. All of us should be familiar with the fact that in Muskoka, our environment is our economy; over half our GDP comes from tourism and cottaging. In this lecture, Peter … Read more
Quick Update: We are having some crazy weather here – like many other places. Strong winds with above-seasonal temperatures overnight. At 7:00 am this morning it was 16C, the expected high tomorrow only 1C. It was all enough to make the ice on Lake Muskoka disappear! Look at the two images below; essentially the same … Read more
In cottage real estate we get asked a lot of questions: Is it weedy?; Eeeew! What’s that stuff?; Why don’t we see crayfish anymore?; My boathouse dock’s underwater – what’s with the water levels this year?; Is my water safe for swimming?; etc. It’s really a lot of fun to answer most of the time! … Read more
It got up to 8 degrees C today, and really quite lovely, but we have some work to do to get all this ice and snow out of here. Other than today, our high temps have been -2 or so with night temperatures 10 degrees below that. Lake Muskoka is still totally ice-covered, so the … Read more
Many times in the past, at work in Toronto, Chicago, Orlando, or Boston, I’d hear about spring equinox (night and day of approximately equal length) and begin to wonder how conditions were at our Muskoka cottage. In case you are at work planning for spring at the cottage, I have an update for you. Depending … Read more
I posted a few videos today. One is the 1st of a Muskoka Moments collection. The idea of Muskoka Moments is to show people and places in Muskoka, but more importantly, to try to show the connection between the two. Our first video Backyard Swamp, Bracebridge, is a perfect example to lead off. The star … Read more
Perhaps because Muskoka experienced more cottage sales in March, April and May 2012 than 2011, more cottages were listed, building something of a buyer’s market here. Although the best way to sell a cottage quickly is to properly price it, there are additional things that can help: improve its condition, de-clutter, keep up with the … Read more