40 Things to do for Great Summer Fun

Imagine yourself snug in your cabin bed and gently awakening?one summer morning, a serenade from songbirds lilting through your window screen. Lazily you roll over, relishing a little more snooze time in this treasured sanctum – when a sobering thought jolts you upright.?

Summer is moving too quickly! Wherever you happen to be when this startling realization hits, don’t despair; but don’t dawdle, either. You need to get out there and play! Here are some ideas to help you enjoy the long, sunny cabin days that yet remain.

1. Make homemade ice cream.
2. Add three new birdhouses to the area around your cabin.
3. Enjoy a breakfast fish fry.
4. Watch for bald eagles.
5. Plant some hardy new flowering shrubs.
6. Collect small pinecones to embellish photo frames.
7. Daydream.
8. Roast marshmallows around a crackling midday fire.
9. Greet dawn from your deck.
10. Have a long-jump/cannonball competition, leaping from the dock into the lake.
11. Spend a quiet evening listening to the night sounds.
12. Find a fantastic spot for a new tree swing.
13. Invite some pals to the lake for late-season angling.
14. Indulge in an afternoon nap on the porch.
15. Sit with your dog and brush that coat until it shines.
16. Recharge.
17. Gather family or friends around lanterns at dusk to tell stories.
18. Swim as far as you can across the lake – alongside your spotter, of course.
19. Start a computer slideshow featuring the year’s best cabin photos. (But don’t fret about finishing it – you still have all winter for that!)
20. Tape-record some authentic cabin sounds to incorporate into your slide show – frogs and crickets, kids playing, conversation.
21. Hike the woods.
22. Enliven a few trees around the cabin with homemade or purchased tree faces.
23. Just for fun, paint something (a wall or shed door) with funky fish or flower graphics.
24. Meditate.
25. Enjoy the summer celebrations hosted by your cabin community.
26. Skip rocks for the record.
27. On a still afternoon, float away an hour on an inner tube. Don’t forget the sunscreen.
28. Snap some cabin photos to frame for Christmas gifts.
29. Start a log of the kids’ heights and weights to compare and add to each year.
30. Celebrate summer birthdays by decking out the pontoon, ATV or bikes with streamers and balloons.
31. Tackle chores by hosting a work party, rewarding hungry volunteers with a cookout.
32. Roll pinecones in peanut butter, then coat with birdseed and hang from a tree. Instant birdfeeders!
33. Ponder.
34. Near the end of the season, host a community potluck. Ask everyone to cook with cabin food staples to start clearing out their cupboards.
35. Prepare soil in a sunny, sheltered location and plant a strawberry bed for you (and/or the birds!) to enjoy next spring.
36. Fly a kite from your boat, in the middle of the lake.
37. Stargaze.
38. Look for wild animal tracks.
39. Build an elaborate sand castle – with moats and turrets.
40. Write down season-end reflections, hopes and predictions in your cabin journal.

Sue Sondreal plans to do everything on this list, and then some.

Sara Gray