Spike!

One of the best things about having a big front lawn is that there is almost always a pick-up game of some flavour taking place. From kids playing baseball, to a gang kicking around a soccer ball or -- like these -- enjoying a catch-game of Volleyball, it's just a happening place!

This lawn used to be a garden, planted to 163 rows of potatoes leading to the lake. Grandmother Elizabeth used to pick off the pototo beetles by hand (wearing a long dress and sun-hat). She'd finish that task sometime in mid-August, by which time most of the potatoes were done with their leaves anyway... Then it morphed into a hay field. I can remember my Dad cutting the hay -- very non politically correct, there would usually be a flock of kids running after the hay cutter; and another raft of people helping with the haying. We have old photos and movies that show the hay pasture, with narrow trails cut through it to get from cottage to cottage and to the lake. Now it's a lawn (and I have to purchase hay for the horses... go figure that out!) and a place of play. It provides a great open vista, with the lake as a backdrop and the forests framing the view. Along the shore, we keep as much natural vegetation as we possibly can, and all the cottages are planted round with privacy and shade trees.

But all the same, if you're going to kick a ball, swing a bat, go up for the spike, or (as happened once!) gallop across with your pony and a polo mallet demonstrating 'stick and ball', you need some space to stretch and breathe.