The flip side of owning a beach house

This self-portrait that my mother painted in oils best describes the quintessential bliss of a summer's day at the beach – blue skies, gentle winds, endless sunshine.

It hangs in the living room of the summer house, and it is the stuff of dreams.

But the tranquility it exhibits belies the calamities that have happened here since my parents bought the land 50 years ago:

One evening around dusk with calm seas, my husband took my brother fishing in his boat. As they trawled, the rope from a lobster pot became entangled around the leg of the motor. Hours later, we called the Coast Guard. We cried and we prayed. After countless attempts diving under the boat with a knife in dark waters, my brother cut them free. The Tiverton Water Police towed them in around midnight.

Our water supply was tainted by Temik, a pesticide used in the potato field abutting our property.

Hurricane Bob tore down the huge maple tree in front of the summer house, missing the structure by a few feet.

A cloudless Sunday afternoon, my brother took my father and son on his sailboat. Out of the blue, a violent thunderstorm forced them to get to land. We called the Coast Guard. We cried and we prayed. Many hours later, they were found and towed in.

I stopped at a bookstore near the summer house and was bitten by a huge rabbit named Eliot, the patron’s pet. I sat on the couch in the beach house while the gash in my leg with telltale teeth marks throbbed. I got a tetanus shot.

Climbing on the roof of the summer house to remove the old antenna, my brother disturbed a bee hive. He climbed down the rungs of the ladder in record speed but not without incurring their wrath with numerous stings on his arms and legs.

Hurricane Irene tore down the huge maple tree in the back yard, missing the shed by a few feet.

My son was cooking on the grill when it malfunctioned. Along with the meat, his eyebrows and arm hair were singed.

My father took my brother's sailboat out on the bay while my mother played with my children on shore. After scouring the coastline for hours, we saw my father floating down the river on the hull of the sailboat. He had pulled up the centerboard, and it flipped. A kind boater towed him to shore.

One whole season we were terrorized by a pesky skunk who took up residence on our property.

My mother helped my father carry the heavy picnic table out of the shed. Inadvertently, he let go of the weight, breaking my mother’s wrist.

In addition, there have been infestations of rodents; countless mosquito, tick and dog bites; wasps in the well house; hornets in the washing machine hose; broken pipes; toilet overflows; ceiling cave-ins; bicycle falls; sunburns; and too many other mishaps to mention.

Yet, despite it all, one of the best things my parents ever did for us was to buy this little piece of land by the sea.