LL Buchanan Lake
Floating islands
Betty's Island - 2, a floating island...
The most recent photos are first, by day, progressing back to the start. The introduction and the start of the project are on the Betty's Island page.
6 June: Betty's Island - 3 After this page.
31 May: The tree guy planted a few leftover Mugo Pine on shore. Harassed the beaver who are getting a bit too established in the Swan Pond. The accumulated height of their dam is drowning some of the seedling trees around the Swan Pond. The tree guy adjusted some of the dam works. The beaver will repair the dam hole tonight, and may discuss retaliation.
30 May: Planted the conifer seedlings on the island. Except for the remaining list of minor matters, Betty's Island is finished. That called for a celebration of the usual hamburger and usual glass of wine at Bob's Keg and Cork.
Commander of the Osprey perch.
29 May: Planted 2 Kwanzen Flowering Cherry trees and 2 smaller Prairifie Flowering Crabapple trees on the island, purchased from the fine folks at Cowiche Creek Nursery.
28 May: Pebbles island was graced with an improved goose nest, transported to the island by kayak. The photo shows the transport guy, going out to inspect the islands. You might notice that he is a gentleman kayaker.
23 May: No more wimpy osprey perch. We replaced it with a more substantive old snag, if it survives the wind and other things.
First we had to pluck it from the water where it was cut in the winter when the lake was frozen. Well, when it fell, it punched into the ice and could not be easily removed.
Then carry it to the island.
Then set down the new perch, to remove the wimpy perch.
Then put up the new perch.
Sure hope it survives the night until the island slave can
get back to it with a come-along to snug it against the brace,
and wrap more wire around it. The engineer is not sure the brace
can hold that much weight and wind drag. In fact, he quit the
moment he saw what we were about to do. It is 40 feet high, with
the osprey perching branch 34 feet high, which is the officially
correct height for common osprey preference. Ask any ornithologist,
or anybody at Bob's Keg and Cork.
22 May: Duck Report. The Wood Ducks, nesting along the shore near the construction site for Betty's Island, were seen leading a string of new ducklings into the lake. And another gaggle of ducklings were in the lake. And two Mallard duck nests with eggs were spotted on a couple of the near-shore islands.
21 May: The geese found the new grass on the floating island. They mowed the grass a bit, and left a goose mess. They were a bit disappointed when they returned to find that the human covered the grass with wire, a temporary arrangement before the tree planting.
Ordered trees for the island. They will start small, but grow. Chit-chatting with a tree nursery chap, about trees for floating islands, introduces some interesting horticultural conversation.
18 May: And there we jolly well have it, for the moment. Betty's island is done except for the trees and a dozen or so other things. The trees will be planted in the sod-covered areas. Some of the grass will be protected from the geese.
The rolls of sod were laid. Leftover astro turf was added to the center area. Yeah, a better looking osprey perch snag must yet be found. That is within the dozen or so other things, like the goose nests.
17 May: Ah, fer good grief sakes, the computer will not recognize the photo card.
If the boat guys had not belatedly told the photographer to get his camera out of the car, he would have forgot it again. In fact, because he forgot it on the first boat trip out on the lake, you missed the exciting photos of dropping the anchor of 14 five gallon bucket shapes of concrete. Those would have been boring photos, until anchor weight number 13. The attachment chain twisted around the cable it was supposed to slide down, and bound, just over the edge. There was some serious homdihooming over that while holding the weight of the 5 gallon size cylinder of concrete plus 120 feet of 7/16 inch cable.
Well, the goal was to set the anchor for Betty's island, with a buoy holding up the end of the cable. So when Betty's island is towed out, we can quickly attach it to its anchor. That is preferable to laboriously dropping the anchor from the island if a breeze comes up. Because the boat guy was a bit leery of all that concrete in his nice boat, we towed Barney's Island back to shore to use it as the barge for the heavy roll of anchor cable and the 14 concrete weights. Good thing Barney's island has some strong trees on it, because one of them held the jammed anchor weight while we figured out what to do. Fortunately we had the engineer on board, who was able to pull just enough anchor cable back up over the edge of the island, where we untwisted the concrete block attachment chain, and rolled it off again.
16 May: The photographer had only one job: Take the picture. So when the entire floating island construction crew, and the slave, met for the evening reports and paperwork, the picture was anticipated. He forgot to take the picture. We think the guy has been getting too close to the duck weed and fish bubbles. We would have fired him but it is hard to find a photographer who will work for free and have his own camera. We threatened to get him a government job, to ruin his resume, and we allowed him one more day for the photo. Only one.
15 May: Soaked the dirt with water, and added the remainder of the soil from yesterday's delivery.
14 May: Due to new weight calculations, adjustments, refinements and a modicum of wild guesses, a new Secret Floating Island Soil Blend #1 was specially formulated and prepared by the fine folks at Morton and Sons nursery supply. 10 yards were delivered, and are now on the island. Some leftover pieces of 4 foot by 4 foot plywood were used to cover the astro turf and green painted plywood, to keep them somewhat clean looking. This aint no smuck operation, you know.
13 May: Side ramps attached. While the island slave was working on the edges of the island, the lake reached up and grabbed some nuts and bolts, a drill bit, and the island slave's reading glasses. Well of course, on the deep side.
12 May: Mirifi fabric put in troughs, and a few other things.
10 May: If the island slave had knowed how long it would take to take the launch ramp apart, he would have used a lot fewer screws to put it together. After that he only had time to get the expanded steel positioned in the island dirt troughs.
Well, there was also
the matter of some guy who stopped by, who mentioned his interest
in ducks, of all things. He and the island slave ended up yakking
about ducks until the chickens came home to roost. They would
still be there if that wine the duck guy had in his car were not
white wine for his wife. The island guy had enough work to do
with goose nesting islands. And he was going to belatedly get
around to overthrowing the government after making a couple more
goose nesting islands. Now he might make some wood duck nests
to put in the trees he is protecting from the beaver. There were
some ducks nearby, listening. They have heard it all before. Instead
of getting the goose nesting island done, which will be big enough
for a duck nest on the other side of the island, the humans just
stand around yakking about what they are going to do next. Furthermore,
if you listen carefully, as do the ducks, the only reason the
humans do anything to benefit the duck and goose population, is
to shoot and eat more ducks and geese. And that is precisely what
the island slave would do if we did not keep him working pretty
much all the time except for moose hunting season.
9 May: Betty's Island was launched.
After gathering and repairing a lot of rusty old rollers to cover the 4 feet from the launch ramp edge to the water, and homdihooming over the design, we shifted to plan G. Jim brought the big front end loader over and pushed the entire ramp to the edge of the water. The island guy sure wished he had thought of that before spending all that time messing with rollers. The engineer was fired again.
Then we rigged some ropes, unscrewed the ramp edge screws, and the island gently rolled into the water, with a small push, just like it was supposed to roll into the water. The design worked. Beginner's luck.
There was a bit of a gradient change near the edge of the water, but within tolerances.
The earlier stuff is on the Betty's Island page.
Betty's Island
Betty's Island-3
Barney's Island
Pebbles Island
Aerial Photos
Neighbors
History
Swans
Birds
Trees
Trees-2
Trees-3
Lake
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