more about the "floating island."

These are some of the still pictures we took. The video part of my camera uses a lot of power, so I switched to still shots so as not to run out of picture space. So, the weed whacker (Lake Mess Monster) pulled the island as close as it could to shore, then the people tried to haul it in. It was very, very heavy. The rope was tied to a tree trunk on the island, which must have been deeply rooted, since it stayed in place.

As the island came close, we could see that there was a dock underneath. We speculated as to how old it was - I'm guessing 30 or 40 years. I wonder if there's some dusty old archives room at the Parks dept where we could find out. I imagine it was for rowboats or fishing off of. The styrofoam supporting it was still in place, though large bits were breaking off. It was about a foot thick. Some of the Alliance workers broke off big chunks of the styrofoam to cart them away, so they wouldn't get ground into little bits and pollute the lake.

They chained the island (by it's thick tree trunk)to the bulldozer to be pulled out. The official name of the big yellow machine may be something else, but I'm calling it a bulldozer. There was some concern about its brakes, so the dumpster truck was chained to it, to make sure that the bulldozer didn't end up in the lake. The lake is not deep, but the bottom consists of several feet of mud and muck. It would be an unbelievably hard job to get the dozer out if it slipped in. At first, everything went well. The island was pulled about 1/2way onto shore, and the bulldozer's operator used his shovel to break it up. Then it grabbed the stuff in big chunks and put it over into the dumpster. the work went very quickly - the operator of the dozer seemed incredibly good at his job.

The problem came when they got to the second half of the island It was still in the water, and there wasn't such a solid tree trunk to grab on to. The crew tried several ways to get a grip on it and drag it out. Each idea involved retying the ropes and chains in a different way. By the 2nd or 3rd try, it was after 11, JJ was getting restless, and we still hadn't had breakfast, so we decided to head on home and let them work it out without our input and photography.

And they did. This morning, there was absolutely no sign of the "floating island" except for a few broken bits of phragmites on the shoreline and a few (not too many) styrofoam beads.

I'm still excited about getting to see this operation. What new treats will my park bring to us next?

Floating island...NOT!

So today I told Ber that we had to see something new in the park, as I am getting tired of reporting on trash, trash, and more trash, in between beautiful scenery and lots and lots of geese. there we were in a corner of the Peninsula meadow, checking out a dead raccoon (This one had been for quite a while and was rather rotted away. We saw Tony who said that every dog in the park knew about that one. Don't know how we missed it, and it did stink.), anyway, checking out the dead raccoon, when I heard a noise in the water, looked up, and saw the Lake Mess Monster coming 'round the bend, pulling an island!!! Got some great little videos of the moving island. It had trees and grass and flowers on it. The boat pulled the island to shore - it turns out to be an overgrown dock! Many years ago there must have been a nice little dock on the lakeside - styrofoam underpinnings, etc., but it has long since been overgrown with trees, phragmites, and tons of stuff - blankets, cans, clothing, etc., homeless people must have been living there for years, probably until it burned a few months ago. Martin (from Prospect Alliance) said he had pulled out out from the phragmite area that we'd worked on on Park Clean-up Day, and stuck it in a corner of the lake until he could figure out how to get rid of it.

So today, here it was, and so were a bulldozer, truck, dumpster, and about half a dozen people. What a job getting it out of the water, broken up, and into the dumpster! We took lots of pictures and will post the best ones. It was really exciting watching a complicated operation such as this one - getting the thing out without having it come apart into many pieces and not letting the machinery roll into the lake, where it would have been stuck in the muck. They tried not to let too much of the styrofoam into the water.

I'm posting the videos today, and will put up still pictures tomorrow. The first video ( if I have my ducks in order) is the early view of the floating island being pulled by the weed whacker (Lake Mess Monster's other name). The second is getting it close to shore. The third is the human effort to land it at the boat launch site near the wellhouse.

We certainly saw something new!!!!!!!!!