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March 25th: A hint of spring taunts Bloom Lake.
Our first trip this year looks good. Water levels are up, and the ice is starting to melt! |
| A pair of Canada geese are trying to hide next to some open water. |  |
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May 13th: the ice is gone, and we're ready to push the dredge in the lake again. |
| Almost ready to get started. We have the discharge hose attached, we still need to string the traverse cables |  |
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May 20th: It's a good thing I carry the chainsaw with me.
I was carrying a bushhog on a 18 foot trailer, no way could I back up and go around. |
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Hey it seems the green heads like our larger lake too.
This is the area we dug out last year to build the road out to the beaver lodge. |
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Cabled up and ready to run. We took 3 passes out at the edge of the road we made in 2003 |
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June 17th: We took a few days to dredge while Carol was in Vermont.
Two good days of pumping, and nothing broke! We're working the cable to the left as we make each pass. Also we had plenty of practice using the pressure gauges to tell when the cutter head is plugged, with all of the beaver wood we keep sucking up! |
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July 5th: 2 quick days of digging and pumping, Carol has to work over the fourth shutdown.
We cleaned out the basin before we started the pump. That pile is 3 hours of digging! |
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We took a pass and a half up the left edge, about 12 feet of width cleared.
Plenty more of the beaver wood kept us really busy maintaining a clear pump! Slow going, but we're making steady progress Fuel is running low in the dredge tanks. Bah, they want $2.98 a gallon for off-road fuel! |
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August 12th: We're done with the beach work at the cottage.
I used our big trailer to haul the tractor back to the Bloom to cut the trails. That Ford Power Stroke Diesel really pulls nice! |
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September 4th: We built up another 40 feet of discharge hose. This allows us to get out a bit further into the deep water area.
Diesel prices have dropped back to the $2.50 range, I'm dragging 20 gallons in cans for a days work. It's a 150 gallon minimum for delivery |
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Carol helped me attach the hose, and get everything setup to dredge for a few hours. |
| September 15th: Two large flocks of geese stopped in to see us. They stayed on as I worked to prep the dredge for the day. They didn't leave until I moved the dredge (engine running) near them. |  |
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For some stupid reason, I stuck my hand into the rotating cutterhead to get a stick out. Luckly, back in the Cadillac ER room, only 8 stiches closed the wound on my wrist. I won't ever do that again!
I'm back at it the next day, I finished up 3 more short passes into the weeds. The basin is full, I gotta stop. |
| October 7th: We're back at the north end of the cut again. I'd like to finish that area up, and start back at the left side again. |  |
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The top layer of grass turf is really tough to cut into. But the mud below is soft, and pumps great!
I found that I can get under the weeds, and cut all the way down to 10 feet deep. I break up and sink the floating weed mass, then pump the clumps them out to the basin. |
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That's it, one more short pass to finish off that area!
I better hurry, it's getting dark! |
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This young Blue Heron stayed around most of the day. He seems to be catching the small fish around the shore. Better move buddy, I'm headed right into that area! Does anybody know were frogs go when it gets cold? I didn't see any! |
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After a few hours of moving traverse cable, I'm back to the left side of the lake.
We got off to a slow start, it seems I have a plugged primary fuel filter. The level in the tanks is getting low, this is going to be a problem! |
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It doesn't look like much, but we cut about 45 feet of weeds along the side.
There is only about 5 feet of mud on top of a hard sand bottom. I had to nibble away at the turf a little at a time, I couldn't sink it like before. Another primary filter is plugged, we're down to the sludge and water in the bottom of the tank. It looks like we're done for this trip, maybe our last for the season! |
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