Your wondering what this picture has to do with wildlife, and I’ll get to that in a minute.
While we’ve been at the lake this week we’ve seen quite a bit of wildlife. There have been the usual deer, chipmunks, squirrels, loons, bald eagles etc. and then some more unusual critters like otters, beavers, wild turkeys and turkey vultures.
Today, I was working on fixing up the second of our “free” docks that were recovered a couple of weeks ago. Earlier in the week we were in Kenora at a store that specializes in dock systems and learned that replacing the flotation in this dock and getting a ramp and hinge system to connect it to the main dock would run in excess of $2,000. It seemed to me that there should be a less expensive option as a Phase 1 approach. So, the excess Styrofoam from dock #1 was used to bolster up dock #2 and the tires re-installed and then I tied the floating dock to the fixed dock. So far, so good. This dock will come in quite handy since the water level is currently 4′ below the top of our fixed dock.
Back to the wildlife. In the process of getting ready to push the extra bits of Styrofoam under the dock I needed to get into the water and push the dock forward to get it off a rock. While doing this I feel something by my right foot in the water and I kick it out of the way. Then I think, “Hey, there’s only rocks down there and you don’t just kick them out of the way”. That’s when I decided to have a look only to see a very large turtle cruising around my foot. Everybody out of the pool! This thing was at least 12″ across and the head and neck were the size of my wrist! (Sorry. no picture).