Heron views

We have some blue herons who fish right outside in the shallow river water near our bank.  However, getting a good picture of them is another story.  A bit skittish they are:

I will have to practice.  We are heading out to northwest burbs of Chicago this weekend with the RV and the dogs.   I hope [...]

Goslings

The baby geese are hatched.  We have several families, with the goslings obviously varying in size.   And there are some domestic white geese that live up the river.  The theory is that someone bought the domestic geese for an Easter present, and when no longer wanted dumped them down here.  They now interact with the [...]

The party is over

The tent is empty and the guests are leaving:

Mom is exhausted, but Nick is partied up and graduated.
 

Going down!

Kim, and her brother Chris and their little sister Heidi decided they just had to get a log out of the river by the dock right before the party.   That was danger right there.  Then my sister Mary decided to wander out and help them, oh, not a wise choice.  Fortunately, Chris is an Army [...]

Getting ready to party!

My son’s high school graduation party is this weekend.  We are getting ready.  The weather is predicted to be in the 70’s and clear.
We put up our new mailbox:

I guess it is a little gaudy and tacky, but we had to look for a long time to find it.  We really wanted a riverboat, but [...]

Why don’t the dams prevent floods?

Interesting bit of news in our local paper this morning.  Remember at flood time, the roller and tainter gates on the dams were wide open.  Local folks wanted to know why the dams can’t prevent flooding.  The reason is that the gates and rollers do not go all the way down to the river bottom.  [...]

Jet boat is in!

The jet boat and fishing boat are now in the river tied up to the dock.  Here is the jet boat, maybe we should put the dock back together…

Check out this piece of driftwood that our neighbor dragged out of the river:

 
 
 

Barges, docks and nice weather

The barges are back:

The entertainment area is up in front of the cottage:

It is turned away from the river because of bad wind that day.
The dock is back out, but not connected.  The gangway has been fished out from the river and reinstalled.  We are waiting delivery of our aluminum gangway.

Come sit by the river [...]

Boat lift levitates!!

Crane arrives:

Now it has to go out to the lift:

Okay, now it has to get that thing out of there.  It is stuck in the Mississippi River mud:

There was a 50 foot log stuck on the bottom.  We never would have gotten it out of there without the crane.

Now it is up and over the [...]

River is down, down

The river has dropped three feet here already, just a week after flood stage.  The dock went half way out today, on purpose.  We have been frantic busy.  We moved all the stuff back down to the cottage and we are here for the summer.  I can’t take a picture of the empty garage in [...]