Wolf River Valley Creations

Two Keystone cops decide to float a dock they had been given for their new pontoon boat from one bay in the lake to the other.  The female cop wasn’t happy with the idea as it was a very windy day.  The male cop pooh-poohed the wind.

The two go down to the lake where the boat is currently tied, and right from the beginning, things start to go wrong.  A new battery installed the day before seems fine but the motor won’t start.   After 30 minutes of frustration, finally the motor starts and they push off.

The minute they get 200 ft from shore, they hit the winds and waves.   This isn’t good says the female cop.  The winds are too high and coming from the wrong direction.  They continue to motor to the other bay.

Now things start getting tricky as the lake was formed in the 1930’s when a dam was made across the Wolf River.  This caused flooding of the swamp areas that ran to the west of the river.   Anyone who flies over the area in a plane and looks out can see a multitude of logs submerged in the water from when the swamps were cut-off prior to the dam.  Certain bays of the lake are better traversed by row boat than by motor boat!!!

Fighting the southerly winds, they finally make it to the dock.  After securing the dock to the pontoon boat, they attempt to leave the shoreline where the winds have blown them.  Suddenly, a horn sounds!   Nooooooooo!  Some kind of alarm is going off on the boat motor!   Promptly shutting off the motor, the female cop looks over the side and discovers the prop is tangled with weeds.

After much grunting and groaning and borrowing the jacknife of the female cop, the male cop finally frees the prop on the motor.

At this point, rolling clouds and increasing winds have pushed the pontoon parallel with the shore.  The motor can’t be lowered in the water due to shallow water, the wind is increasing, clouds are rolling  and a difficult situation has become impossible.

The female cop suggests that they abandon ship, tie it up to the shore and walk home.  The male cop wonders how the female cop is going to get on shore.  The female cops indicates the dock which is now floating free but is bumped up against the pontoon boat.  She takes the push pole, steps off the boat onto the dock and pushes the dock against the shore as near as she can get, then steps off onto the shore.

She ties off the dock to a tree with the rope originally intended to tow the dock.  The male cop tosses a line from the pontoon boat to the female cop and then she pushes a corner of the dock out to the pontoon boat so the male cop can get to shore.  The female cop walks away, leaving the male cop to stare at the pontoon boat and floating dock.   A few minutes later, he follows.

I’ve been working at the historical museum the last few weeks, helping with getting it ready to open for the season.

Yesterday I was working in the kitchen and came up with an idea for a canning display.  I have about 8# of Sculpey III clay which is basically useless so I decided to use some of it to make some veggies for the display.

Here’s my green beans.

The last few weeks have been hectic here, major spring house cleaning, exterminator in for ladybugs, spiders, and flies and then yesterday the septic let me know it wasn’t frozen but plugged.

In between hubby decided he wanted another pontoon boat so we spent 2 days boat shopping.  We finally got it today but had to wait for the weather to clear before we could put it in the lake.

When we got it to the boat launch, we couldn’t get it started at first.   The battery was low, we finally were able to coax it to start.  I was the pilot and enjoyed the short trip upriver to the lake.  However, the wind on the lake was high and I was fighting 1 to 1.5 foot waves.  Trip across the lake was rather bumpy and rough, was very glad when I reached our landing site.

When we get a nice day and less wind, I’ll try to take some pics from the lake.  For now, this is the rig on the trailer.