In July we began dealing with what Bob Forbeck called “Vietnamese Grass”
Mike Lisk added qty 66 8” - 10” grass carp to Lake Lori Ann, qty 20 to Lake C&H, and qty 136 to Lake Debbie for a total of 222 grass carp. Mike is on the left and Barry is on the right.
Mike said that the grass carp’s favorite food is the Hydrilla which looks exactly what we have in our lakes. These grass carp pretty much resolved our algae issue in one year and completely resolved the issue in two years!
We got a quantity of 20 twenty feet deep boring samples.
Two of the twenty bores were located just 10’ feet from the shore. The bores never touched water! Yay!!!
Although the house design wouldn’t be completed until December 2021, we began staking out the house in late August to give ourselves an idea of how the house would laid out given that there wasn’t much space between the house and lake on both the east and west sides.
In late August we also began extending the road around the lake. Our architect and I chose this route around the house because it would force my family and visitors to view the lake and full view of the house.
Hannah declares the new road almost done!
The Vietnamese Grass project near Lake C&H almost completed on August 20, 2021
On August 31, 2021 we began taking out the hedge row on the north east side of Lake Lori Ann
Almost completed removing the hedge row. ‘Looks so much nicer!
Unfortunately, we had to remove a chestnut tree (was a nuisance tree anyway), a sycamore, and two walnut trees.
Tree removal completed
I wanted to see if the lake needed to be dredged due to possible sludge filling up the Lake Lori Ann. Barry told me that he had a friend with a boat a depth finder who said the lake in the middle was 38 feet deep so I didn’t need to worry about that part of the lake. I called a guy who met Barry and me at Lake Lori Ann who said he would survey the lake depth for $5000. While standing there in front of that surveyor, I asked Barry if he had a fishing boat. Barry said, “Yep.” And he added that he had a 12 foot pole too. So I jumped his fishing boat and surveyed it myself in 1-½ hrs.
Above was my survey. I found very little sludge when my pole hit the bottom of the lake in areas where it would touch. No dredging needed!
I knew that I needed to lay new rip rap around the lake especially around the peninsula since it would be difficult to do after the house construction started
October 14, 2021
Rip rap project almost completed
Fortunately we had city water so the water line was added.
The south side of Lake C&H dam showing where the lake slop was carried to.
By early November 2021, we had Ameren electric service
Because I revised the house plans a bit after Lori’s passing, we had to re-stake the house. Notice that one stake is located in the rip rap.
