There are new details about the Ghosts, on the Ghost Cam page.
We finally got the straw into the lake today, as some of you may have seen, but what a performance. The netting bags had been left in the water by the bank since last week when we were doing it, being soaked through, they should have sunk, with the weight of the wet straw and the attached concrete block. No such luck, we pulled the bags to the middle of the lake and they still floated. My lad was clowning about, not knowing he was on camera, he had not bothered to turn the boat over, to get rid of the water in the bottom. To stop his feet getting wet he decided to paddle the boat, standing on the seat. How he managed not to have fallen in the lake, I just don’t know, the boat was rocking from side to side and looking very unsafe, at one time he reckoned he was going for a swim. Eventually I told him that he was on camera, he wasn’t best pleased.
We had to pull the bags back to the bank, attach another block and try again. With so much weight, my lad was unable to paddle the boat and pull the sack and weight at the same time, all that was happening, was that he was pulling himself back to the bank, from where he had started from. Because of the weight he could not hold the sacks, weight and paddle at the same time, we thought about putting the whole lot in the boat, and tipping it out, when we got to the spot where we wanted it, chances were that as he tipped it over, he would have gone in with it, if the boat had not sank with the weight in the first place. In the end we attached a long length of baler twine to the bags and weight, and paddled the boat across the lake and pulled the twine to drag the bags and weight across the bottom of the lake, to the spot we wanted it. It was a performance, but no real hardship, as it made a change to be working on the lake.
It was a good day to do it, the sun was shining and it was very warm. You may have seen the Geese fly in as we were working, a few fish were at the top of the water, and there were plenty of waterfowl about.
I should think that the Geese who did land today, will be those who will nest on the lake. The Goose was on the island inspecting it, with the Gander watching, as he swam about. I don’t hold out a lot of hope of them raising a family. I tried one year to chase them off of the lake, but they just kept coming back. I don’t suppose it will do any good, but I will put a small wooden slope from the water to the island bank, they may then take the goslings back on the island of a night, that will stop the fox at least.