lake project

The low lake level has made swimming a bit more difficult. Not really difficult to swim but more difficult to get in and out of the lake. The last rung on the ladder too high with respect to the lake bottom. In the past you swam up to the ladder and simply stepped onto the appropriate rung, never touching bottom. Now the water is only 3′ deep at the ladder (normally 6′) and the last rung was just above the surface making that first step 3+ feet. That was a bit much for Nancy and to make it worse, the bottom is a bit gooey so you sank down into a few inches of muck. I had dumped about 10 or so wheelbarrow loads of sand but that didn’t really solve the problem for the more squeamish swimmers. This past weekend Joanne, Johnny and Edna came up and I was kind of embarrassed that getting in and out of the water was so difficult. Not that it kept Nancy and Joanne from spending about 6 hours floating and gabbing, but two fixes this week have solved the problem completely.

The idea came from across the lake where our trailer neighbors had built a boat ramp last week using bags of quickcrete on top of fill dirt. It occurred to us that we could just put bags of quickcrete underwater to form a nice solid base around the ladder. Johnny assured us that the bags would harden quite quickly and last a million or so years.

When George made the ladder he cut in a rung slot beneath the last rung. I was able to piece together a rung from bits and pieces of lumber I had around. That extends the ladder effectively about 10”. Then the bags of quickcrete around the base of the ladder would add another 8” of height and make the bottom nice and hard. My plan was to get little Tommy up to the lake when he got home from Utah and between us make the pad. I knew the concrete bags were 60# but figured somehow he and I could deal with it. As luck would have it, Joey called and said he was coming up to the lake for a casual visit. I said “great, and on your way up how about stopping by Lowe’s and getting 14 bags of quickcrete”. A few hours later he and Mark were on the scene. And I’m really glad. Sixty pounds doesn’t sound all that heavy but as soon as we started manhandling the bags down to the lake and into the water, I knew it would have been more than Tommy and I could have handled. It took about a half hour but the end result is first class with a nice 4’x4′ concrete pad so all our squeamish friends and relatives can now come back to the lake to swim. But now that the problem is solved, watch the rains come and fill up the lake again.