Our biggest rehabilitation effort to date (20180606) A HUGE thank you to Hefler Forest Products!

Well folks sometimes you just get blown away, that was the case this week as we worked on our largest effort of the year so far.  We had popped in and mentioned to the folks at Hefler that we would like to come in and do some rehabilitation for some nesting Snappers. Dana greeted us warmly and told us we had the go ahead, and mentioned that she would let us know when they had some gravel for us.  On June 4th, Dana let us know that there was gravel available for us to use. What a speedy response. We Headed over on the 5th and started work. The following shots are kind of what we started with. This first shot provides a peek at the gravel pile we had to work with and some of the area we would be working on.

We had material in front of these barriers which we wanted to move behind, in order to encourage our Snapper ladies to lay in a safer environment. 

This far end view shows us our target for a nesting pad. It also illustrates the area by the recently replaced telephone pole that had stirred things up and brought a lot of large aggregate to the surface of area. In the background you can see the pile of gravel. 

Some of the barriers had quite a bit of material that we wanted to move behind. 

So we got started raking and shoveling, shoveling and raking. When it came time to build the pad front end Loader man Terry moved some of our topping to be reused after we installed our gravel bed. 

Talk about efficiency over having to shovel! We were ecstatic that we didn't have to Pick and Shovel all that material. 

After several hours we are happy to report we got the job done! While we didn't use all of the gravel the pile was considerably smaller when we were done. 

The area behind the barriers were all raked up and we ended up with about 4 inches of fresh material added to what was already there.

The fronts of the barriers have all been cleaned up nicely. 

This final shot tells the story of not only the new pad, but also the work that was done by the telephone pole. We were able to create a second pad about 8 feet in diameter in that area that should provide a nesting sight for two or more females. The pad in the fore ground was elevated by about 4-6 inches which should be a wonderful spot for the ladies to get their business done. 

So a BIG shout out to the kind and caring folks at Hefler Forest Products for providing such a wonderful nesting area for the Snappers in the area. What a classy organization. 

Yours in turtling

Turbo