Dry Cove

We've come to the end of our lake drawdown period, which began on October 10 for scheduled dam repairs. A month later, we're ready for refilling. We're getting extra water from a feeder lake that has been holding back for us, and all the feeder streams will carry this weekend's rain and runoff into our lake, too.

I took this photo standing in my cove, which is usually full of water. The area near the shoreline has dried out, but the darker area is soggy - silty and full of sucking mud. It makes walking difficult, launching a kayak impossible, and renders shoreline cleanup hazardous!

This is how our cove looked for a month, mostly separated from the main body of water by a cold, soggy, sloppy, and deceptively-firm looking mud bath. Our floating gardens and stumps have been resting on the ground; they look quite out of place and awkward in their beached state! The water pipeline that was installed in 2020 is visible to the right of our cove (marked with floats to deter boaters from getting too close).

It's been strange to see the lake bottom materialize in places. I'm surprised at how undulating and uneven it is - something we're unaware of when floating on the flat, even water surface in a kayak.

This is the head end of our cove, a dry basin, a leaf sink.

View from one of our usually floating logs that we maintain as a breakwater at the entrance to our cove.