Greetings Members,
I hope all of you got your postcards in the snail mail by now detailing the dates and times of SMLA events for this year. First up is the annual breakfast brunch on Saturday, June 10 at 9am at the Pleasant Valley Free Methodist Church. Bring a dish to pass, your own table service, and a hearty appetite. This is a great time to catch up on all the happenings around the lake and hear about the winter adventures from our returning snow-birds plus it’s a good opportunity to meet your neighbors around the lake if you’ve never been to one of our events before. A short meeting will follow but we are usually back home shortly after 11 am. I hope you can make it!!!
Our first board meeting of the year was jam-packed full of ideas and lasted about three hours. That’s pretty standard as we are trying to set the agenda for the year. We are all volunteers but we spend countless hours working on projects and networking with other members. To that end, I am asking for members who are interested in volunteering to help out on some of the committees we have set up. Many helping hands make for a much lighter work load. For example, we need someone to set up for the breakfast brunch on Saturday. This involves making coffee in our big pot and setting up the tables, putting out the plastic cups, salt and pepper, picking up a couple gallons of juice, etc. Clean-up is easy. Everybody pitches in for that. Please text me at 231-676-9969 or call and leave a message at this same number if you would be willing to help out. We have a number of other committees we are looking to fill spots on and we will be putting out a list in the next couple of weeks so if you are interested in helping us out we would love to have you.
Now a word about the loon project. We have two sets of nesting loons on the platforms. It looks like the chicks will be born about three weeks apart. For those of you who have experience with what to look for, I ask that you keep your eyes peeled for interference from individuals harassing the loons. We are fortunate that we have a couple of DNR officers living close by and most everyone on Six Mile Lake is a loon observer so that is a good thing. The loon project is very important in that of the thousands of Michigan lakes there are fewer than 700-800 pairs of nesting loons. They are listed as ‘threatened’ in the State of Michigan. That means there is a hefty penalty for harassing them. These birds are up on the platforms incubating the eggs for 28 days out of the year. On a lake with nine or ten miles of shoreline both the platforms and buoys take up about 600 feet so it’s not a lot to ask for lake lovers to give these birds some leeway during their brief time on the platforms. We will have a link up soon that you can access that contains fascinating information about the loon project on the Elk Rapids Chain-O-Lakes Watershed.
I wanted to give our webmaster, Derrick Hakim, a shout out about the new website sixmilelakeassociation.org. It is beautiful with many new features and much hard design work done by Derrick. Contributing ideas to the project were Cliff Sorrell, Kathy Batka, Paula Stephanic, and Sally Dieck. Be sure and take some time to navigate the new site as Derrick will be adding new features as time allows.
Also, I wanted to thank Bill Bates and his team of Carol and Terry Kupovits, Brent and Linda Patterson and Susanne Rogers for their work on the highway clean-up on M-66. BTW, Bill has had a black bear meandering through his place on the south end of Six Mile lake on occasion so be aware.
Coming soon!!! Perennial plant giveaway at my house!!!!
See you all at the breakfast!!!
Until next time….
Cherie Hogan, president