Dear Members,
A couple of updates for you! The breakfast brunch is Saturday June 10th at 9am at the Pleasant Valley Free Methodist Church at the south end of Six Mile Lake Rd. Bring a dish to pass, your own table service and your neighbor. Coffee is provided. It’s a nice way to meet new folks from around the lake and the food is spectacular.
The SAD hearings were the first week in May and, it would appear, that lakefront property owners are pretty satisfied with PLM. Also, all of our SAD assessment amounts are going down again. We have had a break from eurasion milfoil and some other invasive exotics here but you never know when, as they say…they’ll be back, but unlike other lakes, we are prepared!
Our two board members, Linda Vanandel and Ross Maxwell, continue to attend meetings on all our behalf, in regards to flooding issues on Six Mile Lake. Please send your photos and documentation to [email protected] because it is vitally important that this situation be corrected which is going to take money in the form of grants and other sources. Six Mile Lake residents need to be vigilant and proactive because other lakes on the Chain have their own agendas. We do not need to slip further down the food chain. Six Mile Lake Association has led the way in so many areas and this will be one more.
If you see a guy out in the lake taking water samples, that is Pres Saenz, our Six Mile Lake Association volunteer. Those samples go to Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council in the fall and we have been sending samples to them for 25 years which show Six Mile Lake waters as relatively unchanged and pristine for a eutrophic lake.
I have updated the ‘Who to Call’ list on the website. If I missed anybody let me know.
Ladies of the Lakes meets for breakfast at The Front Porch Restaurant in Ellsworth the first Tuesday of the month at 10am.
There will be a workbee at the St. Clair Lake-Six Mile Lake Natural Area preserve off the East Jordan-Ellsworth Rd on June 22nd. Please let me know if you are interested. Also, the Nathan Beem preserve with access off Nelson Rd on the northeast side of the lake is getting updated with a small parking area.
Our resident pair of loons, female banded white and male banded red, have returned once again and are sitting on the north platform. They have been a pair here since 2014. The south pair appears to be the same pair we had last year with all the characteristics, mannerisms and size differences. They were extremely late in all ways last year…about a good month behind the north pair, but produced two chicks, which, amazingly were here until mid-November when they finally, hopefully, joined their parents off the coast of Florida. I would like to thank all of our members who are vigilant about our Six Mile Lake loons. The Intermediate Lake loon chicks have a tough time of it because of boat traffic and with so many tourists not knowing that the chicks cannot fly, well, you know the outcome.
With water levels so high here and our shoreline being so compromised it is important to have your boat trimmed properly to avoid those huge wakes crashing into the shoreline. I was tasked with contacting the DNR about making Six Mile Lake the first ZERO WAKEBOAT lake precisely because of the damage they do not only to shorelines but also to the substrate as far as 13 feet down. BTW…the owners of these boats (which are weighted down by filling with water) according to Michigan law, are responsible for damage to your shoreline and can be sued.
Six Mile Lake is home to many pets. Please be vigilant about your cats and small dogs which are easy victims for roaming coyotes and eagles. The crossbars on the loon platforms are there precisely to keep the eagles from diving down onto the platforms. This winter we found the carcass of a deer on our frontage. The next morning our trail cam showed three coyotes dragging it out to the middle of the lake and we watched six eagles, at one time, on the carcass.
A few years back in one of these lengthy communications, I mentioned how voices carry on the water and, with so many new residents and property owners, it probably can be said again that secrets aren’t secrets here. Voices carry amazingly far as does your favorite music, which probably isn’t mine, and your dog’s barking so please be courteous to your neighbors and keep both under control. Treat your neighbors as you wish to be treated both on the water and off.
See you out on the lake!
Cherie Hogan
Communications