Wednesday and Thursday

Wednesday, all hands on deck...we are making a loop trail at Bogue Chitto (36,000 acres).

David, park ranger, with his volunteers walking to the site.  It is a continuation of the boardwalk/trail where we are to finish the trail.

The wheelbarrows are waiting to be loaded with the gravel.

Bruce is operating the skid steer, Todd is helping to load.

Todd and Bruce are maintenance workers for the refuge.

Wallace is first in line to grab a load.

Kevin is close behind.

The guys walked the wheelbarrows down the long path to get to the start of the trail.

Cheryl and I are preparing the path...removing large objects while raking it clean of debris.

Then the guys come with the loads of gravel.  Next we rake the gravel level.

This is the way the path now looks.

David is coming with the last load for the day.

He calls it a day for us "OLD" people.
He takes care not to overwork us.

Some head out to lunch, we head out to work on the boardwalk...we do pick up lunch on our way to Bayou Sauvage.


Thursday, we are treated to a first ever air boat ride.

Here we are...with Danny Breaux, refuge manager of Bayou Sauvage.  The other air boat has the deputy project leader of the complex, Pon Dixson.  In his boat is Mike, from the DC office, and David, from the regional office in Atlanta.

While we were at Moosehorn during the summer, Sally Jewel, Secretary of the Interior stopped in for a visit.  Now we have met her assistant, Mike.  What a treat!!!

We are stopped in a 90 foot deep borrow ditch for our first stop.

David is telling us a little bit about the area as we watch for alligators.

Many gators can be found in this particular area of Bayou Sauvage at the boat launch site.

Out on the open water, we counted eleven of them and that is just the ones that were exposed.

This is the spot where used Christmas trees were dropped by helicopter and used to make a wind break.  Plants are now growing on the trees helping to make a barrier...that is a good thing.

Hopefully you can see some of the ducks that took flight in this shot.  

Those air boats make a lot of noise, and I was amazed at how they can travel through the vegetation and over land!!!  We had quite a ride.

Friday was our brochure run...another fun day on the refuge.

Until next time...