The Last of our Projects

I had to sign off last time????? Left off with
these signs. Here we are tearing down the old and putting up the new.

These big signs needed big help!

This is Danny Breaux, refuge manager of Atchafalaya. You can see how massive these signs are now that they are in the ground.

It was nice to be included in putting them in the ground since we did everything else from painting the posts, attaching the signs and preparing them to be picked up and put on the goose neck trailer for transport.

Things went very smoothly.

The first one was the easiest though.

Mike Seal is the maintenance man seen here with his back to the camera.

It took all four of us to do this job.

Keep in mind those sacks of concrete are 60 lbs. each. The worst part of this job was dealing with the traffic coming and going through Baton Rouge. We were through with the signs around noon having started at 6:00 am. This turned out to be a 12 hour day. We stopped for lunch after dropping off the old signs at a burn pile. Lunch took forever...maybe because we were HUNGRY.

On Wednesday, the day before we put the signs up, we participated in the yearly Christmas tree drop at Bayou Sauvage. These trees are gathered from New Orleans, brought to this area where we do this. This year we got a little different perspective as the National Guard needed our help. As you can see in the picture, the trees were too close to the green tree line and needed to be pulled away...I got to do this. All I did was back up with their guidance, they attached one of four bundles, I drove them out and they unattached and left them in a row. There are 4 straps with 50 trees in each strap. There are two guardsmen attaching a sling to the chopper. They are taken out and dropped in the wetland where they create a barrier to help prevent wind erosion. Eventually, plant life grow on these trees. Last year, go back to our blog and you will see we worked from the boat freeing up the trees after they were dropped.

 

Then up, up and away. This year we were responsible for transporting the slings from airboat back to the guards and helping them with our four wheel drive truck.

So, those are the last of the BIG projects this year.

We will soon be making our way to Wisconsin, Horicon Marsh NWR for the summer.

Until next time...