Lake Lessons: 4-6

Life on the lake is high maintenance. Here are a few lessons on the lake that you just don’t think about. I, or someone I know, have learned these lessons the hard way. If you have some lessons to share, please  feel free to share them by clicking on the comment button at the bottom of this page. It’s a three-part series. Here’s part 2:

4. In the movie “The WaterBoy”, Bobby Bouchere (boo-shay) wanted to play football, but his momma said, “Football is the Devil.”  Well, she was wrong. Dirt daubers are the devil. They get in every crack, opening, sliver and they make mud nests. They short out electrical stuff. They make a mess. They can stop up the systems on a multi-million dollar outboard motor and destroy it, rendering it’s only use as a large trot line weight. Little buzzers. They are the cormorants of the insect world.

5. When the deer run out of acorns, they eat your shrubs. Buds, berries, tender vegetation like day lillies popping up in the early spring…you name it.  Deer don’t read books either, so all those plants that books say to put out this or that because deer won’t eat them — hogwash. The best way to handle the situation is find where the deer are coming from and put out deer corn.  The key is to put out the corn about a mile from where you live, so they will eat there and bother the neighbors!  I probably shouldn’t have put that part in here…

6. Nothing short of a fire will stop spiders on the lake. Spiders of all shapes, sizes, colors and ugliness.  Most spiders on the lake are those little ones that fold up into a straight line and lay there like they are a little harmless streak. Six zillion spiders can hide in a three-inch long crack one millimeter deep. It’s amazing. There are some pretty good spider sprays out there, but most carry strict warnings not to use near the water. I think spiders, unlike deer, do read. That’s why so many of them hang out by the water.   — more to come