LEAF in Wisconsin: Day 11: Ahoy! Dock Building!

Today, we went to the Lulu Lake preserve with the local interns, Sarah, Jerry, Pat, and Debbie- everyone was there! The very considerate Jerry and Sarah coordinated some indoor work for us to avoid the scorching sun. In the morning, we met eleven volunteers from the energy sustainability department of Kohl's department store who were there to help us with the day's work. We began by dividing into four teams: Rebecca and Spencer on team one, Ellen and Joan on team two, Emily and Kelly on team three, and Marissa, Sarah, and Lucinda on team four. Teams one, two, and three had a mission- build a section of a big dock that would be placed on Lulu lake to allow the public to get in and off their boats.

We had to take out the old wooden dock because it was 40 years old and because of concerns that it would become unsafe in the future. Jerry explained that we needed a dock built because we would need it in the future for when divers go into Lulu Lake and remove Eurasian milfoil.

At 10AM the Kohl's group joined us an in on the work! We were able to get so much more accomplished with the extra hands.

We had lunch with the Kohl's people and we talked about The Nature Conservancy, the LEAF program, and the local intern program. The Kohl's representatives talked about the sections of the energy sustainability department.

After lunch, we went on a walk to a hill where we saw the wetlands of Lulu Lake. We saw a definite contrast between the treated section of the wetlands where Craig and previous LEAF mentees had gotten rid of the invasive narrow-leaf cattails. We also pulled invasive plants that we saw along the way. After that, we walked all the way to Lulu Lake and took a group picture.

After the Kohl's representatives left, we continued to work on the docks with the local interns and then went to The Nature Conservancy's office to finish our poster board. We'll keep you in suspense and post a picture tomorrow.