13th and final week....

Well guys this is it. Our last week of construction here in Ocmulgee Nation Park. I will miss being here. I have been blessed with spending so much time here. I've watched this park transform from the dead of Winter to the thriving life and amazing colors of Spring.... The shot above is of the last morning we were here.

I finally got my shot of one of the many deer here in the park. I almost always see them early in the morning or at dusk. On this day I was driving the golf cart down the boardwalk with a load of 2"x4" Trex boards when I caught a glimpse of this deer. I slammed on the brakes, almost loosing my load. The deer was not 10 ft away from me. She was not afraid of me at all.

I believe this is the same doe I've seen often in the same area. She let me take pictures of her as she grazed in the swamp. This meant a lot to me. I felt she had become comfortable with our presents here. I want to believe she was there to say good bye....

I had to show you this shot of the biggest Garr I had seen here. What an amazing looking fish this is... It's like part fish and part alligator.

Well the gangs all here. This is a shot of our final inspection. Mike Stanley (Architect) looked over the work we have done and for the most part he was happy with the final product. We had 3 things that needed to be corrected for him to sign off on the boardwalk. The meeting started at 10am and ended by 1pm. By 4:30pm Ray and I had finished the punch list needed to complete the boardwalk. It's done...

Here is the beginning of the boardwalk completed...

This shot is of the first stretch of the boardwalk up to the observation deck.

And here is the observation deck looking from the first stretch

The observation deck...

From observation deck to last stretch..

And here is the end of the boardwalk.

Thank you all for following me on this journey. I invite all of you to visit this park. This place is truly an unknown place of beauty and deep history to many people and that includes the people of Macon. We all must help to protect places like this one. I encourage all of you to help...... Cheers!!

12 week

Wecome my friends to our 12th week here. So much has been going on here... we had a very productive week.... The above shot is one of the many beaver homes here.

We finally were privileged to see the night life here (dusk). On this night we watched quite a show. Here you see a shot of 2 beavers as I followed them down the boardwalk.

Ray and I followed them quietly up to the observation deck. They didn't seem to mind. We watched as 6 beavers went about their nightly duties. This one took all the time in the world just hanging out on a log and eating. I was not more then 20 feet from him..... I can't tell you just how amazing this was to watch.

I had never seen otter in the wild... not till this night. I watched these 3 otter swim all the way across the swamp. They made it all the way to the boardwalk and popped their heads up to check me out.... what a rush....

On this day we had a great show of snakes... They're everywhere... We must of seen 5 cotton mouths today. This is 1 of 3 shots taken from the boardwalk just above him.

And this is shot 2 of 3.

And this is shot 3 of 3. Working on this boardwalk has allowed me to fully see this place for what it is........ amazing.

My brother Kevin came down for the weekend. We walked the park on Saturday and he was a big help working with Ray and I on Sunday.

Here Kev is gearing up to help me finish spacing and tacking the last run of deck boards. We set over 200 ft of deck boards today... that's a lot.

This is a shot of the area we covered. I will still need to screw down these boards.... a lot of screws!!

While Kev and I took care of all the deck board, Ray started tacking the cap rail on the first section of the boardwalk in place.

He also mounted the bottom 2 rails up to the observation deck.

By the end of the week Ray and I installed most of the railing. There is still a lot to do... we have inspection next Tuesday.. So we will push...

I also managed to install all the screws needed to finish the deck boards.

Here is a shot of the hardware that is being mounted for the cap rail. There is over 200 post that need mounting..... That's a lot of hardware!

We've come a long way through this project. We should be done by next week... I will miss this place. I have been blessed to watch this amazing place move from Winter to Spring.. Never have I had the time or pleasure to be somewhere for so long as grand as this place.

11th week

Spring is showing her full colors here in the park. Everywhere I look there is always something worth taking time to view. This park has so much to offer.... not for just those who visit, but what lives here. The wildlife that thrives here.. is precious.

Week 11 has been a very productive week for us... leaps and bounds..... We've spaced and tacked all the deck boards up to observation deck. Now we will start the deck board on the observation deck. These cuts are very tricky. The front of the observation deck will be the easiest to notch because we installed these posts... we know that they are straight. The rest of the posts on this boardwalk we can only do so much with...

This is the front end of the observation deck with the decking installed.

What a nice and tight transition from the first run of the boardwalk to the observation deck. From the first run of the boardwalk (shown on the left of the photo) to the observation deck , we make a 30 degree kick to the right. The observation deck will go some 32 feet and then make another 30 degree kick to the right to the final stretch of this boardwalk.

Here is Mike Ragin. It is Mike's 68th birthday today. I am amazed at what this man can do at his age. The week or so that he was here, we ferried out quit a bit of decking board (Trex) across the boardwalk. He kept up with us.... The heat of the sun beating on us made this even harder. There is no shade at all over this boardwalk. This week the temp. got into the high 80's..... Here is Mike set up and opening some 1,650 holes with a cordless drill. Opening these holes will allow us to mount the hardware a lot faster. These brackets will help us to fasten the cap rail down (2"x10" Trex).

Most of the decking for the observation deck has been laid. We now have to notch out the decking for the back posts. These cuts are a lot more tricky then any of the other posts on this project. Because of the root base here, most of the posts that were installed by the crew ahead of us..... are not straight at all.

Here you see Ray laying out the deck boards at the back end of the observation deck.

Ray has done an amazing job notching these out. None of these back post are straight.... So the angles are really crazy. Ray nailed all of these cuts

Done.. all the deck boards for the observation deck are laid out and mounted... We still have to come back and trim the edges to size.. What a grand observation deck this is.

We managed to load about 34 deck boards on the golf cart to ferry down the boardwalk. I can't imagine caring these them out by hand.

Ray and I had a bet... He said I couldn't get the front end up on the golf cart... I told him I could. You see Mike here blown away at the fact I could... Just kidding :) .. The cart flipped up as we were taking material off. We thought this would be a great picture if I climbed up and acted like I was driving... Good stuff!!

We finally figured out how to stack this many boards on the golf cart.... Things went a lot smoother.

We had a great week here as far as production. I know our time here is short and I am trying to take in as much as I can before it is all over...... See you next week.

10th week

Once again.. Thank you for joining me here at Ocmulgee National Park. This is our 10th week here of constructing this boardwalk over the Walnut Creek Swamp in the park. If this is your first time here with me then please go back through my previous posts.... This was a frog that we found under our Trex material. I'm not sure what type of frog this is. What a cool looking frog and he seemed relaxed just sitting on my hand.

Just off the boardwalk two beavers have made a home for themselves. For over two months we had not seen these guys at all. We knew that they were there because as we were building our boardwalk they were building their home. We could see there progress over the weeks we've been here. Now that we started laying our Trex deck board, we figured that one morning we would show up and the beavers would of built a deck on there home out of the Trex. Wouldn't that be funny?

And this is a shot of the first time we had the pleasure in seeing them. It's not the best shot but, you can see towards the center... on the left and right of the photo their heads as they were swimming around.... We decided to work some 12 hour days here to make up for the lack of deck boards that had been delivered. This shot was taken at about 7:30 pm . It was the latest time we've worked till. Now we know what time these guys come out...

This is a small Eastern Ribbon snake that was hanging out by the boardwalk. I can't tell you how many snake we see here everyday.

And this is a Black Rat Snake. It's been a treat to see these snakes on a daily bases.

This is a great shot of a Garr. This is the first time I have ever seen a Garr. What an exotic fish this is. This fish was about 22 inches long. They can get up to about 7 feet long and they have razor sharp teeth.....

This is another shot of the Garr. These fish are related to the Pike. They tend to get along very well with other fish such as Bass and Bluegill etc..

Ray's father-in-law came down from Atlanta to help out. Mike is one of the coolest, funny, big hearted guys I know. He was a big help to us. Here you see Mike in the swamp helping to install one of the last supports on the boardwalk.

This week also brought Michélee (Ray's wife) and their daughter Téa (shown here). Michélee's mom (Kitty), sister (Margie) and new born baby girl (Ciana) also came with them.... The camera died on me so I am very sorry to not have photo's...

Our long awaited shipment of Trex arrived today.. Driver Craig unloaded two truck loads of Trex today... which will help us to rapidly make progress on the boardwalk.

Here you see that we have started the railing for the boardwalk.

Since we have close to all the material needed to finish this boardwalk, we decided to see how the top rail (2"x10" Trex) would look.. We will hope to start installing it next week. We still have a lot of the deck board material to layout and mount first. The rangers asked me to hang the no fishing sign here. I was more then happy to do so....

We just about made it to the observation deck with the deck board. Ray and I will still have to space and mount this section.......

We are very happy that we have almost all the material needed to complete this boardwalk. Ray and I plan on pulling some long hours to make up for the delay in materials... see ya next week!!