Yea, I completly agree on the docks, our pond is fairly small and already diveded in half by the island with two bridges so I wonder though if it would kinda be overkill for such a small body of water. Actually, the blue steel bridge that you see appear in the two videos and in some of the photos that I posted is a great platform for more than just a support structure for the Moultrie feeders and our access point of course to the center island. It replaced ( attached pics ) a very rickty old wodden bridge that was built on site by friends of ours right after the new pond was dug, the years of sun and rain had taken its toll on it, as you can see, it was beginning to drop off into Snapperville at one end, much to their delight
The new bridge, with the exception of the 1.5" thick oak planks for flooring to walk on, was constructed entirely with steel and measures nearly 30 feet long. Thing is, our neighbor built this over the course of the summer entirely by himself for us, what sets it apart and makes it so special to us other than the fact the man refused to take a nickel for his labor despite our repeated begging to pay him....is that he did all this at the age of 86!! All while caring for a sick friend needing constant care at her home; he came down about 8 years ago to help her out ( she is 82 ) for a few weeks and has never left, still caring for her.
For those of you that have read all of my rambling rants watching me trying to find a runway and set it down, NOW, hopefully, some of the statements I made earlier about wanting to do just about anything possible to make it a great BG pond for him will make a little more sense. I mentioned earlier that we are at our best when we can do something to make life a little better for others. As we have grown older, we found our financial and psychical health both in an apparent race to see which one can cross the finish line in first, and it becomes a little bit tough for us to find ways to accomplish that goal. I have put up a picture of him next to the bridge at about the 70% completed point, as well as one of the two it replaced. Amazing considering that not only can he do such things at his advanced age, he works this hard from dawn till dusk 7 days a week, and can do this at a level I would have been proud of when I was 25, cept I wasn't that tough then, and has no signs of slowing down. We are so glad we can be some degree of happiness for him.
With the kids all gone, with so few neighbors and in such a fairly remote area, our opportunities are pretty much limited to my wife's church and any way possible we can help out this wonderful guy that has devoted his life to helping out others. Seems that all he really has left ( and not much time for that ) is to be able to stroll over to our place and catch some large BG, he gets such a kick in landing really large ones, which prompted us to get the Aquamax 500 and 600 for the Moultrie feeders 2 years ago. The results would seem to indicate that they are working.
By the way, the bridge had to be moved from our neighbors house and put into place replacing the old one, and that was a MASSIVE project that when we sat down with him in the spring and planned it, we all kinda forgot the weight and although we knew it would be a very difficult job, didn't quite bank on the day we ended up with! I actually have pictures and several videos of the people that volunteered on that day, it took the entire day and 9 men, but we ended up with a bridge that is a fine addition to the pond, and a great place to fish from!
