This dock has found a new home.
Cheryl Willis is getting rid of her dock and a couple of ramps, free for the taking (pictured at left). The dock used to belong to Tim & Brenda Robbins, she bought their place about a year ago. For those of you who don’t know where that is, it’s two places north of the State boat launch down at the east end of the lake. If you want the dock, go get it!
The little island which has been floating around Clary Lake since it broke loose from the floating bog last spring has taken up residence on the south shore. It has been sitting off the Wilson camp at the end of Duncan Road for the last couple of months, then a couple of days ago it apparently floated (or was moved?) from off the Wilson camp shoreline to a point just west of Young’s Point. From there, high winds associated with Hurricane Lee took over. The picture above, taken from Steve & Anne Giampetruzzi’s camp yesterday afternoon, shows it on the move, driven by high winds, and headed for the south shore. The picture at left, taken late yesterday afternoon shows it at it’s new home over on the south side of the lake just east of the opening in the 
Fergusson field where people go swimming. It’s firmly aground now in about 4 feet of water. The lake is currently down 1/2 a foot; perhaps when the lake level rises again it will float free and continue it’s exploration of Clary Lake. Last spring the loons were quite interested in it as a potential nest site and at one point we hoped to haul it over to the loon’s traditional nesting place and anchor it, over on the north shore. Getting it back over there now would not be easy.
This January, Maine will join 44 other states in requiring some level of boater education for those operating a boat on Maine’s waters. The boater education law was recently passed by the legislature, and goes into effect in 2024.
Beginning January 1, 2024, a person born on or after January 1, 1999, may not operate a motorboat of twenty-five (25) horsepower or greater for recreational boating purposes on inland waters of this State or territorial waters, unless that person is 12 years of age or older and has completed a boater safety and education course. There are a few exemptions, such as for registered Maine guides (hunting, fishing, and recreational guides only), the commercial fishing industry, daily boat renters, and merchant mariners.
The course teaches participants how to safely operate and maintain a boat, Maine boating laws, how to prepare for boating emergencies, environmental concerns including how to prevent the spread of aquatic invasive species, and more. The course may be taken in-person or online.
There are a lot of things we don’t want growing in and around Clary Lake, and Purple Loosestrife is on that list. So far we’ve managed to keep on top of it but a small patch in a blueberry field adjacent to Clary Lake managed to get established and is going to take some effort to get rid of. Early last week Malcolm burson (pictured at left) attempted to dig them up by the roots but that proved way to difficult. Alan Clark stepped in and cut the plants down and bagged them up and tossed them onto my burn pile. This will at least keep them from going to seed and making the infestation worse. Next year we’ll round up a team of young vigorous helpers, arm them with shovels and spading forks, and dig them out of the ground properly.
Here are a few more pictures:
The Clary Lake Association’s 2023 Annual Meeting went off without a hitch yesterday afternoon at the Clary Lake dam. The weather was perfect and attendance was normal with close to 40 people showing up. Elections were held: Gareth Bowen is our new President, Steve Relyea is starting his second term as Vice President, George Fergusson is starting his 6th two-year term as Secretary, and Mary Gingrow-Shaw is starting her 5th (and final) two-year term as Treasurer. Outgoing President Dave Knight and Kathryn Ference are both starting their 1st terms on the Board. Mary did an excellent job (as usual!) presenting the 2022/2023 financial report (our fiscal year ends on July 31st). Continue reading
I have archived the August 2023 water level chart (above, and at left). The rain we’ve come to expect this summer did not disappoint! We received a total of 6.79 inches in a month when normal is more like 3.33 inches. For the month of August we’re at 204% of normal; we recorded some amount of rain on 18 of the 31 days of the month. All this rain puts us at 41.44 inches for the year, fully 13.69 inches more than normal for this date. We normally receive around 44 inches of rain in a whole year. Quite impressive! Not surprisingly, the lake level bebopped along merrily in a narrow range between the top of the dam and the High Water Mark. The average water level for the month was -0.17 feet below the HWM; it briefly dropped below the top of the dam for 5 days and rose above the HWM for a couple. For most of the month we kept the gate open half a foot to keep the lake from rising too high. We’ve never had that concern in August! Continue reading
The 2023 Clary Lake Association Annual Meeting is being held this coming Saturday, September 2nd at 2:00 PM at the Clary Lake dam. That’s less than 1 week away! As in past years, we will setup some awning tents to provide shade and seating will be provided as well but as usual, it never hurts to bring a folding chair or two if you have them. At this time while it’s still a ways off, the weather forecast for next weekend is looking good. That said, the rain date will be the next day, Sunday September 3rd, same time, same place. We will have our traditional potluck supper after the Meeting so bring your favorite salad, entree, casserole, side dish, or what have you and of course, bring an appetite! Since previous pot luck suppers have been heavy on the salads, this year (like last year) we’re going to set up a grill and turn out some hot dogs, hamburgers, and veggie burgers too. Continue reading
Have you seen this plant growing around Clary Lake? 
Purple Loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) is a common invasive plant in Maine. The plant propagates by seed and invades many types of wetlands where it crowds out native plants and degrades wetland habitat. We certainly don’t want it getting a foothold around Clary Lake! For the past 5-6 years we’ve been removing purple loosestrife plants but in many cases, enough root remains for the plants to regrow so it’s an ongoing battle to stop this plant from going crazy. It’s blooming NOW. If you see this plant growing in or around Clary Lake, send and email with picture and description of the location to ipp@clarylake.org. You’ll find a map showing where we’ve found the plant growing on our Purple Loosestrife Eradication Project page.
As nice as as our lake water has been this summer, and it has been nice, there is nonetheless cyanobacteria alive and well living in it. Runoff from all the rain we’ve received has washed sediment into the lake which is the primary source of phosphorus and phosphorus as you know by now is good for algae, bad for lakes. In the featured image above, taken by Jack Holland on the morning of August 10th, the telltale green scum comprised of dead blue-green algae is evident, but not terribly alarming compared to what we’ve seen before, even as recently as the first of June this year. After Jack sent me his picture, I went down to my shoreline and took the picture at left. The telltale green sheen is so faint and ephemeral as to be easily overlooked. But it’s there. If this is as bad as it gets this year we’ll be very lucky. Continue reading
To confirm everything is still working. And it’s a nice picture by Steve Giampetruzzi. This is hopefully the last of these frivolous posts!
The Clary Lake Association has had a presence on Facebook for some time but Instagram was not really on our radar until just recently. We’re finally up and running on Instagram with the id @clarylakeassociation. One thing that makes this actually feasible is automatic cross-posting to those two social platforms and it appears that we have that cross-posting functioning now. I hope. Having to cross-post everything manually literally takes all the fun out of it.
Instagram is essentially a photo-sharing platform so we’ll be making more use of “Featured Images” because posting to Instagram requires them. You’ll notice an Instagram widget on the sidebar on most pages which shows recent Instagram posts. We’re still experimenting with how to make use of this new dimension to the Clary Lake Association on the web.
The above picture was taken by Danny Bell.
Sorry for the frivolous post(s) but I’m trying to get automagic cross-posting of website posts to Facebook and Instagram. This requires testing and on a live site, well, this probably won’t be the last one. Sorry! Anyways, it’s a great picture eh?
Supposedly, our WordPress, Facebook, and Instagram accounts are all connected now. I’m still trying to figure out how they work together. Here’s a picture of a mud puddle at the State boat launch that really needs to be fixed:
I have archived the July 2023 water level chart (above, and at left). The most notable thing about July was Holy Hannah did it rain! I thought we got a lot of rain in May with 5.40 inches and then we got even more rain in June, 5.51 inches in fact. I thought that was a lot of rain and then we got 8.2 inches of rain in July (normal is 3.54 inches). For the year we’re 10+ inches ahead of normal rainfall for this date. Things are a little soggy, to say the least! One unsurprising effect of all this rain is that the lake level this summer, with minor exceptions, has remained at or above the top of the dam for several months- quite different from the past few summers. We started July with the lake level at the top of the dam (-0.29′ below the HWM) and ended it even higher, almost 3 inches above the top of the dam (-0.05′ below the HWM). Continue reading
Clary Lake Transparency
Kelsie French and I got out on the lake on Sunday for our biweekly water quality data collection and the results are worth sharing. We had a secchi disk reading (a measure of lake transparency) of 4.18 meters (13.71 feet) which while not unheard of, is actually quite good, especially this time of year, considering all the rain we’ve received this summer. Rain means runoff and runoff means sediment and sediment means Phosphorus and Phosphorus means algae… Two weeks ago it was 3.80 meters (12.46 feet). I didn’t expect to see it improve, but it did! You can see today’s reading on the far right just above the 4 meter line on the above chart. We’re definitely trending in the right direction! You can see a subset of the data we collect back to 2012 on our Clary Lake Water Monitoring Data page.
On the downside, dissolved oxygen (DO) was only 1.1 mg/l at 4 meters which is damned low for such a shallow depth; 2 weeks ago it was 5.4 mg/l at 4 meters and 2.5 mg/l at 5 meters. Today it rapidly fell off from 4 meters and at 7 meters and below we found NO oxygen at all. Under these severely anaerobic conditions, Phosphorus which is normally stored in bottom sediments can reenter the water column. As long as it stays near the bottom, it’s not a problem but in the fall when the lake turns over, this Phosphorus rich water will mix with the upper layers where algae live, and this can spur out of control algae growth. This is why most severe algae blooms occur in the fall. The bloom we had last fall was in part due to this phenomena. There were other extenuating circumstances.
We also took the first of 3 core water samples we’ll take this season for Phosphorus testing. We’ll take another in mid-August and a 3rd in mid-September.
Right now, the water quality in Clary Lake is very good but that may change this fall. Time will tell.
Usually the header image/banner on the website rotates randomly. Once in a while I highlight a new banner image for day or two. Today’s banner highlight is from a photograph (at left) taken by Steve Giampetruzzi earlier today.
You’ll find more photographs in our Spring/Summer 2023 gallery. Send me your pictures! I make no promises, but they may make it onto the website.
Our Annual Ice Cream Social and “Meet & Greet” event is just ahead, this coming Saturday, July 15th from 1:00 PM to whenever, to be held at the Clary Lake dam on the Mills Road (Route 218) in Whitefield. This year we’ll have a bunch of canopies set up so we’re not going to let an intermittent shower or two stop us from eating ice cream. In the event however that Saturday ends up torrentially rained out, we’ll postpone the event to the next day, Sunday July 16th, same time, same ice cream. This will be a great opportunity to meet some of the many new CLA members and other people on and around Clary Lake. This event is open to all, not just Clary Lake Association members. The ice cream is free but donations will be gratefully accepted!
This event is also a great opportunity to buy raffle tickets to support the Clary Lake Association’s Dam Repair Fundraising initiative! Talk about a worthwhile goal! First prize is a Masterbuilt Digital Charcoal Grill + Smoker donated by Louis Doe Garden Center. There are 3 great gift certificates for runner up prizes. Tickets are $5 each or 5 for $20. For more information about the Raffle and how/where to get tickets see the Summer 2023 Raffle page.
In addition to our regular ice cream offerings we’re going to pick up some ice cream sandwiches and a couple of boxes of creamsicles (for that trip down memory lane!) and Linda Gallion will once again be bringing a couple of buckets of her own very excellent home made ice cream (this year it’s going to be Blueberry and Strawberry). Linda and her husband Rick run the Clary Lake Bed & Breakfast. In addition to all the popular ice cream toppings, this year we’re going to have sugar cones which I have it on good authority are the environmentally friendly way to eat ice cream 🙂
Plan on coming and staying a while. There will be tables and chairs set up so you can sit and linger with friends, awnings to get out of the sun, and water to keep you hydrated… and most importantly—plenty of ice cream! There is also ample parking and you can always come by boat, kayak, or canoe. We hope to see you there!!
We’ve added this event to our Events Calendar and here’s a link to add it to your calendar. We’re posting about it early because summer is short and weekends fill up fast! We’ll post a reminder here as the event approaches! Stay tuned!
I have archived the June 2023 water level chart (at left). If there is one thing that stands out about June 2023 is it was a wet month! We received some amount of rain on 21 of the 30 days of the month making this June the wettest June since 2019.
All told we received a total of 5.51 inches of rain in June, 1.77 inches more than the 3.73 inches which is normal for June. Despite February and March being well below average precipitation, at the end of June we’re fully 5.51 inches of rainfall ABOVE NORMAL for this date. Yes it’s been wet this year! Unlike April and May which both had rather large rain events, most of the rain events in June were small, averaging only 0.28″ per event. It’s like we were dribbled on for the whole month. Despite the almost constant rain, the lake level 
remained remarkably stable. With only slight adjustments of the outflows we were able to maintain the lake within a very narrow 3.8 inch range for the whole month, more or less centered around the top of the dam. We started the month at -0.28 feet (top of the dam) and ended the month at the same level. You’ll find ALL the relevant charts (water level, rainfall, flows, etc.) on our Current Clary Lake Water Level Charts page.
June started out with a short but intense die off of blue-green algae (picture at left), the growth of which was fed primarily by sediment-born Phosphorus introduced into the lake during the intense two-day rain event that took place on April 30th and May 1st. We received a total of 5 inches of rain in those 2 days resulting in the highest lake level we’ve ever recorded, and washed out driveways and roads all over the State. Untold tons of sediment washed into Clary Lake as a result of that one storm. One month later around the first of June, the cyanobacteria that had multiplied with the influx of food started to die and float to the surface where it was corralled by wind and currents along the south and west shore of Clary Lake. It is likely people on the northeast and east shore of the lake never noticed a thing. I collected a sample and dropped it off at the lab at DEP in Augusta. The sample was predominated by Dolichospermum flos-aquae, formerly Anabaena flos-aquae, a blue-green or cyanobacteria species. There was a lot of pine pollen in the sample as well. As the month progressed, the water column cleared considerably with secchi disk reading of 3.87 meters (12.7 feet) on June 23rd.
Kelsie French and I got an early start to our 2023 water quality monitoring season in late April with a trip out to the deep hole (picture at left) but the next time out erratic behavior with our YSI Pro 20 Dissolved Oxygen meter prevented data collection. It took some time, but by process of elimination we were finally able to determine that the cable on our 14 year old meter had failed. We ordered a new one for $380 + $10 shipping. They said it would be 7 weeks for delivery but it arrived after only 5 weeks. The new cable solved our problem and we were able resume data collection on June 11th. We’ll be out there every 2 weeks until mid-October. If you see us out there on a Friday afternoon in my red boat, anchored in the middle of the lake, stop by and say hello!
Shanna Pease hasn’t officially announced this parade yet that I’m aware of, but I corresponded with her a few weeks ago and she assured me the parade is happening. So get ready for the 4th Annual 4th of July Boat Parade on Clary Lake! This is not a Clary Lake Association sponsored event but it is nonetheless a Clary Lake event and we are happy to help promote it and participate in it! Hope to see you out there. Be safe everyone!
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