2023 Annual Meeting Reminder!

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 →

Purple Loosestrife Eradication Project Update

Have you seen this plant growing around Clary Lake? DSC_5706Purple 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. 

The Cyanobacteria in Clary Lake is Alive and Well

20230810_105153As 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 →

Clary Lake Association on Facebook and Instagram

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.

Test Post With Picture

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?

State Boat Launch Puddle

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:

July 2023 Water Level Chart Archived

7 Clary-Lake-Water-Level-July-2023I 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 →

24 July 2023: Midsummer Water Quality Update

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.

Ice Cream Social Ahead!

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!

Summer 2023 Raffle

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!

June 2023 Water Level Chart Archived

6 Clary-Lake-Water-Level-June-2023

June 2023

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.

20230601_103557June 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!

4th Annual 4th Clary Lake Boat Parade

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!

Clary Lake
4th of July Boat Parade!!

When: Tuesday, the 4th of July 2023
Where: Clary Lake
Time: 2 PM

Rain or Shine, and likely rain if July is anything like last month!

Details: Decorate your boat and meet down by the public landing for a cruise of the lake!

Don’t Forget to Decorate Your Dock!

For more information or if you have questions please feel free to text or call Shanna Pease at 485-4171.

May 2023 Water Level Chart Archived

5 Clary-Lake-Water-Level-May-2023

May 2023

I have archived the March 2023 water level chart (at left).  We experienced two large rain events during the month with the result that there was water flowing over the top of the dam for the entire month. The first storm which started on April 30th and ended 3 days later kind of caught us by surprise. It went stationary, ultimately dumping 5 inches of rain on us and raising the lake level to +0.77 above the high water mark, the highest water level we’ve recorded since we purchased the dam back in the fall of 2018. The previous high was +0.58 feet back in April 2020. We thought that was pretty high! At its peak height on May 1st there was over a foot of water flowing over the dam. Then on the 22nd we received 2.65 inches of rain which raised the lake level to +0.28 feet above the high water mark. All told we received 5.40 inches of rain in May, 1.7 inches more than normal. Despite below average precipitation in February and March, for the year we’re 3.79 inches ahead of normal on this date.  Continue reading →

2023 Spring/Summer Newsletter Is Out

The Spring/Summer 2023 Clary Lake Association Newsletter went in the mail about a week ago and is now available for download from our Newsletters page. Feel free to grab a copy and share it with your family and friends. Dues envelopes were included in the mailing, and I expect dues to start arriving any day. I’ll be updating the “Next Year’s 2023/2024 Membership List” as checks arrive. This year we totally met our Membership goal of 175 Members. Our Membership goal for the coming year includes a modest increase to 180 Members. Totally doable. You can help us reach (or exceed!) that goal by becoming a member today! Visit our Benefits of Membership page for more information about why you should join the Association, and how to do it.

Here’s a link to the Newsletter:

Our newsletter is mailed to about 250 people including all Clary Lake shore owners (check out our Parcel Map) which includes approximately 100 properties (almost 2/3 of which are represented in our Membership). If you’d like to receive a paper copy of our newsletter, send your name and mailing address to secretary@clarylake.org and we’ll put you on our list. Of course, you could also just join the Association 🙂

Upcoming Ice Cream Social and Meet & Greet Event

Mark Your Calendars! Our Annual Ice Cream Social and “Meet & Greet” event will be held on Saturday, July 15th from 1:00 PM to whenever, at the Clary Lake dam on the Mills Road (Route 218) in Whitefield. In the unlikely event of inclement weather, the rain date is the next day, Sunday July 16th, same time, same ice cream. We  postponed this event in 2020 and 2021 out of an abundance of caution, due to the pandemic. 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.

Summer 2023 Raffle

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, 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!

Clary Lake Birding and Marsh Paddle Event Reminder

This event notice was originally posted back on March 14th when it was still a lot like winter around here. At that time perhaps you weren’t thinking about a marsh paddle! We’re reposting now in the hopes of getting a few more people to sign up for this unique opportunity!

American Bittern, often heard if not seen on Clary Lake!

In what is becoming a most welcome annual event, experienced Clary Lake birder Malcolm Burson has offered to guide a small group of kayakers and canoeists on an early summer Birding event up into the great Marsh at the outlet of Clary Lake. Both Malcolm and his partner Eleanor Goldberg are long time birders with considerable experience spotting and identifying birds. The tentative date of the tour (to be confirmed as it nears) is Saturday, May 27th, with Sunday the 28th as a rain date. The event is expected to last about an hour and a half. To keep the group small and intimate, we’d like to limit participation to no more than 5-7 kayaks or canoes (no motorboats please, but electric motors are OK). We’ll be filling slots on a first come, first serve basis. If there is sufficient interest we’ll schedule a second event later in the summer on a date to be determined.

Participants are asked to gather at 6:30 AM at the shoreline of the property of Malcolm Burson and Eleanor Goldberg, located at the far northwesterly end of the Lake, near the entrance to the channel (Google Map). Their camp is the last place down at the end of Hornpout Lane if you’re coming by car, but be advised parking is limited! It’s much easier to simply paddle over to their place. Traveling down the channel and through the marsh that leads to the dam is a world of wonder. The particular focus on this tour will be the bird life that lives there with the goal being to listen to birds as much as look for them! Bring a pair of binoculars!!

If you’re interested in attending but don’t have a watercraft of your own, we can arrange for you to borrow one, either a kayak or canoe, which ever you’re most comfortable using. Please supply your own floatation device.

To sign up for this Birding event or if you have questions about it, please send an email to paddle@clarylake.org and we’ll get back to you.

Clary_cam3 On the Blink

Some of you may have noticed that Clary_cam3 stopped updating a couple of days ago. I try to remember to check them daily but a few days went by before I noticed #3 was not working. I think some water managed to seep into it. I’ve got a few used cameras laying around and I’ve been testing two of them for possible replacements. This one shows promise; if it’s still uploading and accepting connections by tomorrow afternoon I’ll install it. In the meantime, enjoy the view out my computer room window!

April 2023 Water Level Chart Archived

Clary-Lake-Water-Level-April-2023

April 2023

I have archived the March 2023 water level chart (at left). It looked like the dearth of precipitation that’s characterized February and March was going to continue through April, until the last day of the month when we received a whopping 2.52 inches of rain. The storm has continued into today, the first day of May with an additional 1.98 inches bringing the storm total to 4.64 inches! As of the end of April, accumulated precipitation for the year was 15.54 inches (it’s more than that today), fully 2.1 inches above normal for this date. At the time of this writing, this impressive overnight rainfall has raised the lake level to +0.85 (152.02 feet) which is the highest level we’ve recorded since we purchased the dam in the Fall of 2018. Peak runoff typically occurs 24 hours after the rain event, so I have not doubt that the lake level will rise higher. You’ll want to keep your eye on the Current Water Level Chart.

20230501_063348Here’s a picture I took this morning (at left) when the flows over the dam were around 268 cfs (cubic feet per second). Since then the lake has come up another 3 inches. I checked the level just before dark and it was up to +0.89 feet. The previous record water level  since we purchased the dam in October 2018 was achieved on April 14, 2020 topped and out at +0.58 feet above the HWM. We’re over 3 inches above that already! Chester Chase owned the dam for nearly 50 years and his son Tim assures me that he’s seen it this high and higher during the years he spent growing up in Whitefield. Albert Boynton, who was born in the red house on the dam and whose family owned the dam back in the 1920s and early 1930s once told me that he remembers seeing the lake so high it was running over the road. That’s high!

The flow numbers for the April 30 storm are impressive! You can see that the daily outflows in acre-feet (43,560 cubic feet) of water so far this year  (the blue line in the chart at left) have been pretty sedate so far this year until yesterday when they went through the roof with 605 acre-feet. Thanks to the storm, a wee bit more than 1 full lake volume of water (7,224 acre-feet) has flowed downstream so far this year. A lot of sediment washed into the lake during this storm, which is generally a bad thing. On the other hand, a lot of that water flowed right out again. It remains to be seen how this will impact our lake water quality this year.

I can write all day long about how high the water was, but there’s nothing quite like a video to convey an impression. I’ve already posted a video I took over at the dam yesterday morning. Here it is again: