YANKTON clean-up

A Glade on goat island, and (below) lover tracks in the sand. See down for yellow pucon- an important flower found on local glades.

It wasnt until we hit Sioux city that the clouds were strong enough to shade the sun. It began to rain on Thurs. as we traveled west and entered the town of Ponca, NE; by the time we got off of Hwy 12 it poured. I was one of four in the van- we were headed to Goat island on the Mighty Mo to meet the rest of the river relief crew. A long, dark cloud came over them rolling green hills on our Nebraska side of the river. We sped down the pink gravel road towards what would be a violent collision with the dark slug above and ahead of us. A small wall cloud dropped from the backside of the cloud, but didnt look too threatening. It rained harder and began to hail on the long trip down the gravel road. The hail beat the van- it was between pea and dime size and only lasted a few seconds. We reached the boat ramp and Vicki R within a few minutes

Kingbird- one of hundreds around the camp

The MO River Relief drove from Columbia and KC to Yankton, SD on thursday and friday. We camped on Goat Island and worked there on friday. Sat. we woke early and helped in the river clean-up hosted by the small city of Yankton. It lasted only a few hours, but we sure pulled a lot of trash. There were not so many bottles and pieces of litter as there were major dumps. I worked with several River Relief volunteers and a handful of others to put a dent in a buried car dump.

The river is incredibly wide and there is little in the way of mud- at least what we're used to. It is all sandbars and gravelbars... lots of old bones and fossils! Morel season is at it's peak up there and our group picked hundreds. We ate them in eggs for breakfast, for dinner and fried everywhere in between!
The mighty Mo is shallow- sandbars made navigating the river difficult and there was not a trip without putting the prop in the bed of the river. I was able to walk across the river- from the island to SD without sinking past my theighs. It is a river I could only imagine to exist!
Trees, sandbars, and even a sunk steamboat composed the river bed- it couldve been a mile from the NE side to the SD shore!
Piping plovers and Least turns nested on the head of our island, but came to visit the camp's beach frequently. We had a kick-ass thunderstorm and myself and another, Vicki R., even got caught in a short, nasty, mid-night one on the water. Whip-poor-wills and all sorts of toads and frogs sung at night- especially at dawn. their familiar call was good to hear- though it became an annoyance for some who were not able to appreciate it as us city folk did. Piping plovers and Least turns nested on the head of our island, but came to visit the camp's beach frequently. We had a kick-ass thunderstorm and myself and another, Vicki R., even got caught in a short, nasty, mid-night one on the water; many slept in puddles. Whip-poor-wills and all sorts of toads and frogs sung at night- especially at dawn. their familiar call was good to hear- though it became an annoyance for some who were not able to appreciate it as us city folk did.

On friday we (the RR) met with some fish and wildlife guys and did a smal clean-up on the island.
The story goes: The island was not included when they maped out NE and SD- it is in the US, but does not officially belong to either surrounding state. It was not used until the 1930's when a rancher boated equiptment and cattle onto the island. He built two windmills, a corral, a barn and miles of fence. Well, the cattle all died and the operation was abandon. Since then, poeple have been illegally claiming property on the island and building small camps.

I even found a cabin wih bunks, lawn chairs, a boat pad and all on the southern tip of the island!

We removed the corral and as much barbed wire as we could, a tiny camper/trailer, a giant steel tub for the windmill, seven grills and other assorted camp suff. In addition, we maped and GPSed the windmills, barn, some fencing and that cabin for removal at a later date. The goal is to remove the windmills so they could be saved.COOL!

We also discussed sending folks back up to the island to remove or thin some of the invasive cedar thickets on the island. I volunteered.

A nice sunrise on Saturday gave way to a fast, exciting, and effective clean up. We had a good number of volunteers- the amount of trash is nothing compared to KC or Columia.

the shore was spotted with small litter like cups and bottles, and there were two or three small car dumps and a dead dock in the city of yankton, but they came fairly easily wih all of our able volunteers. We loaded up a dump of scrap and one of trash and ate. Yankton had a handful of inmates helping load the trash. It seemed like they enjoyed it. A homeowner helps load a busted dock from his property. A foxsnake stares into my camera.
After the volunteers had left, we loaded boats to clean them. Bill, John and I were dropped off on a gravel bar after an exciting encounter with an unknown snake. At th boat ramp we witnessed the large, bull-snake looking creature, reach shore after swimming from the river. I harrassed the snake for a second and took its picture.. sure was a pissy guy! he struck at me several times before I chased him into the river to sae him from oncoming atvs.

On the gravel bar, we found piles of bones- from deer, bison, and other prehistoric critters.
Found some cool vertibra, a coupla jaws, handfuls of teeth and all sorts of other body parts.

One last night and we packed it up in the morn. .. It was an awsome one!
Fossils on beach north of yankton.