By Peggy Bullard

About this time each year, the fish in Lake Mitchell get excited because they will get some new and attractive homes when Alabama Power and Lake Mitchell Home Owners Boat Owners join together to bundle and off-load Christmas trees into the lake.

Alabama Power delivered about 200 trees to Higgins Ferry Park shortly before 8 a.m. March 4. The crane and barges arrived soon after and the trees were unloaded down the bank near the swimming area.

While the trees are being unloaded, the HOBO volunteers stand back, visit and drink their coffee, but they come to work and they do work hard on this project.

Mike Clelland, environmental affairs specialist for Alabama Power, gives a short safety talk before the men begin to arrange the trees in bundles of four trees per bundle. While trees are being grouped, Acme Building Supply delivers the concrete blocks which will be loaded onto the barges.

The trees are securely tied at the base by Alabama Power workers and HOBO volunteers. Other volunteers put together the floaters by punching a hole in a block of Styrofoam and inserting a piece of rope to tie to the tree tops. This will allow the tree tops to stand upright when the bundle is dropped into the lake.

Once all of this is done, trees are loaded onto the barges one bundle at a time, and a concrete block is tied to the bottom of the trees. When the barge is fully loaded, they head off to strategic places around the lake banks and unload the trees, creating new habitats that will attract the fish here on Lake Mitchell.

Alabama Power enters all the drop locations on GPS and will post locations of the drops on their web page so all you fisherman check out their page.

After the last load leaves, there is still work to be done. The bank is raked of all debris and bagged leaving the bank at Higgins Ferry clean and pristine.

We would like all the banks around the lake to be so clean, and we work hard twice a year to keep this beautiful lake clean. Our spring lake cleanup is April 11 at 8 a.m. at Higgins Ferry.

We invite anyone that enjoys Lake Mitchell and would like to help keep the lake clean to join us. A hotdog lunch is provided for all workers. Please join us in helping to keep our lake the cleanest ever.

Peggy Bullard is a community correspondent for The Clanton Advertiser.