Lake-life in the time of corona.

Like everything else these days, Prospect Lake was in the grip of the coronavirus this summer. Life around the lake went on as usual in many ways, with some marked differences.

Photo courtesy of Rose Levine

• The Friends of Prospect Lake (FOPL) decided not to hold their traditional end-of-summer tag sale – the huge spread of tables and items in the parking lot of Egremont’s Town Hall. Instead, following the guidance of Gov. Baker’s rules for the pandemic, FOPL concentrated on the collection of furniture gathered in Marj Wexler’s barn over the winter months. We held an on-line sale of furniture items that was planned and hosted by Zoe Hirsch and proved quite successful. The on-line sale was followed by a more traditional offering of mostly furniture in the yard in front of the barn. This too turned out to be a winner, much more so than expected. Another small-scale tag sale will be held on Sept. 19 (rain date Sept. 20), see our Events page for details.

• FOPL’s membership drive resulted in 84 people signed up for the year, an increase of 15 members.

• FOPL and SOLitude, our lake management consulting firm, worked together to keep the lake clear and available. An initial survey of the lake took place on June 14. This was later than usual, allowing weeds to be growing visibly on the lake’s surface. Once again, milfoil (the most problematic weed) was happily only minimally present. Initial lake treatment was completed on June 18, with the satisfactory results. Algae showed up as the summer went on, with a treatment in July clearing it up and also successfully targeting what little milfoil was present.

• The pandemic did not seem to lessen the enjoyment of the lake. There were plenty of swimmers, the campground seemed reasonably busy, and fishing was clearly both abundant and successful. If anything changed, it was that there seemed to be more kayaks on the lake than ever before.

FOPL wishes all the best to readers of this blog and to users of the lake. Enjoy, stay safe, and let’s keep working to handle what the coronavirus demands of us all.