Zebra Mussels - Finding the Joy

I've been up with my parents at Glen Lake for the past three days. The weather has been warm and the lake has been fairly calm so I spent some time waging my ongoing war with zebra mussels. Zebra mussels are originally salt water inhabitants that hitched rides on ocean vessels up the St. Lawrence Seaway into the Great Lakes. They are Nature's Perfect Filtration System and suck up algae and whatnot. They also like to clog up water intake pipes - both municipal water works and boat engines. About a dozen years ago some enterprising mussels found a way into Glen Lake - probably via a boat.

I have heard that each zebra mussel is capable of reproducing 80,000 little mussels. Given the exponental growth of these guys - there is hardly a rock or fresh water clam in the lake that does not already have at least one mussel attached to it. Each one with dreams of creating a mega colony or reef.

Basically, they irritate me. I'm having a hard time embracing the joy of these stupid mussels. I've made it one of my missions in life to keep a path from our beach through the shallow water out to the deep water ( about 300 feet) as clear of these mussels as possible. A zebra mussel-less channel for swimmers and boaters. The neighbors consider me a bit strange as I wade in the water pulling out rocks covered with mussels and dumping them on shore. People have pointed out to me that I will never be able to get totally rid of them. (Actually, it's fun to be the neighborhood eccentric.) It's probably inevitable that this invasion will cause a shift in the lake's eco-system. I have no idea what will happen, but I will continue to clear my aquatic path. I'm thinking that sometimes joy can be found in quixotic campaigns. Instead of tilting at windmills, we can tilt at zebra mussels.

Here's a photo of these varmints that I pulled out of the lake - I've included a fresh water clam shell to provide scale.