August 6 – Busy Time

This is a busy time of year for FILA. Kathy Sanders, one of our Board members, is up at the Michigan Lighthouse Festival in Marquette this weekend. Board member Pete Koeppen arranged to pick up historically applicable furniture from a donor. Cathy Allchin coordinated transport to get last week’s team returned.

Another of the things we do this time of year is to start planning for next year and begin setting up “winter projects” for things that would be difficult to do “on island”.

This most recent trip brought off five sash: two from the Assistant Keepers that had broken glass and three windows from the 1867 Lighthouse basement. Now that we have good access to the basement via this summer’s project, natural light is important. Here’s one of our “offseason” volunteers getting to work within hours of the sash coming back.  The glass is totally broken out but shards remain under much of the glazing. This is work that is best done in good light, a few hours at a time.

Meanwhile, volunteers Tom McBride & Marty Rosalik did some benchmarking at one of our “sister” lights, visiting Granite Island recently. Marty will then be evaluating solar systems at other lights on his way home.

There’s a lot that goes into making this project happen.