I have started a habit of doing a short video of the sun rising over the Rainbow River on a daily basis. I do this so I can post on social media sites something beautiful and inspiring to start the day. The Rainbow River is certainly beautiful, and I am able to capture some amazing natural sounds.

Many people don’t get a chance to see the sunrise on a regular basis for several reasons. Many are busy with getting their kids up and ready for school, or themselves getting ready to go to work. Some just like to sleep in and get up past dawn and some never get a chance because of where they live and don’t get a view.

I am so fortunate that my house on the Rainbow River has an incredible view of the river. Seeing the sunrise over the river and to be able to hear all the early morning sounds that the birds and frogs make is amazing. It is a music that only nature can create. That is why I am sharing it online for all to see on our social media platforms like Facebook and TikTok.

On Easter Day this year many people went out of their way to go to a early sunrise service organized by a local church or just get up early and go on their own to find a place to see the sunrise. As I was filming my short video on Easter morning, it was different feeling knowing that; that morning millions of people all over the world were getting up to make sure they saw the sunrise that day also.

The sunrise I saw that Easter morning did not disappoint. The color was amazing, the birds sounded so happy and sang a wonderful song of awakening and renewal. It reminded me of our quest to clean up and renew life in sections of the Rainbow River that had been damaged by the invasion of Hydrilla.

We are having an upcoming Dunnellon Springs Festival that will celebrate the life of our beautiful spring fed river that we cherish. We will be reaffirming our commitment to take care of our river and restore areas that are impaired. Because, unfortunately the river has been in decline for years, but fortunately we are working to reverse that and help the river to start healing thru our One Rake at a Time restoration project.

We are raking out a lot of Hydrilla every week which keeps the water flowing and gives the fish and other aquatic animals room to swim and live their lives. Removing Hydrilla by hand is very beneficial for otters, turtles, and ducks that live on the Rainbow River without Hydrilla in the way, they can actually swim in the river and not get tangled up in a mass of weeds.

One thing we can’t rake out, is muck. The best way to remove muck is to suck it out using a water vacuum. The permit needed from the State of Florida and the US Army Core of Engineers is underway and shouldn’t take too much longer. All the water and muck that is removed must be separated and all the water returned to its original source cleaner than the water was before it was removed. So we have to prove exactly how we are going to do it in order to get a permit. Kind of complicated, but we are going to do it anyway.

This entails a completely thorough filtration system that can process large amounts of water and muck. The pure clean water is then returned to the river and the muck eventually ends up on Farmland to be used as a soil supplement that enriches the soil adding nutrients and humus for water retention.

Muck is bad in our rivers but good on our farmland. Muck in our Rainbow river and other spring systems is the result of years of accumulated dead Hydrilla from spraying it with herbicides to try to keep it under control, along with erosion from phosphate mining years ago and present day housing construction. Now we need to get the Muck out of the Rainbow River so we can replant native vegetation to start healing the river after years of decline.

We are planning a Springs Festival here in Dunnellon, the city near the banks of the Rainbow and Withlacoochee Rivers, this coming 4th of July weekend. The Festival will support our efforts to cleanup and restore areas of the Rainbow River.

Please come out and support us if you are here this summer. It will be a $5.00 entry and we are going to have great music with amazing ribs and food all day. Also games and activities and about 85 vendor tents with crafts, and educational displays.

Just in, at the end of April we heard from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and hopefully by the time this is printed in the paper, our permit will have been issued and then we will just be waiting on the Army Corps of Engineers to review everything and sign off on the cleanup and restoration project. This is an exciting time to finally see a restoration project started on our beautiful spring fed Rainbow River.

I will tell you this project has been long overdue and years in the making to finally get the mechanical help needed to start doing diver vacuuming of the muck out of the Rainbow River so we can start planting eelgrass and other native plants on the natural bottom to stop the decline of the river and get it back on the path of getting better every year.

So Please come out and support us this summer on the Forth of July weekend at our Dunnellon Springs Festival July 5th and 6th. Please sign up to put in some volunteer hours if you can, or get a business to help sponsor us. Sign up at OneRakeataTime.org or write us at Events@OneRakeataTime.org. We will be having volunteer meetings starting soon. Text or call Art Jones at 727.642.7659 and also Follow us on Facebook (OneRakeataTime)and TikTok (One.Rake).

Thank you,

Art Jones