Friday November 22, 2013 Jenner, CA.
A weird deer experience
Instead of starting this off with this morning, I have to back up to about seven PM last night, actually a bit earlier to when I arrived home from kayaking yesterday.
When I arrived home yesterday, I drove in the driveway and there was a deer in my yard by my new cherry trees. It took off and jumped the fence in a low spot and was gone. I beefed up the place it jumped out so it wouldn’t just come back in and shut the gate that my brother next door uses and went into the house for the day.
A bit later
I had just posted my blog for the day and I was just kicking back when out of the blue, the electrical power went off, leaving me in total darkness about seven PM. It went out fast, like a car took out a pole or a tree fell on the line. I got my backup lamp out and lite it.
Shortly after that, I went outside to check out the stars and listen for any noise of repair crews in the area. It was real quiet out.
A deer in the flashlight beam
As I was standing there gazing at the stars, I let my flashlight beam shine to the left as I didn’t need it to gaze at stars. When I happened to look down, the beam of the light was shining dead on a deer right back by my new cherry trees about thirty feet from me. It didn’t move, not one little bit.
I slowly approached it thinking it would bolt, but it didn’t move at all, not even a little bit.
It was standing there with it’s head down and eyes closed. What? Looked like the same dear I chased out of the yard earlier in the day.
I carefully put my foot on it and gave it a little push and to my surprise, it fell over on it’s side and still didn’t move. What?
I went back and got my camera out and took a picture. I noticed it was still breathing, but what was going on?
Here’s a picture of the deer in the position it fell over, but not dead.
What was there that it just had to come back after I chased it off earlier? My cherry trees are mostly dormant and it hadn’t eaten any of the remaining leaves or the mint that was growing there, so what was the attraction?
I checked to see how it got back in the yard and found that it had pushed my brothers gate open as it wasn’t latched. It sure wanted to get back in and knew just what to do.
Too much of a good thing
I had blue heavenly morning glories growing there this summer and some deer had eaten some of it’s green leaves during the summer, but now it was mostly gone and only the seed pods remained.
Looking at the seed pods, it looked like that is what it was eating and liked so well.
This is a picture of some of the morning glory seed pods it was eating.
I just happen to know that the seeds of this plant are hallucinogenic, could that be what it liked? Just the right amount and it could be fun, but eating too many made them like poison and would kill you in time.
I thought, ok, maybe it will just trip out and get moving later, so I went back in the house and forgot about it.
Just before ten PM, I remembered it and went back out to check it out again. It’s eyes were now wide open, but I don’t think seeing, as it never blinked. There was foam around it’s mouth as you can see below. I went back in the house after moving the stick out of it’s eye.
Around eleven Pm, I went back out to see if it was making any progress and it had moved a tiny bit and the foam was gone from it’s mouth, so I thought there might be some hope of recovery.
Dead, dead, dead
At eleven thirty, I came back out again and it was dead, no breathing and that was that.
Still no electrical power when I went to bed around one AM.
This morning I went out and dragged it further out in the yard for my friends the turkey vultures to eat, when they find it.
Kayaking at Jenner today
I was thinking it was Saturday today, and was thinking what I should do for the day of a Saturday when I realized it was Friday, so I took off for Jenner. I drove on though Jenner to the river’s mouth overlook on Highway one to see what the river’s mouth was looking like.
The river’s mouth is open wide
It’s wide open as the picture below shows.
I went on back to the put in and put my boat in the water and headed across to Penny Island and over to the little channel on the east end of the island where I stopped for awhile.
After awhile, I was crossing over to the south shore to go up the river when I ran into these cute seals resting on a log.
I continued on up the river until I got to the Eagle’s landing area where I stayed for about an hour. As I was sitting there some biologists came by in their boat. This bunch is from the Bodega Bay marine laboratory and they were pulling their underwater current gages out for the year, before the winter storms arrive. I’ve chatted with them before, but not today.
From there I headed over to Paddy’s rock and checked out the area before heading back down the river.
I passed this seal as I neared the east end of Penny Island.
I decided to go down the Penny Island back channel and head for the river’s mouth area.
There were a lot of these geese on the river today, with lots of honking all day long.
I spooked them and they took off as I passed them.
As I neared the west end of Penny Island there were a bunch more geese taking it easy there also. Just showing some of them on the island.
The river’s mouth area
I paddled on down to the river’s mouth area and checked out the open mouth. Some seals were there and the rivers mouth was flowing out to the right of them.
I had my eye on this guy. When I saw him, he was laying at the top on his belly, head first and slid down the embankment, just having fun, I guess. Later I watched him run and jump off the sandy bank and crash land. Maybe he found some of what the deer was eating?
I stayed at the mouth area for about a half hour before starting back up the river.
On the way, I passed these seals on some submerged rocks.
I almost didn’t come down today, because the weatherman said the wind was 25 miles an hour with gusts to 35, but lucky for me, he was dead wrong on that count.
The is the calm river looking back up the river as I started to go back up it.
I was off the water around four PM and went on home. I checked the deer and the turkey vultures hadn’t found it yet. I hope they do soon, before it starts to smell too much.
Had a nice day.