Elk Are Returning and a Nice Paddle At Jenner Today

Thursday and Friday August 26, 27, 2021 Guerneville CA.

Paddle day

I decided to go paddling today on the river down at Jenner.

On the way down I stopped at John and Cheryl’s and paid a visit.

Elk are returning to this area

I wanted to know if John had seen the Tule elk that was reported by Brendan the park guy I talked with yesterday about a mile down  from my house towards the town of Guerneville as there hasn’t been any elk in the area for a long time as they ate them all up years ago.

John said yes there was one bull elk that’s been  hanging around the Korbel property for awhile now. I hope it likes the spot and goes and finds some Mommas and brings them back and establishes a herd in our area.

As far as I know the nearest place for these elk is up the coast at a place called Usal on the Lost Coast, quite a distance.

Jenner paddle

After a good chat I left them and headed down to the river at Jenner and put my boat in the water around 2.

I decided to paddle about a mile up the river today.

Here I’m crossing over the river to Penny Island and headed on up along it’s edge.

 

Brown Pelicans

There were quite a few big brown pelicans flying around.

 

And some of them were resting on the water.

 

I stopped here for a bit to watch and check out whatever I could see.

 

On up the river

And then continued on up the river at my slow pace up along here.

 

Cormorants fishing

I saw some splashing up ahead which turned out to be diving cormorants fishing. I backed into the spot just behind them as they left.

 

Far enough

I sat here for a good spell as it was as far as I was going up river today, looking back down towards the town of Jenner.

 

While I was sitting there this osprey flew into the tree over my head long enough for me to get a picture before it took off again.

 

Headed back

I sat around in that spot for quite some time doing some thinking on things, then started a slow paddle back along here were I stopped for a bit.

 

Splash up ahead

I was paddling across here trying to decide whether to go down to the mouth or not when I saw something splash up ahead.

 

This is what I saw.

 

A river otter

It turned out to be a lone river otter diving to catch small fish and coming back up to the surface to devour them.

 

I was feeling pretty tired out as I paddled across here and decided to head to the boat ramp up ahead.

 

As I crossed over I decided to pull my boat out and drive down to the ocean overlook and take some photos.

 

Day dreaming

So I got my boat on the car and the next thing I knew I was on the road to home doing some day dreaming so I forgot to go to the overlook.

Oh well, I headed on home for a nap and that was pretty much my day.

Nice day on the river.

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Friday

Plug Work and Evening Dirt Bike Ride To Check the Water Level in Our Water Tanks

I got up around noon today and when I looked out the window Kenny was there in his car. Hummm, I haven’t eaten yet. Fortunately I’m on the second day of a fast so I went out and shot the bull with Kenny for a couple hours before drove him off so I could get to work on my van repairs as I wanted to get the spark plug wires installed today at least.

Problems with the plug wires

I got my box of new spark plug wires out to see what I had.

 

Doesn’t look good as most of them seem a bit short so I went in the garage and found some new old wires where I was able to get one more long one.

So I started hooking up the spark plug wires one by one and realized I still needed some longer ones so what to do.

Local parts place

It was almost closing time of the local parts place so I got it together and drove on down there to see what they had.

Well they  had only one box that wasn’t perfect but at least I could use the long wires and should get this done.

Not as easy as you’d think

So I went on home and worked on getting all the wires hooked up which you’d think would be easy,…………..but.

The wires are all different sizes so you have to figure out where they go. Once that is done some are too long and some are too short so you change them around until you get the best configuration you can.

While doing this you have to make sure the wires don’t touch the exhaust pipes or for that matter any metal parts which isn’t easy in a van’s engine compartment.

Mostly done

In the end I think I did a pretty good job of doing all that but I could use a few more wire separator mounts that help hold the wires in place and off the hot exhaust system. I will need to get these at a parts store next time I go.

That took a lot longer than I thought it would. I did a little more hooking up some ground wires and then closed up the van for the day as I wanted to go up into the  hills and check our water tanks’ water level as my brother started using  more of the water a couple days ago when one of his wells went dry.

Yummy grapes

I checked on the chickens before taking off and looked at the ripening grapes, but I’m on a fast.

 

Water tanks

So I jumped on the dirt bike and rode on up to the water tanks which were almost full so I can still do some watering but will have to cut back a bit so my brother can use some water.

 

Smoky skies

As long as I was out and about on the dirt bike I rode on up to the Guerneville lookout and stopped for a short break. It sure looked smoky out there.

 

From there I rode around a loop in the hills and then headed on home.

No blog post excuse

I decided not to put up a post yesterday because I wanted my family property post to stay up another day before it gets buried like all post do.

Good things happening already

Since I wrote that post I’ve been put into contact with  the head state ranger for the north coast.

Interesting enough the family property post came in real handy  as I emailed the head guy that to get him started and it also states what is needed by us to make this happen and why we need to do it so maybe that will help jump start things a bit.

Nice day.