Paddled Around the Estuary, Tractor Repair and Some Mulch Work in the Yard

Thursday March 5, 2015 Jenner CA.

Russian River overlook

It was sunny and warm when I drove into Jenner this morning, so I drove on down to the river overlook to have a look.

This was my view as I looked over the side today, out the open river’s mouth.

There were a bunch of surfers out there just in front of the open mouth, ,but you’ll have to click on the picture to see them all out there.

There was a lady there who I knew from seeing her working at the visitor center and a guy there who I was talking with when this little bird came hopping almost under our feet. I think it’s some kind of little sparrow?

As we were talking a big wave washed over the beach down below. More of this kind of wave action over the beach would happen if the jetty wasn’t there.

Paddling around the estuary

I left and went to the boat ramp and put my boat in the water and paddled across to Penny island and started on up the river where I ran into these two seagulls. The wind wasn’t blowing, so I thought it was odd that the feathers were so out of place. I think they must be in a molt?

I continued on up the river taking my time and enjoying the nice day while paddling along.

I went by these two loons fishing.

I made it up to the muskrat nest beach area where I sat around for awhile, then crossed the river to check out the bird life on that side.

As I paddled around Paddy’s rock, I set these cormorants into flight as I had forgotten they were on the gravel beach just on the other side of the rock.

There were also some ducks sitting there that got a little nervous, but didn’t take off. Mergansers and mallards.

Cinnamon Teals

I worked my way down the shoreline until I got to the end of where the grass is and crossed back over the river again to go down the island back channel. As I was going down the back channel these two ducks came into view. I hadn’t seen this type of duck down here before. They turned out to be cinnamon teals. Two males I think.

Lots of cormorants

I continued on down to the open river’s mouth area where I ran into this huge flock of cormorants. Too many to count.

As I was watching about a hundred and fifty of them entered the water which didn’t hardly make a dent in the flock left on the shore. I bet there were four or five hundred of them in all.

I hung around the mouth area for a bit before starting in for the day. I saw this lone bird sitting on this rock. I was just paddling along and ran into this bird that just stayed there even though I was real close to it. It reminded me of one of the pipers? It never did fly off and I left it there and continued on in for the day.

That was the second bird today that I got real close to, the sparrow was the first one.

This Great blue heron flew in  just in front of me and landed as I watched.

Home for the day

I pulled into the boat ramp and put my boat on the car and went on home for the day.

I had something to eat and was puttering in the yard when my brother Tom came by and wanted to pull this tractor into the yard to find out why it wouldn’t start. It’s a Ford 1953 Golden Jubilee model.

Testing for spark

I showed him how to test for spark at the coil and determined the points were bad. He took the points out and I filed them clean and tested them and they were good, so he installed them. We now had spark. He had to leave so we didn’t get it started yet.

My Brother working on his Ford Tractor just after pulling it into the yard with his other tractor. Tom operates Armstrong Valley Farm and sells at the farmers markets around here.

Finished mulching the berry patch

I went over to the blue berry, potato patch and moved more redwood mulch onto the patch, about six inches. I will add more later, but I got it all covered for now.

All that mulching tired me out and my back was hurting a bit too, so I found this spot in the yard and sat for the rest of the day among the big trees.

Another real nice spring day.