Wednesday October 7, 2015 Jenner CA.
I could see Ray’s truck in the parking lot at Jenner this morning and I could see him across the river waiting for me to catch up, so I put my boat in the water and headed down that way. Here’s where I caught up with Ray by the lower end of Penny Island. That great blue heron took flight with a lot of squawking as I approached.
Overcast day
The day was a bit overcast with a cool breeze blowing off the Pacific ocean which was a bit on the cold side.
We went past a bunch of crows feeding on something along the shoreline. I tried to see what they were eating, but whatever it was, they were too small for me to see.
Open river mouth
We paddled on over to the open river’s mouth and sat in my spot for a bit watching things.
Seals
There were some harbor seals across from us just taking it easy.
Pelicans
And a bunch of brown pelicans were resting there too.
Just sitting around doing nothing. All the preening was already done by the time we got there.
We paddled on down to the end of the river just past the open mouth going by this young pelican.
Up the back channel
We stayed in the mouth area for an hour or so then headed on up the river going through the island back channel where we stopped here for a short break. I always admire the big redwood stumps here. They can look like a lot of things, big animal skeletons or just big monsters.
Big schools of little fish
On the upper end of the island back channel we ran into this egret fishing along the shoreline. There were big schools of some kind of little fish in this area which we could see turning up the water in some places.
Short walk
Ray said he needed a little walk, something short and not too tiring, so we landed here at the Swamp rock trailhead and went to shore.
We walked the short distance to that rock over on the hill side going through the dry swamp in the foreground.
Swamp rock
There’s a place to sit up on these rocks which we were hoping would be out of the cool breeze, but it wasn’t.
I arrived on the rock first and waited for Ray to catch up, he was just behind me, looking across the river at the little town of Jenner.
Since the cool breeze was blowing at Swamp rock we didn’t stay but a minute or two and headed on back to our boats.
Animal tracks
There were some fresh animal tracks in the sand we were checking out. Maybe coon and bobcat and deer? Maybe some of them were river otters too?
Here’s Ray looking at the animal tracks.
Chilled to the bone
By now we were chilled to the bone, especially Ray as he was in his short pants, so we headed on in for the day.
Working on the new well
I took a short break when I got home and then went out to do some work on the new well pump. I wanted to put the pump down clear to the bottom of the well to see if there was anymore water to be pumped or was the well really dry? That meant I had to extend the well pipe and electrical wires to lower it some more. I measured things and determined I could lower the pump another 45 inches, so I added the stuff to do that and hooked it all up.
No water
I turned on the pump and let it pump on the ground. About two minutes and it was out of water, so that meant there was no water getting into the well at that level, but what was the level water would enter the well?
Testing
To find out, I put a hose in the well from our springs and turned the water on figuring the water would rise to the height at which water came into the well, as the water level would rise to the spot where it would go out, which should also be the spot where it came in before it got too low to come in.
As near as I could tell, the water level was about twenty three feet, which is important as a new well would be sealed down to twenty feet and I wanted to know if we would get the water we were getting in this well even if we dug the new one a lot deeper. Seems we would just make it on that because this well’s water started to come in around eighteen feet, so this wells water comes in from eighteen feet to about twenty three feet and when the ground water goes below that level, we get no more water. This new well only has a seal to ten feet, which means the well can only be dug to thirty feet which is why we had to stop at thirty feet with this well. County regulations dictated that.
I think we can put another well right next to this one and drill it down deeper to try and pick up some more water and still get the water this well was providing.
So now I need to talk to the well driller guy and see if we can get anything going or not. Well drillers are real busy right now, but I’m hoping since we already drilled one and it didn’t’ work we might get worked in somewhere, maybe.
When I finished working on that, it was almost dark and I was totally tired out, so that was my day.