Critters and Birds While Paddling Around the Jenner Area

Wednesday September 1, 2021 Jenner CA.

Paddle day

So today I decided to go down to the river for a yak as it’s likely my only chance this week to do it.

I was on the water around 1 and crossed over the river to the island when this caught my eye. A young deer was laying on the shoreline right where I stop for a bit and it’s momma was off to the right walking away but keeping an eye on me.deer1

 

River otter

So I slowed down not to scare it off and turned up river for a look. Bet you didn’t see that river otter that just got out of the river on the right and is about to  make a dash for the bushes. I didn’t see it either until it made the dash but the camera caught it.river2

 

Here it is after magnifying it on the computer. It dashed into the bushes and I didn’t see it again.  I bet it had some buddies in there. They often go to shore to nap.otter3

 

Headed to the mouth area

It was fairly overcast today so I turned and headed on down river towards the ocean where I knew there was lots of wild life. I could see a lot of birds on the shore from here.birds4

 

Lots of brown pelicans and gulls.birds5

 

They preen a lot.pelicans6

 

Mouth area

I moved on into the open river’s mouth area where there were even more birds.mouth7

 

Lots of them.birds8

 

I worked my way on into the river’s mouth but stayed back from the ocean just up ahead as no way do I want to go out there.mouth9

 

Some harbor seals resting there had their eyes on me.seals10

 

Is that John

I hung around the area for about an hour before starting back up the river. Just as I was getting started I saw this guy doing some pruning over on a trail on the shore. Could that be John a guy who lives down here. He was almost dead a couple years ago with heart problems.john11

 

I paddled on over to see and it was John so I shot the bull with him for about an hour getting all the Jenner news.

He’ll talk your ear off so I had to finally break away.

Up river

I continued back up the river crossing over to the island and paddling up along it’s sides when I saw this egret catch a small fish and eat it. See the small fish in it’s beak.This bird eats mostly these real small fish it catches along the shorelines.egret12

 

As I was paddling along the islands edge and almost up to it’s upper end I saw something moving in the shore weeds which turned out to be these two little birds feeding. I watched them for a bit.birds13

 

Need some sun

I was thinking of going up river a bit but with all the overcast I decided to call it a day and go home to the sun so I headed on in to the boat ramp.ramp14

 

I loaded up the car and drove on home for a nap.

Nice day.

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New Gas Lines For the Van and a Positive Reply From the State Parks Guy

Tuesday August 31, 2021 Guerneville CA.

Van work day

As usual it took a while to get it going today. It’s just so nice to sit out in the yard and relax to start the day off so that’s usually what I do after letting the chickens out.

Fuel lines

Eventually I started working on the van. Today I wanted to get the gas lines hooked up to the gas tank and fuel pump so I’d be under the van working on putting things together, but first I needed to find a way to cut the new stainless steel braided gas lines I bought. The stainless steel mess is  hard to cut.

Work area.van

 

I thought I’d try what I had to cut them but no go. It made a  mess of the line as I couldn’t cut the stainless mess with these tools without tearing up the cut line as you can see where I tried to make a test cut in the black fuel line.linecut

 

Cut off wheel to the rescue

I knew my brother next door had a cut off wheel that should work, but he wasn’t home and I couldn’t find what I  needed so I went back to my place and sat down for a bit when he came by in his golf cart so I was able to borrow his old die grinder hopping that would work.discuter

 

Cuts well

I did a sample cut and wow that worked great but now I would have to blow the lines out to make sure I got all the cut particles out so I did.cutline

 

Gas line adapter

First I cut a piece for the hose size adapter and got it all clamped together ready to go.adapter

 

Short term memory not so good

l needed my quarter inch nut driver tool but I couldn’t find it, so I looked around everywhere more than once and still couldn’t find it until I turned over some rags in the van and there it was. I spend a lot of time trying to locate tools and materials I use. It’s part of the job for an older age guy that has a short term memory problem. That slows me down quite a bit but at least I get a lot of exercise looking for stuff.

Then I looked for the package of tie wraps I was using a couple days ago. I looked everywhere more than once but couldn’t find them.

Eventually I realized I didn’t need that pack, I needed larger tie wraps which I was able to scrounge by finding some scattered around in my van’s tool box. I never did find the other pack of them but will eventually as it’s here somewhere.

Hooking up fuel lines

Anyway I took the parts under the van and installed the new gas lines to the fuel pump and the return fuel line to the fuel tank.gaspump

 

Here’s another angle of the installed hoses and fuel pump on the right.fuelpump

 

I worked on that all afternoon at a slow pace of course. I just keep puttering until things get done.

I finally completed that which was good.

I had some help when I let the chickens out.buddies

 

I needed a nap so went in the house for one. After I checked my email.

Good news

There was an email from the head state park guy about them acquiring our family property that was encouraging.

He said they were real interested in our land and would set up a plan to make things happen. Great.

Back outside for some chair hopping as I’d gotten all I wanted to do on the van done today. Still a few things to do before I try starting the engine to time it.

Yummy grapes

Since I’m done with my five day fast I ate some of these grapes that are yummy and getting sweeter every day.grapes

 

Green peaches for the chickens.

And I thought these peaches I thinned off the tree as there were too many and breaking the branches would be good for the chickens. I got a bucket and picked some up and took them to the chicken pen for them to eat. The peaches are pretty green and they don’t like them much. But when they start to rot they will likely eat them as for some reason when they won’t eat something, they usually will once it rots a bit.

peaches

 

Young birds

And just before dark the young chickens went to roost where they are supposed to go, at least most of them. There were still five in another place that I moved to this roost to train them as I did these ones.roosting

 

Nice day.

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