Some Kayaking and I Found a Wild Blackberry Pie on My Doorstep Yummmmmm

Thursday July 16, 2015 Jenner CA.

I could see the wind was down as I drove into Jenner this morning. I put my boat in the water and decided to head down to the river’s mouth area as I haven’t been down that way in awhile.

I’m cruising along the north side of Penny Island, headed down to the mouth.

Little pipers feeding

I see lots of pipers feeding along the shoreline. Several hundred easily. They seem to be feeding on some little one eighth inch snails that have died and are dead on the shoreline. I saw a bunch of the little snails on the boat ramp as I put my boat in the water. Hard to say what killed the snails. It might just be they got caught in the wrong kind of water during a tide change. They might be salt water types and got caught in fresh water or maybe the other way around? At any rate, there were thousands of the little dead snails along the shoreline.

Just past that area, some harbor seals were napping. Here’s one of them as it came up for air.

Bandits

There were some terns on the lower end of Penny Island. They always remind me of bandits.

Open river’s mouth

The river’s mouth was wide open and it was just going to high tide as I arrived.

The jetty area with lots of harbor seals resting on the beach.

Here’s a closer view of some of the resting harbor seals in front of the end of the jetty. Note the crack separating the cement blocks. It’s starting to open and that block might just disappear next winter. Most of it already has disappeared over the last couple of years.

Fishing egret

I sat around the mouth area for about an hour and headed back to Penny Island where I saw Steve coming in his kayak, so I joined him. We headed on up the river passing this fishing egret. It just caught a small fish. Fishing was good as it caught one right after the other as we watched.

We paddled along here working our way up the river.

Herons

There were several great blue herons along the way. They seemed to be interacting in some way as they were squawking at each other and flying circles together. Here’s one of them.

Young turkey vulture

Steve said he saw a  bird up in the big fir tree we were going by. When I looked up, I realized it was the young turkey vulture from the nest, just up the river from this spot.

It seems young turkey vultures have blackish heads when they are young which I didn’t know, with feathers too. I thought the black headed one’s were another type until now. The adults have reddish heads and almost no feathers on the head and neck.

Paddy’s rock

Steve went over to Paddy’s rock to get out for a stretch. These birds were resting on the gravel there and took off as we approached.

We worked our way back down to the boat ramp. I was tired out so went on in for the day, while Steve continued on down to the river’s mouth area.

I put my boat on the car and headed on home where a surprise was waiting.

A pie from Dominic’s Sweets

At my doorstep was a box with my name on it. I opened the box and there was this wild blackberry pie inside. Yummmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I took it in the house and had a bite. Scrumsous. It was perfect. Tasty berries, great crust. Needless to say, I had lots of bites before I could stop. I finally had to hide it in the oven to keep from eating it all.

My brother Tom has a lady friend that bakes and sells baked goods at the Guerneville Farmer’s Market called Dominic’s Sweets. They had picked the blackberries in my yard a while back and this was my reward.

I finally was able to stop eating and get a picture of what’s left of the pie after I pigged out a bit.

Tom and Dominic came by on his golf cart just about dark and demanded a piece of pie. I had no choice but to give a piece up. :O)

Great day.