Taxes, Citrus and a Paddle in the Russian River Estuary

Monday April 11, 2016 Jenner CA.

Gotta do the tax thing

Today, I needed to drive over to Healdsburg to sign and pick up my taxes, so off I went as soon as I got it going this morning. I wanted to get there before they closed for lunch.

That went ok, I just signed and paid.

Where Armstrong Valley Farm gets it’s citrus

After that, I thought I might head on over to my brother Mike’s to see how his garden was doing as he lives in Healdsburg.  I rang his bell, but no one answered so I let myself into his backyard where I found him puttering around.

Mike has a small  back yard, but it’s packed with citrus trees of different varieties of oranges, mandarins, grapefruits, limes and other good tasting citrus fruits. He has quite a variety.

He showed me around the garden pointing out this and that varieties. Most of his citrus has just been harvested, so there wasn’t much left, but the garden was still real lush.

We walked past this flower in bloom.

Here’s one of the views of his citrus trees as we walked through the garden.

After that, I went on home and had a little nap.

Time for a yak

After that, I headed down to Jenner for a yak and got there around two pm or so to a real nice day. A little bit foggy, but the wind was down and it was just nice out.

I put my boat in the water and paddled over to Penny Island and went on down the side towards the river’s mouth area.

These two seagulls were sitting there as I paddled on by.

As I paddled nearer the mouth, I could see three different groups of harbor seals resting on the breaches. During pupping season the females with pups often have a group of their own off to the side of the main ground and I ran into them first.

More going on than meets the eye

This was the view. There’s more going on here if you know what you are looking at.  The three turkey vultures and the seagulls indicate there is something going on. It usually indicates a pup is about to be born, so I watched and checked it out. It appears that the harbor seal just in front of the seagulls is about to give birth or is having some kind of birth difficulty. I watched her chase the seagulls off a couple times.

River’s mouth is open

Eventually I left and paddled over to the river’s open mouth to check it out.

The mouth was wide open and I watched a sea lion hunting and there were some surfers enjoying the nice waves, looking out the mouth into the Pacific ocean.

I found these harbor seals taking it easy at the end of the river, some checking me out.

I stayed around the mouth area for an hour or so as it was real nice out. Eventually, I started back up the river, checking on the seal I thought might be going to give birth. She hadn’t done anything yet, and the vultures and seagulls had left, but I,m sure she was near doing something.

I paddled over by John’s house to see if he was around and noticed some of his flowers were blooming, but no John.

I continued on up the river along Penny Island.

And stopped at this spot for a good break.

Eventually, I continued on up the river to this spot I call Eagle’s landing where I sat and watched..

There’s a seal over there

I could see Paddy’s rock across the river from me and was checking out the bird life there when I noticed there was a harbor seal on the beach too. Now, the harbor seals don’t use this beach much. The last time I saw a harbor seal on the beach was last year and it gave birth to a pup while I was there, so what’s going on with this harbor seal? I see no turkey vultures, so no pupping gong on.

I paddled over closer to have a look. It was one of my seal buddies with a new pup. Being one of my seal buddies, she wasn’t alarmed by my presence and was relaxed as I approached. We sat there together for about a half hour before I heard the wild turkeys across the river and I went over to see if I could spot them up on the hill.

Couldn’t spot the wild turkeys

I looked for the wild turkeys up on the hill, but couldn’t spot them even though I heard them several times. They are nesting now, so mostly hiding out.

I was having a real nice day, the nicest in a couple mouths since I got this rash burn. My burned back was only itching lightly most of the day, an almost nice itch. I was able to ignore it most of the day. But when I sit in my yak, my back leans against the cockpit back pretty good, so there is lots of pressure on it.

An itch that can’t be ignored

After about three hours of doing that and pretty much ignoring it, my body said, ok, you’re not lessening, so I’m kicking it up a couple notches. That meant I was now itching enough that I couldn’t ignore it which meant I had to do some itching and that only makes things worse at this stage, but it can’t really be ignored, the itching I mean. The idea is to scratch without damaging the body, if you can. :O)

I headed on in for the day going past these male mallard ducks.

At the boat ramp I was itching good and hurried to get things loaded so I could hit the road. My itch was severe driving home and I couldn’t hardly wait to get home and into some looser clothes.

Unfortunately, that was five hours ago and I’m still itching fairly bad as things haven’t calmed down yet. Part of the itch is from the healing that is occurring. I’m resisting using the steroid cream as I’m just starting to be able to get some sleep again.

So, anyway, this is the best day I’ve had in a couple mouths, since I got this burn rash and I’m just starting to get some sleep at night so I look for more improvements soon.

Nice day.