Well Driller, New Coffee, a Monte Rio Paddle and Finding the Coolant Leak in My Car

Thursday October 8, 2015 Monte Rio CA.

Off to  Sebastopol

I was headed to Sebastopol this morning, but on the way I was going to stop and see if I could catch the well driller in or at least his secretary. He wasn’t in, but she was so I talked with her a bit about getting another well drilled, then I was off to Sebastopol.

Taylor coffee

My main goal was to check out Taylor coffee. I wanted to talk with somebody that’s been in the field dealing with the farmers that produce coffee beans to make sure no corn stuff of any kind was used to make their coffee. They got a guy from the back for me to talk with, I forgot his name. He assured me he had never seen any type of corn stuff used in the bean process and they didn’t use any kind of corn stuff in any of their coffees, so I bought a couple of packets of beans that were expensive and special to try out. With the corn allergy, I don’t have many things I can drink, so I’m willing to pay a lot for what I can drink. I may try some of their less expensive coffees if this one works out. It sure tastes good.

Kayaking at Monte Rio

After that, I went on home for a bit then decided to head on down to Monte Rio to kayak, so off I went.

Darn temp gauge

On the way, I noticed my car’s heat gauge was going up almost in the red, so  I kept an eye on it. It finally came down to were it was supposed to be, but this indicates there is something wrong with the cars cooling system which I was going to have to look into soon.

I put my boat in the water at the boat ramp and headed down the river.

This was the first big bird I ran into, a great blue heron.

I paddled on down to the Villa Grande area and sat for a bit, then continued on down to

to the Moscow hole.

I’m just approaching the Moscow hole in this photo and eyeing that white egret in he green weeds.

The Egret was fishing for fish in the weeds. I saw it catch a couple of them, but couldn’t make out what kind of fish it was catching.

I paddled down to the bottom of Moscow hole which put me at Rein’s beach where I was thinking of paddling down to the Casini Riffle, but was feeling lazy, so decided to rest in this spot across from Rein’s beach.

Black crowned night heron

As I started under the trees something up in the trees caught my eye, so I backed up to have a look. There were three of these birds in the trees above me watching. They are black crowned night herons I think.

Here’s another one of them. They are nice looking birds. I’ve seen them before down in this area, but usually just down the river a bit more, about a quarter mile.

After checking out the herons, I backed in under the trees in that spot and had a bit of nap. This was my view looking at Rein’s beach from my spot.

A fishing kingfisher

As I was leaving that spot, I could see a kingfisher fishing off to the left, to the right of the sandy beach there and it appeared it wasn’t going to fly off, so I paddled closer to watch and it stayed and fished.

I watched this kingfisher dive and fish for about ten dives. It got a little fish sometimes. I even took some video of it fishing as it’s rare they let me get this close without them flying off.

Sheridan Beach

I left the kingfisher fishing and continued back up the river and stopped at this spot just below Sheridan beach which you can see to the left.

I went by the beach as I paddled away and saw this killdeer on the gravel.

I was working my way back up the river and am approaching Villa Grande in this photo.

Just below Monte Rio I spied this pair of Mallard ducks resting on a log. They watched me as I paddled on by, but didn’t stir much.

Big turtle

I could see a big turtle up ahead, about an eight inch shell from head to tail. Would it move as I drifted by if I didn’t move. I slowly drifted by it, took pictures and it stayed on the log which is nice as I passed only about ten feet from it.

It was about five PM as I came up on Monte Rio and went into the boat ramp on the far left and took my boat out.

Checked the well again

When I got home, I brewed a cup of that coffee I just bought and then went out to do some more measuring on the new well. I filled it with spring water again and then took a measurement. Twenty three feet is where I think the bottom of where the water is coming into the well, or was anyway before the water table dropped.

And found out why my car’s temp gauge was going up

Next, I opened my cars bonnet and looked for water leaks. I couldn’t find any leaks.  But I did see a suspicious spot on the intake manifold, so I started the engine and let it heat up. After about ten minutes I could see the suspicious spot was leaking some coolant. I tightened the bolts to no avail so I’m going to have to get some new gaskets to fix that. I supposed I could just put some radiator Stop leak in there?  Always something eh.