Gibban

This past Monday was a holiday here in Ontario, the so-called "Family Day Long Weekend" so we spent the brief break up at our cottage in Huntsville. Lots of winter fun was to be had outdoors, but my boy was enamoured with the bark canoe model made back in '08 that is now decorating the wall. He wanted to take it out for an imaginary canoe trip throughout the place and loaded up the 3 foot, 1/4 scale model with a mini bark basket, his mini cherry paddle and two of his stuffed toys, Colin and Todd from the Monster Factory (a cute stuffed toy company started by a family friend). Prepping for the trip After lots of pushing and pretend paddling all over the kitchen, the bedroom, and the main floor, the bark canoe is no worse for wear. If these craft can handle the vigorous play of 2 1/2 year old and survive, they aren't nearly as delicate as people think. Colin and Todd have taken up their positions in the canoe as part of the wall display ready for the next trip... Unfort...

I t is a beautiful, calm, sunny day. S joined me for the first hour. She hadn't seen the swans or even been out in the canoe for a month or so. Since yesterday, one of the swans has died (in the photo). I was picking trash in this area, so I am sure it happened within the last 24 hours. Tried to contact the Burke Museum to see if their zoology or ornithology folks might want the carcass, but couldn't get through to anyone. There are coyotes in the area and I would expect them to find it soon. I took a close look and didn't see anything obvious. There aren't any power lines or real flight hazards near, so who knows... Anyway, I just stayed out and paddled as it was so nice. Went over to the south end of Portage Bay, which is a bit natural, but nothing interesting there, yet. So, I did another lap around the bay. The eagles showed up then. The ducks are much more wary than they used to be. They hang in mid-bay now and take flight when the eagles are in the air, even when ...

I walk the Harrison portage. It has been a week since my last trip, a week of clouds and rain combined with wind. It is a black and white bird day on the big lake. A cormorant (black) surfaces far too close to me as I load the canoe. I wonder how far it has come beneath the water to make such an error. A contingent of buffleheads (black and white) float a bit farther out. Just far enough that I do not threaten them. As I kneel in the canoe and move off from shore, a crow (black) bids me farewell from somewhere inside one of the evergreens. Moving north on calm water I come across some goldeneyes (black and white for all intensive purposes). A cormorant (black) takes off with a pied billed grebe (gray) in formation and I think that I have never seen a pied billed grebe fly. I may be wrong. At the point of the bay, I stop on the shore of the rich townhouses. I find a plastic 5 gallon pail and half fill it with other debris and then leave it for the groundskeeper amongst a fifteen stored ...

...the wonderful thought that everyplace that you've gone and everything that you've experienced and felt with your heart remains within you flowing through your veins, modifying the signals of your nerves and altering your brain to continue to seek out and add more wonder to what you've experienced. osprey It is a quiet day, warm and sunny with a soft wind...and it is not a light wind, but a "soft" wind.  The animal life is somewhat still.  The osprey are out and obvious, but osprey do not have much leaning toward seclusion.  I expect more willets than I see, but I figure them to be back away in the spartina where they are hard to spot.  This trip was timed for a high tide that comes at mid-day, not the best time for wildlife watching. black bellied plover One black bellied plover stands out among the birds that I do see, until I spot a shiny yellow fishing lure just beyond the second bridge.  Then, I realize that it has a bird attached to it...in fact, it is n...

The wind from the last two days has abated and only the rain remains.  I put in on the Pequabuck in a cool, light sprinkle, the first of the "cold hands" days.  The water is up a little and a good current carries me the short meandering distance to the Farmington, where I turn upstream in to new waters. The clouds have not peeled back as I had hoped for.  The yellow rain jacket that lives down deep in the bottom of my pack comes out and stays on even when the rain tapers off. The current is swift in most places and fast in others with only a few slower pools.  I paddle, wade and eddy hop up the insides of the bends.  At the island, I portage the lower tip, the current in the main stem too fast at the top of the island and the current in the side channel too fast at the bottom.  Such busyness makes for few photos. The bottom is cobbles and larger...glacial till to my eyes.  The rock paddle comes out in the shallow sections. In an hour, I reach a broaden...