Ice Weather
I paddle a good long distance, all the way to the upper piece of Gulf Pond before I stop to write. I put in down in front of the house, launching from the talus that forms the bottom of the sea wall, a project that was more clunky and clumsier than I expected. The wind is out of the north or east and so the land protects me from some of it and the rest is a very light following breeze. The foot high waves are more than the wind predicts, it is just that in that direction there is little out there until one gets to Europe. I found some buffleheads in the salt water today. I figure that the cold weather must be icing up the protected brackish waters where I usually find them. Short spells of cold doesn't usually affect wintering birds behavior, unless that cold brings snow or ice, which is what are recent weather has done. It's the phase shift that gets you. I paddle up to the mouth of Calf Pen Creek and discover that I can enter it at this almost high ...
