I Turn To Stone

September 27.  Looks every bit the part.

This big guy stands statue-still, a classic animal defense.  'hmm...maybe she'll think I'm made of marble and will just keep gliding by'

'Whoa!  Too close for comfort.'   Statue flies off. 

Lands just downstream.  Turns to stone again. 

Autumnal Switch

Cools off quickly now towards evening, which comes increasingly earlier. Leaves are responding in color. It's quieter too.

9-24-12 Presumpscot River late day, early autumn

 No one else was around. One seagull flew overhead. Felt muted. Shot a late afternoon pic using 'sepia' color setting.

Presumpscot In Sepia

Presumpscot In Cyan

Spider Web Signs, Canoeing Couples, & Muffled Crickets

Friday night had non-kayak plans   (hey! it happens ;^)  
Saturday night the weather was not river-able.
Tonight...it's a go! When little spider webs glisten in afternoon sun, that's a sign (on a sign)

At the portage a man and his son are fishing. I love seeing a parent and child drop a line.

Lately a young man has been fishing in an old canoe near the portage site. The first time I seen him he was taking his young black labrador out for the first time.  The dog was hyper-alert and stable, setting out.
The next time I seen the man I asked how the dog did.
"Great."
Tonight a young woman was in the canoe with him. They wave as I pass by.
I ask the quintessential two-word fishing question: "Any luck?"
He shakes his head.
"ah!," I say, "You're bad luck is the fishes good luck."
She laughs.
"Enjoy your evening," she well-wishes me.
"You folks too."

 It's really quiet tonight. The crickets are cricking, but it is a muted sound, as though the cooling autumn air muffles their excitement and they are just cricking for the sake of cricking.  No birds are singing.  Everything, it seems, is quieting down. 

Clear Skied Sunset on the Presumpscot

YellowJackets, Minks and Water Birds

9-20-12

When I loaded the kayak (which is stored in the yard outside my apartment in Westbrook) into the car after a long work day - there was a dragonfly on it.  'that's whimsically weird' I think, as I load it into my Honda Civic hatchback. (weird because I usually encounter loads of them at the river, not on the kayak while it's stored)  What are the odds? but, odds are odd, so I don't question it.


On the river I spot something winged struggling in the water. A dragonfly? A closer look, and I see it's a yellowjacket.  I pass by.

Then pause.  hmmm.  if it was  dragonfly, or a damselfly, you'd intervene and scoop it out. 
What makes you think it's okay to rescue one species and let another drowned?  

I turn around. Extend the paddle. It climbs aboard the rescue clip.

It spends the next several intervals walking around the kayak. I say intervals, because at times I lose sight of it and forget it's on board.

When it drops into the kayak I use my notebook to entice it back out.  His little wing may be injured, but his sting is not. I don't want to be the recipient of his defenses. But I owed him.

Spelling Bee (Yellowjacket)

This week, a yellowjacket community that had been building a nest in the vinyl siding outside my apartment door became a problem.  Another tenant sprayed the nest with canned poison, and that caused them to look for an alternate out. Both he and I had an influx of yellowjackets. Mine came in via a pipe that extends through the ceiling into the 'living' room.  A dozen yellowjackets buzzed at the two windows, trying to find 'out.'
I captured most of them in a jar and freed them outside. I vacuumed one, which I then regretted. It was the guilt of thinking of him whirring around inside the HEPA filtered bag.  Poor thing!

Came upon this contented bird floating...floating....floating

Another View of WaterBird

YELLOWJACKET UPDATE:  His wing was damaged, and I figured that had rendered him unable to fly.  But eventually he was recovered enough, and he rose up and flew off into the woods.


(9/23/12 A few days have passed. This morning the other tenant said he's been stung 4 times by pissed off yellowjackets.  They've left me alone.  Who knows.  Maybe there's a karmic justice at work.)


I saw a MINK today! I heard a slight sound from the riverbank where I was floating quietly. Then, what I at first thought was a black cat, but which moved with much more fluidity and un-selfconsciousness, turned out to be what I deduce was a mink. So damn cute!  It paused briefly in its travels, then moved to an opening under a tree root.  I had grabbed my camera and in my excitement I pressed the off button instead of the picture button.  Dummy.  I didn't get its picture. Here's a mink pic taken from a news website (the mink I spotted looked very similar)

Wiki says: Semi-aquatic, carnivorous, from the family Mustelidae, which also includes the weasels and the otters and ferrets.

The sunset is stunning, as always

 Another stunning perspective

The trees, being hummed a cloud lullaby,  listen in stillness and reflection 

I listen too. Life is good.

Saco Again

9-18-12

Sparkling waters. Azure skies. Crest of clouds. Kindred spirit good friend.  Saco River.
Late summer trees. Time to leisure.

Who could ask for more?   

Green Eyed Lady, Lovely Lady

Found this green-eyed beauty floundering in the water.  Took her out.

 She just rested for awhile, then started flapping her wings to dry them out.

 She stayed on my hand for a long time.

 More resting, drying. Then, when ready, she took off flying.

Wood-Peckers

9-14-12 This woodpecker flew to its hole-home and went in, hiding at first. Not for long though...soon it peeked out at me curiously. Just as curious, I sat in the kayak and watched him. 

 All down the trunk stump holes showed a beak-drilled history of insect excavation and home-making.

 

Beer, Raccoons, and Post-Death Rituals

9-14-12 There's a bench at the portage site, for those preferring to soak up the sun, and apparently, a few brewsky's. Apparently the drinker of these Red Hooks is rather neat, since they left their empties in a tidy row that seemed photo-worthy.   

Paddled upstream and came across this raccoon again, now with fur drying, and belly-up, and still, blending with the environment so you might easily miss him. It's teeth are large!  I wonder how he died. Old age? Disease? Heart failure?  There's no apparent external injuries.

 Just finished reading Life Everlasting, about the undertakers of nature...insects, animals, and bacteria that step in when life leaves a body and which begin the process of consumption and conversion. Whether a tree, a mammal, a person or a plant, things that die are re-purposed and recycled and utilized as food for a range of other living beings. The book raises the issue of what is a natural post-death experience. To box people up and deprive the aforementioned of a cadaver meal is to cheat nature of an extensive source of raw material.  Hey...we eat other things, why shouldn't they eat us when we die?    

It also raises the issue that to be cremated in this modern age is not an environmentally beneficial thing either, since it takes an enormous amount of energy to toast, roast and ash-ify us. Burning bones is not easy. Nature takes care of bones quite efficiently, if left to natural processes.  I want a green burial.  Or better yet, just fling me out into the fields, forests or ocean. Nature will take care of the rest. 

Lotus Flowers & Mushrooms

  It's 9-13-12 and still the occasional lotus flower blossoms

Mushrooms have become prominent mid-September. Am a beginner at mushroom identification, and at that I am only using sketched pictures from a field book. Would never, ever harvest a mushroom. Am just curious about what is what.  Here goes (if anyone will correct me, please do) 

I think this is Oyster mushrooms

I think this is an Oyster mushroom

I think this is Birch Polypore (or what I'd name them- Shrek Ears!)

Mallison Falls Portage

9/7/12  Friday afternoon
"Wanna put in at Mallison Falls, behind the Correction Center? Around noon?"
Dave calls and leaves a voice mail in the morning. I get out of work half day. It's a beautiful, warm, September summer day.

Behind the Correction Center? Isn't a river the usual place escaped convicts go to hide their scent so dogs can't track them?  Men on the run from the law. Isn't that where George and Lennie hid in Of Mice And Men?  

So despite the risk that my kayak might be commandeered by desperate escapees, I tell him, "Yup. I'm in."


This is a picture of the dam/falls taken from the road.  Just over the dam the water current is S T R O N G. The portage site is just around that jutted out area just beyond the white water.

Here is the entry point. A steep embankment, a rocky edge, then the bliss of strong current that sweeps us away.   You don't have to paddle.  Just let yourself float, while enjoying the view.

Brave Dave - apparently stuck on the rocks

Came to this railroad culvert. Looks like a big keyhole.  Paddled in, to a small, quiet, area, sunlit and bird-occupied. 

 Here is where the culvert led to.

Down river, a downed log is the irresistible docking spot for painted turtles. This one was not in any hurry to drop into the cool water; soaking as much warm sun as he could before my stalking presence forced him into the river. 

Further still, this peace-infused spot beckoned the young and young-at-heart to swing and splash into the clear, cool refreshment that is a river in summer. Don't know who decides where to hang a rope-swing, but this seems the quintessential spot to do it. 

Can't seem to get enough river shots.  You could snap the landscape all the way down and never tire of the beauty.  

It took us over two hours to reach our take-out site (which happens to be the Lincoln Street portage that I put in and take out from nearly every time I kayak here after work) so it can take anywhere from 2-3 hours, depending on  the strength of the current and the effort of the paddler. I tend to be the 'let it flow and take me' kind, so it takes longer since I am a quasi-lazy kayaker.  But more athletic types will make it in an hour and a half.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


9-14-12
Got dropped off at Mallison Falls a week later and paddle-strolled downstream.  Wow. 

Snapped this pic of a tree that reminded me the first, and now second time, of a fossilized bird, extending its neck over and upside down (perhaps to better reach a tree'd tidbit?)

Half way down I needed a pee break and landed at this clearing where some cool locals probably gather around a communal fire and tell stories and dance around the fire at night.  The spot was immaculate. 

Fire Pit

Blog Mama

Yet another painted turtle

'I gotta little change in the weather goin' jing-a-ling-a-ling

Sept 6.  You can really feel the change in weather.  Evenings cool down quickly, there's an almost chill in the air. Seen this floating on the river. Looked at first like a log. Closer, an animal.  Not certain what.  Didn't venture too close (too negatively aromatic)

The water is so calm, so mirror'ish, that you can't really tell what is up or down.
 REFLECTION:

1. The throwing back by a body or surface of light, heat, or sound without absorbing it.
2. An amount of light, heat, or sound that is thrown back in such a way.

 MIRROR:
from L. mirari "to wonder at, admire"

                             LOOK CLOSELY - WHICH WAY IS UP?  THIS IS AN UPSIDE DOWN VIEW OF THE VIEW.                                        RIVER ABOVE, SKY BELOW, LANDSCAPE BETWEEN

SIDEWAYS VIEW IS NICE TOO

ACTUAL IMAGE

PINK SKY AT NIGHT, WATCHER'S DELIGHT

Four members of MOAC (maine outdoor adventurer's club) put in at the same time I did. Three were in sea kayaks, the fourth was in a recreational kayak similar to mine.  "Seventeen feet," one answered to my question of how long the sea vessel was.  Wow.  It would have stuck WAAAAY out the back of my hatchback.  (my 10 foot kayak pictured below)
 

I guess if I ever want to pursue sea kayaking I'll have to add a roof rack and take kayak lessons.