It has been raining around here quite a bit, as it is wont to do during the Ozarks spring. While this has made planting a big challenge, I mananged to get my carrot seeds in the ground and now I have a whole bunch of seedlings. This proves once again, as stated in the old children’s song, that “carrots grow from carrot seeds.” The onion seedlings that I ordered arrived in the mail on Saturday morning. In spite of the fact that the ground was only marginally workable, I got sand and manure into their bed and had them planted by that evening.
It was necessary to be in such a rush because the weather guessers were opining that Sunday was going to be a rather splendid day and Jeri and I were bent on floating if they were right. After all, it has been quite some time since the Beethoven’s Birthday float that was so wonderful, and I could hear my canoe making up statements like “If the kevlar in my body doesn’t get wet I’ll crack” and other such guilt trips.
It turned out that the WG’s were right for once, and so we took off at 10:30 a.m. Sunday morning and proceeded to float from Steelman’s down to Jay and Jeri’s place, about eight river miles. I hadn’t been on the river more than two minutes before Earl, the river god, played his April Fool’s joke on me, and dumped my canoe. I didn’t just flip a little, I turned over all the way and a miracle occurred: my camera in it’s ziploc bag floated up under the thwart of the canoe and stayed there until rescued. Not a drop got in the bag, which just proves how fortunate it was that I decided to put it into a brand new bag! Maybe I ought to get a real dry bag or camera box, eh? All I lost was one cold pack, which was stuffed with clay and glycerin rather than water, so it did not float. I’m sure it will eventually make it to Tunnel Dam one of these weeks.
I put on a dry shirt, and we continued on our merry way. The water was very high, and there were a lot of trees that fell over during the ice storm to make our way challenging. Usually we could go around or under, but a couple of times we had to portage. At one place, a large sycamore and an oak tree both succumbed to the ice storm, and there was a truly impressive log jam:
We were able to get around this obstacle fairly easily, since there was a side stream that was coming in right at the point where these trees fell. There was just enough water to float the boats a little bit.
During the course of the day, I actually got close enough to a red eared slider to get his portrait:
Usually these guys are very wary, and drop off their log into the water long before you get even close. They don’t approve of non-herpetological company, I guess. Further along, we came across a little blue heron who was so busy fishing he didn’t care how close I got:
He was probably looking for minnows, or tasty tidbits like this Blanchard’s cricket frog:
For many years, on a long gravel bar about a mile upriver from Jay and Jeri’s place there was a great blue heron rookery. It was quite extensive, and usually hosted dozens of pairs of birds. About 8 years ago, right in the middle of nesting season, tragedy struck. A tornado ripped through the rookery about two weeks before the chicks were old enough to fly. After the storm, there were dead birds everywhere because the adults did not leave their young. To make matters worse, the largest sycamores of the grove were torn up by the roots and flung around. The following few years there were no nesting herons at that site, mostly because there were no suitable trees left. We did identify a substitute rookery on a slough about 3 miles down the river where there were several pairs of herons.
We have been watching the original rookery site as the younger sycamores have grown up, hoping that eventually they would repopulate it. Last year, there were about 3 pairs nesting there.
The highlight of our day Sunday was to come around the corner and see this:
The nests are built, and the “boys” are guarding them, but no one is actually sitting yet. Our presence on the river below did not seem to concern them, as they went about their business. I used up the batteries on my camera trying to get a good shot of one coming in to roost.
There are three trees being utilized right now, I counted 15 nests. Looks like the rookery is back in business.
It was a good day. My shoulders and knees are sore, but this shall pass. And that’s the news from around here.
the havens 