Archive for the ‘Nature’ Category

I was reading about a young man, that I remember as Dave, who was catfishing along a local slough. Dave was sitting on the bank having some pretty good luck and catching a lot a fish. As he was pulling them out, he was laying them beside himself on the shore.
It was very quiet and calm as he sat there enjoying the cool of the morning. And then at some point, Dave heard some rustling noise behind him; he turned around to look but there was just a wall of tules. He returned to fishing, and then he heard it again. ” What in the world…!” Again he looked around; there was nothing there.
He continued fishing; and as the morning sun began to warm him up, he began to become a little drowsy. And then, all of a sudden, a loud ” squawking” noise startled him from his half-sleep; he  turned to see this huge Great Blue heron making a get-away with the largest of the catfish!
My experience was a little more mundane as I captured this photo.

Not very nervous.

I saw the Gray fox again, probably the same one; it was a nearby location and he was about the same size. Not being as skittish as last time; he seemed more curious than afraid. As he wandered off into the tall grass another one appeared and followed behind him. I’m guessing that they are siblings and about a year old.

In many areas the banks of the Sacramento River are densely covered with a variety of foliage; at places there are huge Sycamores encumbered with wild grapevines.  I looked over  at the dense cover on the other bank;  the air was still and the surface of the water was calm, and except for the occasional squawking of magpies it was silent. As I sat there gazing out across the water as it slowly moved by, I pictured a summer,long ago, working for my grandfather. I was about twelve at the time, and each morning we would drive Twenty miles up the valley to where he farmed along the river. I did some irrigating and hoeing, but mostly I just hung around and explored the river.

At my favorite spot there was a small wooden raft tethered to the shore. I would sit on it and look at the birds and watch the occasional fish jump. At some point I would hear a horn somewhere downriver, and I would become alert with expectation. There was a bend some two hundred feet downstream from me;  so I couldn’t see what was coming,  but soon there would be a large wave pushing around the bend. And then there it was, this huge barge plowing through the river being pushed by a tugboat. It was all very exciting! The calm and the silence were completely disturbed. And then came the wake of the tug upending the raft, and I had to hold on for dear life!  Soon it would  be over, and the powerful calm of the river would be in charge again.