Outdoor Adventures with Gary Lee - Vol. 320
The weather has been an up and down roller coaster for a week now, hot for a while then rain enough so I didn’t have to water the flowers or garden and cool nights for sleeping. I had a house full over the weekend with grandchildren and great grandchildren. It was fun and entertaining, lots of laughs, some crying, but all went well.
Some went kayaking, some went hiking, and had lots of food and drinks enough to go around. Campfires each night that I missed as I was too tired and went to bed after all that excitement and Loon watching during the daytime. Some new chicks hatching from second nests after losing their first nest and others just getting chicks from their first nest. I still have one pair sitting which should come off in the next couple of days. I’ve had them hatch as late as August 15th and still make it out before ice covered their lake. With global warming the lakes are freezing way later than they did just a few years ago.
One hike the grandchildren and great grandchildren one and three went up Rocky Mountain and met the crowds coming up as they came down. It has been great weather for hiking and getting out on the water kayaking and also in the water swimming which is about air temperature. Over at Seventh Lake Beach, little great granddaughter Milly who is three, got hit by a boat wave which swept her over and then the next one gave her a mouth full of water. Then there were a few tears after that, but they got her back in. Zenon who was just one loved the sand, what’s more fun than a big sand pile to play in and it washes right off.
I did mention food which there was plenty of and one night. Chris, see there are two Chris’s one with a C and one with a K, made pizza in a pizza oven fueled by wood out in the driveway and it was pretty darn good. Great granddaughter Milly helped granddaughter Rachel put the pizza’s together inside before they went out to the oven which she thought was lots of fun.
Zenon, who I said was just one, has gotten his sea legs and he can motor around pretty fast and go up stairs even faster. There were barriers put up to keep those little ones contained so there were no accidents and there was a small dog in the mix who did a lot more watching from the sidelines at his age than joining in the fun.
On Saturday it was Loon Census Day, and I visited many of the lakes back in the Moose River Area. The lakes are watched between 8am and 9am that morning so there is no overlap of counting Loons twice to get an accurate count. It was a little foggy that morning, actually at the house we couldn’t see the mountain right out front. That could have been a problem as I flew with Tom Payne of Payne’s Air Service so I can get to all my lakes in the hour-long time period. I took my two Granddaughters who had never been in a seaplane before on the count that day. It was a little foggy around Seventh Lake but clearer than at the house. Tom said let's go and warm up the plane and the fog may get better during that time which it did. We left Seventh Lake a little before eight and landed on Little Indian a little after eight taxied around the lake and saw one Loon fishing in the middle of the lake, no chicks. We took off there, flew over a dead calm Muskrat Pond which had no Loons on it and circled into Muskrat Lake from the east. We saw a pair of Loons fishing out in the middle and a few Common Mergansers along the shoreline. We took off from there and went just over the ridge and landed on Beaver Lake. We saw a Loon right away and looked further ahead and there was an adult and two small chicks. Tom saw some Mallard ducks as we were landing. Tom made a power turn getting out of Beaver Lake and we flew over the South Branch of the Moose River to get a look at Mitchell Ponds which were dead calm, and I saw no Loons there. It was now just two minutes to nine, so we got them all in the hour of watching. The granddaughters said that it was fun as they were taking pictures along the way during a little over an hour flight.
Give all wildlife a break and give them some space, but that’s another story. See ya.
Photo Above: Milly on Rocky Mt.
