Walking the Beach #85 (Jan 08)

It’s freezing but warmer than yesterday mainly because the air is almost still so we face very little wind chill. We had about an inch of snow a few days ago. Temperatures are staying low and reaching the high 20’s some nights, but warm enough so hardly any snow remains. The day before the snow we had periods of rain and sleet with dry periods as we walked. Snow came late the next day, so we avoided a walk that weather.

The cold hasn’t prevented watermen from harvesting oysters. Today the usual eight tongers are mid river and the small dredger manned by two guys is close to shore near the turnaround point. One day eighteen mid-river tongers appeared, the maximum so far.

Izzy is wearing a fleece-lined jacket that hampers movement some and he may not like, but on sunless days, like today, he needs it. Sometimes it prevents his passage through beached brush and fallen tree tops and once pulled it right off as he passed through. Today I carry him over a couple spots but on the way back remove the coat so he can make his own way. A short ways later, though, he started shivering proving the coat’s value, and it went back on.

Water weeping out of the bank has formed groups of icicles one to two feet long at a half dozen places. The cold also makes nuggets and baseball-sized clumps of soil – mostly clay – break loose leaving a sprinkling along the base. A few pieces roll several feet towards the river leaving individual tracks in softer sand.

A single black rubber glove with yellow cuff that washed up a couple weeks ago may have a mate. It may just be moving up and down the beach or a pair that haven’t been visible on the same day, so I have to watch closer to see if there’s a right and a left or just the one each time one appears. Such challenges are found on the beach!

Sand covered the small upside-down bathtub that became visible near the beginning of our walk so for about a year there have only been a few days that it was visible. Sand has also smoothed over most rubble and debris, the clumps of broken limestone, blocks of clay, concrete and shells. Some of the excelsior material that must be a form of water weed seems to float to the top of the sand, but fallen leaves and even most of the persistent tulip tree seeds are now gone. Leaves from cypress trees lasted the longest and migrated only about fifty yards downstream, but are now mostly gone.

We had a few days of high-high tides with some wind awhile back that deposited a wheel with tire amongst tree branches and trunk we crawl under just before the promontory. All the other discarded tires we see lack that center part. This one looks to be from a tractor or commercial truck.

Bird life is erratic in this weather. Small birds, the sparrow, wrens and finches, are around in small numbers in the brush at the top of the bank, but herons and eagles are rare sights. On the other hand the pelican that landed near the small dredger a few days ago was unusual, and every few days a flock of twenty to 100 canada geese appear on the water. This morning an unusual sight was a group of eight small water birds near the shore that dived as a group. The cloud cover and low sun reduced the light level so the birds appear to be black. They weren’t unusual except that after seeing them and then finding them suddenly gone when you looked made made you wonder where they went until they suddenly popped back up.

Walking the Beach #78 (Nov 07)

It’s cool this morning and windy, windy enough to whip your pants legs, tumble leaves along the beach, make you keep your hands in your pockets and lean slightly into it on the way back. So going down was easier, but you know it’s going to be worse the other way; we jogged part of the way back just to get it over with. So it’s long sleeved shirt, jacket and knit cap weather.

The wind is blowing parallel to the beach, but the waves are rolling straight in. It’s like the wind changes direction, 90 degrees, as soon as it hits land.

The waves are dirty from churned mud they stir up as they come ashore. The wind has cleared the air, pretty much, and only a few light clouds are up there. Despite the noisy wind and waves you can still hear a boat motor coming over the water.

The leaves make tracks along the sand. It looks like many tiny animals with different types paws have scampered about.

The tide is out and just before the new #2 fancy pier (versus the #1 fancy pier of long standing) it has uncovered the bottom of a small cast iron bathtub. It’s covered with heavy rust and the four feet are just rusty nubs. It’s only about three feet long, which seems a little short for a bathtub and is buried near the remains of a set of steel steps, the type used in factories or on big ships. Both could have been thrown over the bank, been thrown off a ship or been washed out during a hurricane.   Just the very bottom is visible.

The #2 fancy pier has two boat lifts as does the #1, but only one has a roof.  Both of the #1 lifts have roofs.

Some pier owners have brought in their boats for winter storage. The #1 pier still has one lift occupied. (The lifts are made of two broad slings that can be lowered under the water so the boat can glide into them.) This pier owner also has a freestanding platform nearby in the sand. It’s about ten feet square and mounted on pilings similar to the pier with a set of steps to the platform that’s five feet high. A small flat-bottomed boat with a 2.5hp motor is hoisted by hand under the platform in a homemade trailer made of plastic pipe with two big plastic wheels. The wheels leave crenalated tracks in the sand, tracks with square notches running up each side.

The robin was gone from yesterday’s safe place, but Daisy was with us and just past that point startled one, probably the same, from nearby kudzu. Like yesterday, it flew for the water, but this time it went straight out where a fallen tree trunk was partly submerged. It almost made the tree then went into the water and was gone! Daisy followed it and couldn’t find a trace, but kept looking. This was about a quarter mile from the turnaround point and the dog was still searching around the tree when Izzy and I returned about ten minutes later. I kept looking back to see if she found anything, but nothing happened.

A small flock of Canada Geese, about twenty-five, flew up in tight formation a few hundred yards downstream from the turnaround. They were probably startled by someone because they settled right back into the water.

The dead muskrat, or rat, is face up, now, and you can see its teeth, two long ones up and two down, both in the middle like a rabbit.  It’s pretty furry, too. The paws don’t look webbed, if that’s what muskrats have.

Walking the Beach #77 (Nov 07)

 

 

Fall leaves are leaving a thin layer along the beach and more are slowly being added with the gentle breeze this morning. It’s cloudy, but several commercial jets and one fighter appear beneath this during our walk.

A new dog often goes with us. She is Daisy, a very young, mostly black lab, mixed with something else and very energetic. Izzy is a tenth her size and goes on the attack when she wants to play, which is often. He has little choice, she is so heavy handed/footed and young-clumsy. She was a stray without a home who turned up a couple months back and a neighbor took pity. This morning she flushed a Robin from the kudzu and captured it at the waterline. It must have been injured or sick for this to happen. While it was rescued and left in a safe place, tomorrow we’ll see if it survived.

The description of medium-sized oyster boats with the V type hoist was a little off on looking at the only one out this morning. The hoist is closer to the bow than the stern.

The river water is much clearer nowadays. This is due to the shortfall of rain. Normal rainfall washes topsoil from farm fields and it clouds the river; helps form the mud flats, too. Less rain means less soil in the water.

A dead rodent on the beach is a first. It might be a rat or a small muskrat. They look very similar and even googling each hasn’t helped, so far.

It’s warmer today; back to shirt sleeve weather for the moment. Three Canada Geese fly northward overhead, less because of the weather than nearby forage.

Jellyfish have been in the news lately, but not here. A few small ones have washed ashore, a couple inches across and lacking any visible tentacles. The news has been that huge numbers of very large jellyfish are appearing around the world and the most toxic forms have spread from Australia to other continents.