One of our favorite paddle trips involves paddling down from Jones Pond to Osgood Pond to Church Pond through a series of rivers and smaller ponds and channels...one of the tough things about the trip is that beavers love it also, so they are alway busy (as beavers...duh) damming the route up, which results in its getting clogged up and filling in...
Sometimes, especially when the water is low, the trip can be a real workout...climbing in and out a gazillion times, losing shoes in bottomless muck, dragging boats across shallow stretches, giving blood to angry mobs of insects and leeches, etc...(ask Uncle Steve about his trip along this little piece of heaven)...
Today, we were lucky...the rain of the past days (weeks) along with shockingly lazy beavers made for a delightful trip that bumped this route to the top of our lists for the summer...we saw tons of beasts, very few insects (no leeches...), never had to get out to drag boats, and had a generally superb time...
Muz and D and Maggie-Moo paddled easily through the twisty river stretches, despite their canoe being designed for lake cruising...
We passed under 2 bridges along the route in close formation...
On the way down to Osgood Pond, we saw tons of turtles, kingfishers, fish, a new (to any of us) bird (that I think is a spotted sandpiper), and a juvenile beaver (that didn't know enough to be scared of people, and just moved out of our way rather than diving)...
Right before our traditional stopping spot at the top of Osgood, I spotted and grabbed a tiny painted turtle that was sunning itself in an attempt to throw off the chill from the previous night...he was a cutey, and Ben loved looking at him during our break...when we were ready to take off, I walked him back upstream and let him go near where I found him...
Gail and Ben sang a hearty rowing song while crossing Osgood...we normally face a head-wind, which today was missing, so the going was easy...
After Osgood, we head through a connected series of tiny ponds and dug channels...we passed a group of hikers with backpacks, which you can see crossing the bridge ahead of Gail in the picture above...
We, of course, found a nice spot down near Church Pond to have a great picnic...anyone who doesn't bring a table with them when paddle-picnicking simply doesn't know any better (especially when travelling with starving yellow labradors)...
A great day and a great trip, and on the way home Gail and I picked up our (2) copies of the 7th Harry Potter book, and our comparing notes at the end of each chapter (as we have done through the last 5 releases)...she's ahead after this blog-entry, but I'll catch up soon...
1 comment:
great pics. you guys are having tooo much fun! send jim, jill and maggie back, please!
Post a Comment