This has been a dark and damp December, mostly. Small events have taken on new importance and excitement as we wearily go through this pandemic routine. This blog post illustrates that fact with pictures of flowing water, dead fish, and lost dogs. Can't wait for the vaccine!
On December 2nd, Gail ran up to the house saying there was a big fish dying in the river. It was getting dark so the cell phone picture is not clear. You can see its white tail and then to the right, its body stretches all the way to the white stem in the foreground - you can barely make out its head. It was a salmon, close to 3 feet long that apparently had spawned and was dying like they do afterwards.
On December 18th, while 2 miles up our local forest service road (the 5300), we encountered these two dogs without collars. There was no one around, and the smaller one ran ahead of us all the way back to our house. The Pyrenees disappeared. We spent the next 4 hours calling neighbors, posting a found notice on Craig's List, and then driving to various homes in the area. A man named Dave, who recognized Dahlia, led us to the owner, probably about 3 miles from our house. The Pyrenees, Fluffy, was there waiting for us. We met some interesting new neighbors in the process, and hope to see a couple of them again in better times.
We have had a warm fall, and consequently a long chanterelle season. We were surprised to find these on the 19th on Full Moon Trail (our name), right across the road from us.
This has been a rainy month, and the night of December 19th rained 5.2 inches. This is the river the next morning, about as high as we've ever seen it here. It has rained 100.1 inches since January 1st (40.8 inches since September 1st).
The height of the river makes our waterfall look shorter!
The river in motion.
The summer swimming hole not looking very enticing.
On her early morning walk with Daisy, Gail spotted the tail of a large fish protruding from the silt in shallow water. We found two salmon lodged in some underwater sticks and partially buried by the silt stirred up by the high river flow the past two days. I measured this salmon at 35 inches! The smaller one was more decomposed.
Spawning salmon go through some extreme changes to their mouths and bodies. I would not want to be bitten by this fish when it was alive!
The smaller salmon looks like a different species or maybe it wasn't spawning. I don't know.
We've learned on several occasions this year that salmon and steelhead definitely inhabit our river.
