Just as I start the USDA drives up to check on some of their work, neither of us expecting each other. I join them and tour the gravel area where the creek comes out of the hills. As I figured, their intent is to have a section of braided stream there, although that braiding will probably be completed this winter. I return to the shop while they head up to the north fields to check on some recent work.
I have the copper sheet necessary to finish my specimen boxes and I spend several hours snipping, folding and hammering text into the copper, then fitting it to the boxes.
When the time comes, I head out into the cottonwoods, finding SK's braided grass surprisingly close, if one does not use the road. I head to the upstream end of lower beach, which takes me to the pear trees and three maples that we found interesting on my last trip. They are near the first homestead cabin on the land, which has long disappeared. I sure would like to core these trees to get an age on them....if I had a coring tool.
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| art critic |
The river is up a bit more, which shrinks the shallow cobble beach more than one would expect. There are a great many more dead salmon, some near the water's edge, some on a line that suggests a slightly higher river level than today, and many back up against the forest where, I suppose, raccoons have dragged them. There are hundreds of seagull tracks, many crow prints, and I pour a cast for great blue heron track... a 6 inch long print, as long as an eagle, but thinner and with the hind toe offset to one side. It takes almost all of my plaster.
I return to the shops to work for a hour or two. Then, when it is time for dinner, I swing out to the beach and retrieve the heron track before going up to the bunkhouse.
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