I Forgot My Fishing Pole

Yesterday, I needed to get out to Cedar Key as a favor to Junior. It was a holiday for the schools, but not for kids who are dual-enrolled in college. So while most of his friends (and his Daddy) were off, he was sitting in his college classes.
The favor involved getting under the bridge out at Cedar Key and setting up a sample site for his science fair project.
This is one of several project ideas he has proposed that have ranged from setting up a huge maze in the yard and testing Bear's ability to learn, to a very dubious project involving the Wii game Rockband.


In the meantime, as these other ideas (I kinda liked the doggie maze one, but the logistics!) were simmering, I suggested a little study of epifauna colonization out at Cedar Key.
Yesterday was ideal for getting under the bridge, but since he was obligated elsewhere, I agreed to go out and clear a test site for this possible project.

So it was that I found myself scraping barnacles off a few test sites in the shade of the bridge. I took along a paint scraper and clearcut a few sampling sites at different depths.
That took all of 15 minutes so I was able to cruise around as an incoming tide pulsed life back into an empty ebbtide marsh.
I had planned to bring a rod and reel and fish a little, but absent mindedly left it hanging back at the house.
Note to self: write trip list note so you don't forget stuff.



It was a beautiful day, even though the breeze was a little brisk in the open water areas. The sun was pretty intense so you could be alternately warm or chilly depending on the wind. Most of my travel time was spent in sheltered creeks and flats with only a few inches of water. The incoming tide brought with it schools of mullet that swirled in the shallows as they fled from the scary kayak.


The pterodcactyls were out as usual. Most were hunkered down against the chilly breeze, bills tucked under wings, but not this guy.
Is that sky blue enough for ya? I did not enhance it on the 'puter.

I only spent a few hours poking around, but wowsers was it ever nice to get out there, after all the wedding work and a rainy weekend that prevented this kind of fun.

In fact, Sunday was so wet and grey that I actually cleaned out my bedroom closet.

I guess kayaking was my reward for taking on the closet badlands.

It was bad ... I found things I forgot I owned.

The few feet of floor space between the closet door and the clothing rack along the back wall had long ago vanished in a pile of ... stuff, which kept growing.

Instead of cleaning it when I should have, I adapted to it ...

I actually became pretty adept at grabbing the closet door trim, leaning in over the junk on the floor, and grabbing a shirt or pair of pants off the hanger rack along the back wall.

You can actually walk into it now ... who knew?