Today was very sunny with clear blue skies with a cool breeze; this type of weather is great for kayaking. After work Robin and I put in near Brewer Lake; unfortunately the sky became cloudy and dark- but we still paddled around looking for wildlife. I enjoy paddling through and around aquatic life; the benefit of using a kayak is that it leaves the area undamaged. We paddled underneath the Brewer Lake Road bridge while a lady atop exclaimed that a large Snapping turtle was swimming under us, at our angle we could not see the turtle. I headed towards a section of the stream where I spotted a Great Blue Heron peering over the aquatic plant life motionless on the lookout for fish. To the east of the Heron I saw an adult Osprey perched in its nest waiting for its mate to return with food for their two babies.

As to be expected, we spotted several frogs and even a Painted turtle head, along the way I noticed an American Bittern on the watch for fish, I paddled within 10′ of it and it would not budge. I waited and watched for 10 minutes until I gave up, unfortunately I did not get to photograph it catching its prey like I did in May.

This weekend Robin and I worked on our Wedding Cake toppers, opting against the non-traditional male and female characters we created replicas of the Chips Ahoy! © cookie models. Robin purchased FIMO clay, and formed the cookie bodies, chocolate chips and I helped with the eyes and mouths. Robin purchased a doll wedding veil and bow-tie that attached to the cookies as well, this project took about an hour or so and was something we both enjoyed. The results are very satisfactory and I am looking forward to seeing them propped on our custom wedding cake.

The meaning behind the Chocolate Chip cookies is that when Robin and I first met she delivered a batch of them to me at work. At the time she was working in another department and I spent some time working on computer issues this particular department had- after fixing the problems one of Robin’s co-workers wanted to give me cookies as a “Thank-you”. Things progressed between Robin and I and when I asked her to marry me I had her dig out the ring from a batch of Chocolate Chip cookies.

On Sunday the 20th we drove to Sunkhaze Meadows, a National Wildlife Refuge that hosts 10,000 acres of protected habitat. We have never visited Sunkhaze before decided to just drive to one portion and explore a couple of trails, the first trail we walked along was Oak Grove Trail that crosses Birch stream. This area is very picturesque with small streams twisting and turning through pine and deciduous tree covered hills exposing their roots through erosion and at some points flowing over a bed of small boulders. After we took in the scenery we found another trail that’s totals 1 mile, at the end there’s an observatory platform. Despite covering ourselves in bug spray we were still painfully bit by deer flies as we walked the Moose trodden trail although many of the footprints were fresh we did not spot any Moose or any wildlife. The trail brought us through wetlands and part of the forest and then suddenly the forest ends and immediately the habitat changes from a peat-dominated wetland/forest setting to stream side meadow setting. At the brink of these two habitat changes sits the observatory platform that allows you to look throughout the stream side meadow. Surprisingly we were not able to spot any wildlife most likely due to the heat and humidity as well as the time of day, despite that we still had a good time taking in the sights and scents of the refuge, even our Sigg bottles enjoyed the hike.

The Fourth of July had perfect weather, mid-eighties and clear blue skies. Robin and I were invited to her Uncle’s camp on Beach Hill Pond, I decided to use my new GPS to get us there; unfortunately when we arrived to the destination, we were in the wrong area due to having the wrong address given to us. Not long after we made it to the correct destination.

After eating, we decided to kayak out to a large boulder that people were jumping off from into the water, as we kayaked we came across a family of ducks that Robin wanted to photograph. The lake’s atmosphere was comprised of the typical Fourth of July weekend sightings and sounds, kids screaming, playing, boats and jet skies zooming around, camp fires scattered along the shore, fireworks exploding, etc. The large boulder was bigger than what I had thought it would be, it’s about 200′ feet from the shore and stands 20′ high, someone had built a ladder into the rock allowing for people to easily climb. The boulder was covered (at times 20 kids) with children and adults taking their turns jumping off, some of the kids were counting how many jumps they had. I cohersed Robin into jumping (or should I say skimming) off the boulder a couple of times. Near the end I jumped off with her as well. While kayaking back to the camp a mature Bald Eagle flew over and landed on another boulder, unfortunately it was too far away to get a good clear shot.

Later in the evening we headed back to Bangor to watch the fireworks show on the Penobscott River. We walked to the same place where my mother and I had watched last year except for this time I was told by a young teenage punk that “This is private property” and I just starred at him blankly and said “Ok”, he repeated himself again and said the same thing and then moved about 5-10′ down and parked my tripod there while still being on his private property, I assume he gave up and went back to his buddies. The fireworks show has cut back to 10 minutes verses 20 minutes, I was able to capture a few good shots.

The next day Mom and Jack came over to my apartment to visit with Robin and I on their first day here. After they left we wanted to see a moose and visit with Dad so we packed supper, loaded our kayaks and headed towards Kokadjo for the day. Upon arriving we stopped and talked with Dad for a few minutes and then headed to Second Roach pond. Second Roach probably has a 5-8 mile shoreline- a fairly decent sized pond- and at most the depth is no more than 9 feet with sporadic boulder clusters where ducks and other wildlife sunbath. When we had put in we came across two families of Goldeneye Ducks which were not used to seeing people in their backyard. We also came across a pair of Loons diving for fish, surprisingly they were not too shy and allowed us to photograph them. I wanted to paddle to a boulder on the other side of the pond to see what was over there and both Robin and I found that the view was beautiful. I spotted a small sandy beach and paddled to it, we both landed and found a small cold stream flowing into the pond. I dared Robin to get in neck deep and as she did a young Moose swam across the pond; we quietly put back in paddled by the Moose as she was eating along the rocky shoreline.

The sun was beginning its decent which means you one last chance for diurnal animals to feed; as I looked back towards our initial put in point I saw a Moose feeding in the water. Robin and I paddled towards in on the western side so the sun would be behind us and directly on the moose to allow a clear view of it and clear photographs. As we got closer we could see the young bull’s felt-covered antlers protruding, dripping with pond water. Young bull’s are not afraid of people and allow you to get within 20′ (I highly recommend not getting any closer) especially when they are feeding. This Moose like many others was feeding on pond weeds and roots, the water was neck high (7′) and when he would submerge his head the only visible portion of his body was the fly-covered hump of its back. I love watching this- when his head would surface all of the water would drain off and roots would quickly vanish from its mouth. At one point I got closer than I had realized from the wind moving me closer, I could hear him snort and chew as if wonder what kind of strange creature is watching him. Both Robin and I really enjoyed watching the Moose eat and hope to come back later in the fall and watch the progress of its antler growth.

We spent a few hours sitting around the camp fire talking with family and eating hamburgers.